With some time to kill while in the area (pre-COVID) I ventured into Holy Trinity Church which was designated as the Cathedral of the Arts and Crafts Movement by Sir John Betjeman. The message of the movement (members included William Morris and Edward Burne-Jones) was to revere nature through crafts, painting and architecture as demonstrated by the church which was designed by John Dando Sedding in 1888.
Glasgow Cathedral is the oldest cathedral on mainland Scotland, the present building being consecrated in 1197. It’s a large impressive stone building with very high ceilings next to the Necropolis.
St Mary Abbots Church on Kensington High Street was built in 1872 and designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott (architect of the Midland Grand Hotel at St Pancras and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office among many others), though church buildings had been on the site before then.
I wandered into Christ Church, Spitalfields mostly to shelter from a sudden downpour. Built between 1714 and and 1719 it was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor who worked alongside Christopher Wren. It was one of the first “commissioners’ churches” which had been established by Act of Parliament in 1711 to build fifty new churches for London’s expanding population.
St Lawrence Jewry is another church I visited as part of Open House London. It’s the official church of the City of London Corporation. There’s been a church here from 1136 though the current building is at least the third one on the site. It’s name comes from its historical location next to where a Jewish community lived and is next to the Guildhall building (to feature in a later post).
I hadn’t heard of St Vedast-alias-Foster before I noticed it was forming part of Open House London last year. It’s dedicated to a French saint who was Bishop of Arras around the 6th century.
A church has probably been on the site of St Mary-le-Bow since Saxon times but the present building was one of the first churches to be rebuilt after the Great Fire of London by Christopher Wren. According to tradition you have to have been born within the sound of the bells of Mary-le-Bow to be considered a true Cockney.
St Stephen Walbrook is another church I visited whilst down in London for Open House last year. It’s the third church building on the site, the first was founded in Saxon times, the second was destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the third was designed by Christopher Wren in 1672.
I visited St Mary Aldermary as part of Open House London though it’s been on my to do list for a while. There’s probably been a church on this site for over 900 years with the name Aldermary meaning “older Mary”, suggesting it was the first local church dedicated to Mary and therefore the oldest such church in the City. The Great Fire in 1666 destroyed the original church, so its current building was given a more Gothic rebuild by Christopher Wren.
I’d seen some pictures of All Saints Margaret online and decided that it was somewhere that I wanted to see for myself. In fact this Victorian church, tucked away down a side street not far from Oxford Circus was even more breathtaking than I’d imagined.
