Emmanuel Churchyard

Emmanuel Church Forest Gate was originally conceived as a chapel of ease before becoming a parish church in its own right. The parish was taken from land in the parishes of West Ham and East Ham, these two parishes paying £50 each towards the establishment of Emmanuel Church, and they alternated in having the right to nominate its vicar until 1962. The conflict between low and high church traditions that affected Emmanuel Church as time wore on undoubtedly emanated from West Ham's low church tradition and East Ham's high church tradition. Emmanuel Church was consecrated on 22 May 1852, and occupies a corner position on the busy junction of Romford Road and Upton Lane. The OS First Edition 25 ins Map (London XXI), surveyed c.1863 shortly after the church was built shows the well-planted churchyard and paths laid out, with residential housing beginning to be built in the neighbourhood, although to the north of Romford Road the land remained open.

The church was built to serve the growing suburb of Upton, following the coming of the railway to Forest Gate in 1840.  Designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott in early English decorative style, it was built  to accommodate a congregation of 500, at a cost of £4,235, largely paid for by Rev Tuile Cornthwaite of Walthamstow, with only £150 provided by the CoE Commissioners.  it was described by Nikolaus Pevsner as 'a country church come to town'. It originally had patterned tiles and a timber steeple with a tiled base. By the 1880s building covered the surrounding area, and the church was extended in 1886 to provide for the growing congregation, increasing its capacity to 800. Apparently further expansion was objected to by local people as this would disturb the graves in the churchyard.  In 1929 electricity was installed in the church, but in the mid-1930s the congregation declined. During WWII the church suffered bomb damage to the roof, windows and the striped tiles on the spire were lost. As congregations dwindled the parish was united with that of St Peter Upton Cross in 1962 and the latter church was demolished in 1972. As the congregation again declined, 1980 saw the interior of Emmanuel Church altered to accommodate different church uses, making the Emmanuel Institute built across Romford Road redundant. Built in 1882 and used as a Sunday school and for church events, the Institute was sold in 1982 to Wag Bennett, whose gym, Muscle Mansion, became a local landmark. Bennett was famous in the body-building community and helped launch the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, after spotting him when judging the Mr Universe competition in 1966. After Bennett's death in 2008, the building was sold and became the Destiny Apostolic Church International until a devastating fire in April 2013.

The churchyard, which was re-landscaped in 1991, is surrounded by plain cast iron railings but a photograph of 1905 shows it once surrounded by wooden palings. Tombs are set among grass with some mature trees including lime and sycamore, with paths running through the cemetery, which contains some tombs of historic interest, including an obelisk and a broken column.