Churches - Latest news and reviews

I found a rather curious little series on Channel 4 a few weeks ago and recently finished watching the last of the six half-hour episodes.

Nestled in amongst the back streets of posh Mayfair you can find one of London's greatest Gothic Revival churches.

Westminster Abbey, that mighty bastion of religion has an alien invader amongst its midst, a couple of buildings that were nominally religious, but have spent the past 800 years performing more secular duties.

It is one hundred years since an old hospital in the City of London moved away from its traditional home to the outskirts of the city, in what was at the time the small towns around Denmark Hill.

Camden town, that bustling heart of youth and arts has a seemingly rather overlooked oasis of peace and calm - sitting right next to the huge Sainsburys.

A short walk from Finchley Central tube station can be found the area's oldest church - a site of Christian worship that can be reliably dated back at least 800 years.

Behind St Pancras station sits an old church. It only became an old church when a new church was built nearby, and while considered to be very old, it is actually fairly new, but on the site that is quite old, but probably not as old as some people claim.

If you come out of Cannon Street station stop and pause a moment, then look across the road. You might spy an insignificant side road sitting next to the modern steel ribbed building directly opposite. It's worth taking a wander over and having a look - for the short road curves round a corner, and around there you will find one of London's oldest church yards - and now a recently revamped public garden.

Around 160 years ago, a gleaming white Christian edifice was erected at the southernmost end of the Isle of Dogs that is rumoured to include remains of the old London Bridge in its structure.

Squashed in between buildings on a site next to the posh shopping area of Marylebone sits a surprisingly large and very gothic inspired church.

Next to the exceptionally posh Berkeley Hotel in Knightsbridge sits an exceptionally posh church, and despite passing by for years, I have never passed by when it is open - until now.

A large church stands on the corner opposite the Old Bailey and I have passed its locked gates for rather more years than I care to remember, for church that is open for a few hours each day during the week - has never been open when I am passing.

Although just a couple of minutes walk from the activity of Victoria Street and around the corner from Channel4's head office, it is a church you would not casually pass unless you had certain reason to use the street it fronts onto.

Sitting right next to the V&A museum looms a massive church that despite its location in tourist-central, is hardly known to non-parishioners, and is one of London's most overlooked and yet most glorious of buildings.

As Private Eye is wont to say, it's Grim up North London, but if the eponymous characters of that newspaper were to dart out of their shell, they might find a remarkable building peaking its tall spire above the council estates of Kilburn.