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Stranded by Kings

St Mary-le-Strand, London WC2

St Mary-le-Strand, south side and western end. Mid nineteenth century
Exterior view of Somerset House and Church of St Mary le Strand: 1818. Watercolour by Thomas Hosmer Shepherd) (Museum of London)
St Mary-le-Strand, south side and eastern end, c.2015
St Mary-le-Strand, west front, c.1896

As far as I can remember, until last week  I had not previously stepped inside the London church of St Mary-le-Strand (1714–23), stranded rather splendidly in the middle of the Strand opposite Kings College (University of London) in a sea of traffic.

The site was formerly occupied by a giant maypole, reputedly the largest in England, and part of the original plan for the church was for this maypole to be replaced by a 250-feet-high column topped of by a statue of Queen Anne (1665–1714), but the queen died just as the church foundations were being laid and the stone for the column was used instead to add a steeple (1717) at the west end.

The Strand maypole, seventeenth-century engraving.
The Strand maypole, a nineteenth-century re-imagining.

St Mary-le-Strand was the first of the fifty new churches built in London under the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, at a cost of some £16,000. It was the first major building project completed by the Catholic Tory architect James Gibbs (1682–1754) upon his return home to England after studying architecture in Rome, and it reflects the influence of Italian Baroque models; the interior is quite splendid.

It is said that in this church the so-called ‘Young Pretender’ Charles Edward Stuart (1720–88) abjured Catholicism to pronounce his loyalty to the Church of England during a clandestine visit to London in 1750, hoping to accede to the British throne.

St Mary-le Strand, nave ceiling, c.2015
St Mary-le-Strand, ground plan
St Mary-le-Strand, west gallery, c.2015
St Mary-le-Strand, chancel, c.2015

An organ never seems to have been part of the original design so far as I can tell. The first known organ dates from 1790. The organologist Henry Leffler (1761–1819) described it as “Not a very good organ being part new & part old”.

The 1790 organ was built by William Warrell, a little-known music-seller and organ-builder whose business was in Bridge Street, Lambeth. The subsequent fate of the Warrell organ is not clear, but by 1863 there was another organ in the building, made by the firm of Hunter & Webb. It too is no longer present.

Warrell’s organ of 1790 was a so-called ‘annuity organ’ i.e. installed at the builder’s expense, the cost repaid to him by the parish by a fixed annuity. Such ‘annuity organ’ schemes are rare but not unheard of at this time, indeed Warrell was involved in another such scheme at St Olave, Jewry in 1814. These schemes often entailed appointing the organ builder as the organist, and this was the case with Warrell both at St Mary-le-Strand and at St Olave Jewry where Warell provided a deputy. (Donovan Dawe (1983) Organs and Organists of the City of London).

Notes about the organ in St Mary-le-Strand made by Henry Leffler, c.1800.
St Mary-le-Strand, nave, c.1927, showing the Hunter & Webb organ of 1863.
St Mary-le-Strand, nave, c.2015

Today the liturgy at St Mary-le-Strand is accompanied by a far-from-new Johannes electronic 2-manual organ, an instrument that would once have been considered cutting edge but which – having experienced it – now has little to commend it. To quote Henry Leffler: “Not a very good organ”.

Jerusalem E9

St John of Jerusalem, London E9

 

The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; a nineteenth-century engraving of the north side.
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; a nineteenth-century engraving of the south side.
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the west facade.
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the north side.
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the west door.

Back in June of this year I had the chance to visit the rather lovely early Victorian church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London. The ‘Jerusalem’ in the name relates to the area’s historic links with the Order of St John of Jerusalem, which owned land and property in Hackney before the English Reformation (mid 16th century).

 

The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the nave looking east
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the chancel.
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the nave looking east
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the nave looking east
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the nave looking east
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the nave looking east
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the chancel.

The parish dates from about 1810 and the current church was built in 1848. As the pictures show it is a rather lovely building, and the area around the church is much gentrified of late.

 

The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the west gallery.
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016 the west gallery.
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016, Wyvern ST60 console.
The church of St John of Jerusalem in Hackney, east London, UK; c.2016, the nave, looking west.

Sadly the large and imposing west-gallery pipe organ (by the firm of Gray & Davidson c.1873) was removed in the early 1980s; only the facade pipe-display remains. It was replaced with one of the world’s first “dual specification” electronic analogue organs, the Wyvern ST60. Then cutting-edge, but now more than 30 years on a fine example of left-behind technology. In this age of advanced digital sound it does not sound good,  although we can be impressed by the quality of the workmanship that ensures it still works.

Old Edmonton …

All Saints, Edmonton, London N9

Back in June I made a visit to All Saints, Edmonton, north London.

The east end of All Saints church Edmonton, north London, c.1880, showing the 15th-century tower.
The east end of All Saints church Edmonton, north London, c.1980, showing the 15th-century tower.
All Saints church, Edmonton, north London, c.1980, a view of the south side, looking east.

Edmonton is an ancient settlement, rural and well-to-do and genteel in tone until the coming of the railway and London’s massive c19 expansion. I was born in the area at a time when the population was largely blue-collar lower-middle and working class.

All Saints is where, as a schoolboy in the 1970s, I learned to play the organ and sang in the choir. It was interesting to return after 40 years, and even to be remembered by some of the old ‘uns I bumped into.

All Saints church, Edmonton, north London, The present-day organ seen past the north side of the chancel arch.
All Saints church, Edmonton, north London, The present-day organ seen in the first bay of the chancel, north side.
All Saints church, Edmonton, north London, The present-day organ seen in the chancel, north side. Peggy Dell – who in the 1970s kept teenage choristers like me out of mischief – looks on.

The organ dates back to 1772, the gift of a City businessman called Samuel Spragg who had his country house in the parish. The organ was originally the work of George England (fl. 1740–88). Over the years and as the building has been altered much of the original work by George England  has been removed. A recent renovation of the organ has restored the organ to the condition of its last major rebuilding in 1927, but in doing so it seems to me that quite a bit of the tonal vivacity that had been covertly added since 1927  – and which I remember from my school days – has been lost.

However, the church itself is most attractive, with fine nineteenth-century painting on the east wall. With its pleasant churchyard, sadly cleared of the majority of ancient tombs, the church is worth a visit, especially on a fine summer evening when the bellringers are practising.

Lamb’s Cottage. Church Street, Edmonton, north London
Plaque to John Keats on a building in Keats Parade, Church Street, Edmonton, north London.
Lamb’s Cottage, Church Street, Edmonton, north London. Photograph sourced (xi. 2021) from estate agent website kingslygroup.com.

The essayist Charles Lamb (1775–1834) and and his sister, the writer Mary Lamb (1764–1847) are buried in the churchyard, and their house survives opposite the church on Church Street.

The poet John Keats (1795–1821) was a trainee pharmacist in a shop nearby. A more recent building on the same site in Church Street was still a pharmacy when I was a teenager, but it is currently a betting shop; a blue plaque notes the facts.

It was pleasing to see still remaining on Church Street the late eighteenth–century building that was formerly home to a Blue Coat Charity School for Girls and the original teacher’s cottage next door.

The teacher’s cottage for the former Blue Coat Charity School for Girls in Church Street, Edmonton, north London.
The former Blue Coat Charity School for Girls in Church Street, Edmonton, north London.