St James's Church, Piccadilly

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St James's Church, Piccadilly
Church of St Jamess Piccadilly 2 (5123798865).jpg
The church in 2011
51°30′31″N 0°8′12″W / 51.50861°N 0.13667°W / 51.50861; -0.13667Coordinates: 51°30′31″N 0°8′12″W / 51.50861°N 0.13667°W / 51.50861; -0.13667
LocationPiccadilly, London
CountryEngland
DenominationChurch of England
ChurchmanshipLiberal
Websitewww.sjp.org.uk
History
DedicationJames the Less
Dedicated13 July 1684
Architecture
Heritage designationGrade I
Architect(s)Christopher Wren
Administration
DioceseDiocese of London
Clergy
RectorLucy Winkett
Curate(s)Lindsay Meader
NSM(s)Hugh Valentine
Ivan Khovacs
Laity
Churchwarden(s)Deborah Colvin and Trevor Lines

St James's Church, Piccadilly, also known as St James's Church, Westminster, and St James-in-the-Fields, is an Anglican church on Piccadilly in the centre of London, United Kingdom. The church was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren.

The church is built of red brick with Portland stone dressings. Its interior has galleries on three sides supported by square pillars and the nave has a barrel vault supported by Corinthian columns. The carved marble font and limewood reredos are both notable examples of the work of Grinling Gibbons. In 1902, an outside pulpit was erected on the north wall of the church. It was designed by Temple Moore and carved by Laurence Arthur Turner. It was damaged in 1940, but restored at the same time as the rest of the fabric.[1]

History[]

The church's interior

In 1662, Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans, was granted land for residential development on what was then the outskirts of London. He set aside land for the building of a parish church and churchyard on the south side of what is now Piccadilly. Christopher Wren was appointed the architect in 1672 and the church was consecrated on 13 July 1684 by Henry Compton, the Bishop of London. In 1685 the parish of St James was created for the church.

The church was severely damaged by enemy action in the Blitz of London on 14 October 1940.[2] After the war ended, specialist contractors, Rattee and Kett, of Cambridge, under the supervision of Messrs. W. F. Heslop and F. Brigmore, undertook restoration work, which was completed in 1954.[3] Southwood Garden was created in the churchyard by Viscount Southwood after World War II as a garden of remembrance, "to commemorate the courage and fortitude of the people of London", and was opened by Queen Mary in 1946.[4]

Present[]

View looking southeast from the tower, showing many of the landmarks of London

Like many central London churches surrounded by commercial buildings and ever fewer local people, St James's lost numbers and momentum in the 1960s and 1970s. When, in 1980, Donald Reeves was offered the post of rector, the bishop allegedly said "I don't mind what you do, just keep it open."[citation needed] During that decade and most of the 1990s numbers and activity grew, the clergy and congregation gaining a reputation for being a progressive, liberal and campaigning church. That has continued. The "congregation" rejects that description and prefers "community". It is centred on the Eucharist, the celebration of the principal Christian sacrament. It finds expression in a wide range of interest groups: spiritual explorers, labyrinth walking, Julian prayer meetings, the Vagabonds group (a lively discussion group which takes its name from a William Blake poem and in faithfulness to that text meets in a local alehouse), an LGBT group and many others. The community has actively supported, and supports, the ordination of women to all the orders of the church, the just treatment of asylum seekers and those living in poverty. It celebrates what it regards as the "radical welcome" found in the heart of the Gospels and attested to by the Incarnation.

Concerts[]

Concerts are regularly held in the church.[5] Concerts have included performances by popular contemporary musicians such as R.E.M.,[6] the folk musician Laura Marling as part of her "church tour",[7] the collegiate Indian-American music group Penn Masala[8] and Devin Townsend on his 2015 UK acoustic tour.[9]

Outdoor art space[]

Replica section of the Israeli Security Wall, built in the church grounds, as part of the international protest against the Israeli wall.

Hauser & Wirth, a contemporary art gallery, is running a programme of outdoor sculpture exhibitions in Southwood Garden in the grounds of the church. The first exhibition was of work by the Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn, running from September 2009 to January 2010.[10]

From 23 December 2013 to 5 January 2014 the "Bethlehem Unwrapped" demonstration against the Israeli West Bank barrier featured an art installation by Justin Butcher, Geof Thompson, and Dean Willars, which included a large replica section of the wall. The installation blocked the view of the church, other than a section of the top of the tower, which was stated by church authorities to be part of the point of the demonstration.

Market[]

The Piccadilly Market was established in 1981 and operates six days a week in the courtyard of St James's Church. Monday and Tuesday: Food Market, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm. Wednesday – Saturday: Arts and Craft Market, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm.

Rectors of St James's[]

The external pulpit
  • 1685–1692 Thomas Tenison (later Archbishop of Canterbury)
  • 1692–1695 Peter Birch (in opposition to Wake, removed by House of Lords adjudication in 1695)
  • 1693–1706 William Wake (later Archbishop of Canterbury)
  • 1706–1709 Charles Trimnell (also Bishop of Norwich from 1708, later Bishop of Winchester)
  • 1709–1729† Samuel Clarke (philosopher)
  • 1729–1733 Robert Tyrwhitt
  • 1733–1750 Thomas Secker (also Bishop of Bristol then Oxford, later Archbishop of Canterbury)
  • 1750–1759 Charles Moss (also Archdeacon of Colchester, later Bishop of St David's then Bath & Wells)
  • 1759–1763† Samuel Nicolls[11]
  • 1763–1802† William Parker[12]
  • 1802–1825† Gerrard Andrewes (also Dean of Canterbury from 1809)
  • 1825–1845 John Giffard Ward (later Dean of Lincoln)
  • 1846–1853 John Jackson (later Bishop of Lincoln then London)
  • 1853–1895 John Edward Kempe[13]
  • 1895–1900 Alfred Barry (formerly Bishop of Sydney)
  • 1900–1914† Joseph McCormick
  • 1914–1918 William Temple (later Archbishop of Canterbury)
  • 1918–1922 Herbert Priestley Cronshaw
  • 1922–1954† Charles Lambert (also Archdeacon of Hampstead)
  • 1954–1967 John Brewis (formerly Archdeacon of Doncaster)
  • 1967–1980 Bill Baddeley (formerly Dean of Brisbane)
  • 1980–1998 Donald Reeves
  • 1999-2009 Charles Hedley
  • 2010– Lucy Winkett

Other staff[]

  • Leopold Stokowski was choirmaster from 1902 until 1905 when he left for a similar position in New York.

Notable baptisms[]

  • Sir Joseph Banks, baptised 13 February 1743.
  • William Blake, baptised 1757.
  • Ottobah Cugoano, baptised (as John Stuart) on 20 August 1773.
  • George Thomas Smart, baptised 2 Jun 1776.[14]
  • Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
  • Lord Chatham

Notable weddings[]

St James's in 1815
  • John Ross and Alicia Arnold (the paternal great-grandparents of Francis Scott Key; who wrote the American national anthem) were married.[15]
  • The Scottish composer James Oswald married Mary Ann Melvill on 12 February 1744.
  • Ince and Mayhew, founding partners of the furniture makers, married sisters in a double wedding here in 1762.
  • Frederick de Horn and Angelica Kauffman, 1767. Horn was an imposter who was already married and Kauffman was a successful artist.[16]
  • George Bass, explorer of Australia and the Bass Strait, married Elizabeth Waterhouse in 1800.
  • Michael William Sharp, portrait painter, married the actress and dancer Arabella Menage in 1804.[17][18]
  • Georges-Alexis, marquis d'Amboise and Louisa Barwell, daughter of Richard Barwell, Member of Parliament, in 1815.
  • Philip Hardwick, the architect, married Julia Shaw in 1819.
  • General Sir Robert Arbuthnot, KCB, married Harriet Smith in 1826.
  • Prince Friedrich Wilhelm von Hanau, eldest son of Frederik William, Elector of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), married actress Auguste Birnbaum in 1856.
  • Also in 1856, George Augustus Hopley, the Belgian Consul to Charleston South Carolina, in the US, married the French-born Felicité Claudine Rancine on 26 July. (George later died in Paris on 28 May 1859, age 52.)
  • On 5 November 1865, Samuel Baker, explorer of Africa, married , a woman he had rescued from the white slave trade when she was a girl. He was twenty years her senior.
  • In 1873 the actor and dancer Fred Vokes married the actress Martha Isabella 'Bella' Moore.
  • John Cyril Porte, an aviation pioneer and air racer, married Minnie Miller on 16 August 1916. The ceremony was conducted by John E. T. Evitt, Curate.
  • Robert Graves, an author and poet, married Nancy Nicholson in the church in 1918. The best man was George Mallory.
  • John Seward Johnson I, the American heir and son of Robert Wood Johnson I (co-founder of Johnson & Johnson, married Ruth Dill, the sister of Diana Dill, in 1924.
  • James Arbuthnot MP, married Emma Broadbent, daughter of Michael Broadbent, in 1984.

Notable burials[]

Notable memorials[]

Detached burial ground[]

St James's Gardens, shown west of Euston Station, on an 1890 Bacon Traveler's Pocket Map of London by George Washington Bacon

A separate burial ground[21] of St James's Church was developed in Camden,[22][23] in use from 1790 until 1853.[24] The cemetery became St James's Gardens in 1878 with only a few gravestones lining the edges of the park.[25] Part of the Gardens, located between Hampstead Road and Euston railway station, was built over when Euston station was expanded[26] in around 1887. To avoid public outcry, the affected remains were reinterred at St Pancras Cemetery.[27] The Gardens were closed to the public in 2017[28] to allow the further expansion of Euston station for the High Speed 2 (HS2) rail project.[29] As of January 2019, archaeologists working on HS2 were excavating approximately 40,000 burials, with excavations due to continue until late 2020.[29] It is proposed to re-bury the remains, at a site to be decided, after they have been examined by osteo-archaeologists.[29]

Notable burials include:

Sources[]

  • London Architecture, written by Marianne Butler, published in 2004 by Metro Publications, ISBN 1-902910-18-4

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "History – St James's Church Piccadilly London". Sjp.org.uk. Retrieved 8 February 2019.
  2. ^ "St. James's Church, Piccadilly | Survey of London: volumes 29 and 30 (pp. 31-55)". british-history.ac.uk. 2011. Retrieved 28 November 2011.
  3. ^ "The Building – St James's Church Piccadilly London". Sjp.org.uk. Retrieved 6 October 2017.
  4. ^ "The Churchyard". The Survey of London: about St James's Church Piccadilly. 2008. Retrieved 7 September 2009.
  5. ^ Corinthian Chamber Orchestra One of the groups which gives concerts in the church Archived 11 October 2006 at the Wayback Machine
  6. ^ Evening Concerts Website detailing REM performance.
  7. ^ Laura Marling unveils church tour details. NME reveals details of Laura Marling's church tour.
  8. ^ "Penn Masala to Perform at Jorgensen, 12/3". BroadwayWorld.com. Retrieved 5 July 2017.
  9. ^ An Evening with Devin Townsend Jon Stickler, stereoboard.com 07 September 2015, accessed 29 July 2019
  10. ^ "Hauser & Wirth / St James's Church, Piccadilly". Glass Magazine. 1 September 2009. Retrieved 7 September 2009.
  11. ^ "Nicolls, Samuel (NCLS731S)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  12. ^ Foster, Joseph. "Parker, William (3)" . Alumni Oxonienses  – via Wikisource.
  13. ^ "Kempe, John Edward (KM829JE)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  14. ^ "England birth and christenings". familysearch.org. Retrieved 21 April 2015.
  15. ^ The Lost World of Francis Scott Key – By Sina Dubovoy, accessed 29 July 2019
  16. ^ Mayer, Dorothy Moulton. (1972) Angelica Kauffmann, R.A. 1741–1807. Gerrards Cross: Colin Smythe. pp. 57–63. ISBN 0900675683
  17. ^ Arabella Menage in the London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1932: Ancestry.com (subscription required)
  18. ^ Westminster, London, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1754-1935 for Michael William Sharp St James, Piccadilly (St James, Westminster), 1803-1858: Ancestry.com (subscription required)
  19. ^ Robinson, John Robert (1895). 'Old Q': A Memoir of William Douglas, Fourth Duke of Queensberry, K.T., One of 'the Fathers of the Turf,' with a Full Account of His Celebrated Matches and Wagers, Etc (2nd ed.). London: Samson Low, Marston and Company, Limited. p. 249. Retrieved 6 November 2017.
  20. ^ Barbara Brandon Schnorrenberg, "Montagu, Elizabeth (1718–1800)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (eds). Oxford: OUP, 2004.
  21. ^ Location of St James's burial ground 51°31′43″N 0°08′13″W / 51.52849°N 0.13702°W / 51.52849; -0.13702 (St James's Park)
  22. ^ "St. James Church, Hampstead Road". Survey of London: volume 21: The parish of St Pancras part 3: Tottenham Court Road & Neighbourhood. 1949. pp. 123–136. Retrieved 15 December 2012.
  23. ^ "Final resting place". Matthew Flinders Memorial. Retrieved 25 January 2019.
  24. ^ "HS2 exhumations prompt memorial service". BBC News. 23 August 2017.
  25. ^ "St. James' Gardens". London Cemeteries. 12 July 2011. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
  26. ^ "The body now lying under Platform 12 at Euston Station is ... | London My London | One-stop base to start exploring the most exciting city in the world". London My London. 10 August 2013. Retrieved 2 March 2015.
  27. ^ Jackson, Alan (1984) [1969]. London's Termini. David & Charles. p. 43. ISBN 0-330-02747-6.
  28. ^ "St. James Gardens – A Casualty Of HS2". Retrieved 25 January 2019.
  29. ^ Jump up to: a b c d Addley, Esther (24 January 2019). "Grave of Matthew Flinders discovered after 200 years near London station". The Guardian. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  30. ^ Jump up to: a b c "Remains of Captain Matthew Flinders discovered at HS2 site in Euston". UK Government. 25 January 2019. Retrieved 26 January 2019.

External links[]

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