Your guide to London's culture and transport news and events taking place across the city.
Your guide to London's culture and transport news and events taking place across the city.
The history and architecture of churches across London and southeast England.
A look around Southwark Cathedral
London has four Cathedrals, and while two - St Paul's and Westminster -- are famous, (And it seems, a fourth one I have never even heard of) Southwark has always seemed to me to be a bit overlooked, which is a pity as it is considerably more accessible and just as delightful to look at.
A look around St Stephen’s Walbrook
Sitting in a corner behind Mansion House at Bank sits a 340 year old church designed by Sir Christopher Wren, with a huge dome modelled on that within St Paul's Cathedral.
The world’s oldest surviving wooden church
If I told you that the world's oldest wooden church is not in a dusty part of Palestine or Ethiopia, but in the green fields of the UK, you might be surprised. Even more so if I pointed out that it is just outside London.
A look around Chipping Ongar Church and Castle
St Martins Church Chipping Ongar Peeking out behind some wonky wooden buildings on Chipping Ongar’s main street is a glimpse of the ancient town church, which is nearly a thousand years old. Built around the time of the Norman Conquest…
St Nicholas Church in Great Wakering
This is a Norman era church, built from stone and flint that would seem to my mind to be in very short supply in the marshy flood plain it sits in, so must have been brought in by boat, making it quite an expensive church to have built at the time.
Inside the restored St Stephen’s, Rosslyn Hill
St. Stephen's is a former church in Hampstead designed in the Neo Gothic style by Samuel Sanders Teulon who considered it the best of the 114 churches he designed.
GASP at the splendour of St Christopher’s Chapel inside GOSH
A chapel that dates from 1875 and built in the High Victorian style that almost out-Pugins Pugin for sheer over the top decoration.
The amazingly gloomy interior of Westminster Cathedral
If you’ve never been inside Westminster Cathedral near Victoria train station, then you are likely to be in for a bit of a surprise, for despite being over 100 years old, they still haven’t finished decorating it. And I hope…
How did one of Sir Christopher Wren’s Churches end up in Sth London?
In deepest South London, in a small 1960s housing estate, off a small side street, itself off another small blocked off road – standing alone and largely forgotten – is a remnant of one of Sir Christopher Wren’s magnificent post…
HMS Ark Royal’s Battle Ensign (not) on display in Docklands
Just up the road from where I live is St Anne’s Limehouse, a Hawksmoor Anglican Church that was consecrated in 1730, one of the twelve churches built through the 1711 Act of Parliament. The Church is significant for several reasons,…
Photos of the Church of St. Alban the Martyr in Holborn
Wandering around London I tend to keep my eyes either watching the ground for any curious manhole covers or the like – or looking around the tops to see what might catch my attention. Sometimes, one of those things is…
The “secret crypt” under St John’s Church in Waterloo
In response to the spiritual needs of a growing population, in 1818 the Parliament voted funds for the building of a series of new churches in cities, and one such church is the Neoclassical Doric pile just outside Waterloo Station.…
The underground crypt in the City of London
Lurking in a tiny side alley on a small side street near Fleet Street in the City of London lies one of the city’s less well known bits of heritage – the remains of the Whitefriar’s Crypt. To find the…
A look around St Peter’s Church in London Docks
On one of the main roads in Wapping stands what looks externally to be a fairly average Church, but like most Victorian buildings of its time, the generic municipal exterior conceals a much more interesting interior.
A torch lit tour of a Church crypt
A rather forlorn looking Palladian style church sits in a suitably windswept corner of a road junction in Shoreditch. Despite its somewhat tired appearance, this is one of the more important locations for the history of Christianity in England.
The Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy
There is a rather nice looking old church just off The Strand in central London that I have often passed close to at weekends and wanted to pop in for a look around - but it is only open for a few hours each day during the week.
A long time ago, when Croydon was less a collection of indifferent office blocks and more green, it was also one of the more important residences of the Archbishop of Canterbury. A large – by the standards of the day…
Supper, Restoration Diaries and a Hymn
I wandered along to a lecture this evening which was due to discuss the relationship between two of the great Diarists of the English Restoration period, being Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn. It was billed as Supper and a Lecture,…
Proposals for Post-Crossrail development at TCR
A brief comment has been released on part of the redevelopment proposals for the land which will be cleared as a result of the Crossrail developments at Tottenham Court Road station. As the buildings on the corner will be completely…
St Michael’s Church by Covent Garden
Lurking in a little nook on one of the many streets around the back of Covent Garden you may spy what looks like a church trying to squeeze its way out between more modern buildings. Here you may notice if…
Treasures of the English Church
Today I wandered over to Goldsmiths Hall in the City to visit an exhibition which opened only yesterday of Church silver and gold plate and vessels.
The Church of St Charles Borromeo
Wandering around the back streets near the BT Tower, I noticed an interesting looking Church and wandered over for a closer look.
A few weeks ago, I paid a visit to St Etheldreda's Church in Ely Place to take some photos, but alas - most of them were rather dire, so I went back again last weekend to try again.
