St. John the Evangelist Coulsdon Parish Church - Old Coulsdon, Surrey

Welcome to the Virtual Tour

Welcome to the virtual tour of the Parish Church of St. John the Evangelist, Coulsdon. On this page go to a map of the exterior or interior and click on an arrow to enter the tour at one of the main views. Alternatively go to the text tour, read through and click to enter at any view you find interesting.

In the tour each page contains an image and a description. In the borders of most images are icons. Click to turn or move forward. Click to open a new window with a key to the icons etc. Click to return to here from where you can return to the main site.

Where there is no line of sight between points of interest they may be linked by small, low resolution views. Alternatively a green door symbol may allow a direct jump from one to another.

If a page is too large for your screen, click on the page title to scroll it to the top.

Map of Exterior

Map of Interior

Approach the entrance from Canons Hill. Walk up the main path towards the Church. Midway, step off to the left to get a view of the Church ahead of you. On the right there is a view of the Garden of Remembrance. At the main door you may enter the porch or turn right and follow the path along side the west wall of the new church. From the side path continue into the southern part of the churchyard (mind your feet if it has been raining) then turn back to the entrance to the Garden of Remembrance.

Enter the Garden of Remembrance and follow the path to left or right and pause a while on one of the seats. To the right you can find the Memorial Stone. To the left go back behind the seat near the bend for a view of the Church from the South West. Continue round the bend of the path and visit the Children's Memorial at the end. From the Garden you may cross back to the main path and turn right for the main entrance to the building.

The new porch leads to the old porch. Above is the bell chamber and its door is on your left. Pass through into the old nave and view the old Church ahead of you, turn left into the Church Lounge to view the Rowed and other memorials.

From the nave you may turn right into the new church or advance in to the old church chancel. Only the front part of the old Church now normally has seating. From the chancel you may view stained glass windows of the Evangelists to left and right. Advance in to the sanctuary, the part of the chancel inside the altar rail, for a closer look at the altarpiece or the piscine and sedilia.

If you turn right in the nave of the old Church, you pass the folding screen used to divide the old and new Churches and see ahead of you the altar of the new church. Before you advance, detour left for various items in the north east corner including the Book of Remembrance.

As you approach the altar, notice the quilts on the walls to either side. Near the altar, look up at the baldachino, then turn back for the organ loft.

Return to the back of the church. To the left are the stairs (Please do not try to climb them.) behind which is the Shepherd window. In the far left corner is an interior door behind which is the Angel Window and an exterior door. Go through this door, turn left (South) and follow the path along the West side of the new Church to the Garden of Remembrance. (You reach this path also if you turn right outside the porch or left as you leave it.)

From the Garden you may cross to the main path and turn left towards the gate and the end of what we hope has been an enjoyable visit.

But this has been just an introduction to the tour, enabling you to sample all parts. The old tour was a series of pages the visitor could work through from beginning to end; this has deliberately been constructed to encourage you to branch off and explore. Interesting snippets may be found in odd corners, perhaps only when approaching from a particular direction. In particular, from some points in the tour you may open extra pages including panoramas in the south graveyard (159 kB) and the new church (222 kB). An extra page has no navigation and is in addition to that from which it was opened.

This page was last updated on 12/3/11.