Known locally as the ‘iron church’ or tin church’, this church was built in the parish of Whitbourne, Herefordshire, in 1891, at a cost of £70. It was purchased from the catalogue of ‘JC Humphries’, a London iron merchant and manufacturer. Such kit-form buildings were common in the 19th century as increases in the population, colonial expansion and mass emigration created a need for ‘flat-pack’ buildings- corrugated iron buildings met this need. The inexpensive kit churches, chapels and mission halls were built in newly established industrial areas, such as pit villages, and isolated rural and coastal locations to promote Christianity and combat non-conformism. They were also shipped to the colonies of the British Empire.
