St Mary at Hill (left) and St Margaret Pattens (straight ahead), London
Photogravure by Donald Macleish from Fantastic London by St John Adcock, 1927.
St Mary at Hill: The urban context to start with, for this church is established as quite a few Town church buildings will have to have been in the a long time before the Blitz. From the west, the tower stands in the sluggish curve of Lovat Lane, leading from Cheapside down to Eliot’s erstwhile fishmen of Billingsgate lounging at midday. It is uncomplicated to envision the precocious Betjeman wandering down the lane as a schoolboy, summoned by the evensong bells to the twilit delights of the Reserve of Prevalent Prayer. The east end of the church is flush in the avenue line of the road which takes its title from the church, and the title alone is writ substantial underneath the east window. A doorway below a portico with its cranium and crossed bones potential customers by way of to the tiny burial floor.
St Mary at Hill was once one of the least spoiled of the Metropolis churches, and the only a single to endure the Blitz with a whole established of box pews intact. Worship in this article was a past style of how the City churches were being ahead of the German bombs changed the Town forever. And then in 1988 there was an arson assault which ruined the ceiling. The furnishings generally survived, and had been placed in retailer though the roof and ceiling had been restored. In 1998, Simon Bradley in the revised Pevsner lamented that most of the noteworthy woodwork remains in store. Its comprehensive restoration is an urgent precedence. Just about twenty decades on this nevertheless has not happened, and you phase into a excellent open place which feels much bigger than it truly is. The missing furnishings have been all of a piece, dating from Wren’s rebuilding of 1670-74, refurbished and extra to in 1848 by W Gibbs Rogers who Pevsner complimented as his get the job done could barely be distinguished from the primary. I have no notion why they have not been returned. Does anyone know? Probably they will get in touch with me and inform me.
The west screen is nonetheless in situ, there are some great glass roundels which bear in mind the other churches which when stood in the modern-day parish, and the wonderful chandelier has no interruptions from its glory. But in any other case this is an empty shell, the skeleton of a church waiting around for its flesh, blood and soul to be restored to it.
St Margaret Pattens: I have a fondness for this little church, which sits pleasingly on the north aspect of Terrific Tower Avenue. The paved place in entrance presents it alternatively a provincial air, as if we were being in the principal buying road of Norwich or York, and the creating itself similarly has no airs and graces. Listed here, in which London bends towards the grim aged tower, Wren turned disciplinarian and created 1 of the most straightforward, starkest designs of his vocation opined Wayland Young in an uncharacteristically purple passage. Sure, it is plain, and the interior is basic much too, a very simple box-like nave with a north aisle outside of. Plain glass, simple benches, a basic wooded sanctuary – even the reredos is understated. And yet there is a satisfying harmony right here. I assumed the church very well-selected by the tramp loud night breathing away on one particular of the again benches – there have been no discordant excitements below to keep him awake!
But there is a lot to fascination, way too. At the back are the churchwardens pews for St Margaret Pattens and St Gabriel Fenchurch, and these are the only surviving examples in the Metropolis. The beadle’s pew survives way too, and there are hat pegs for gentlemen, and probably all in all no other City church continue to has the relaxed and simplicity of 18th Century London life ahead of the Victorian storm started. Intellect you, individuals 18th Century gentlemen may possibly have elevated an eyebrow at the succession of youthful gals carrying significant exercise balls up the north aisle on their way to a pilates class in the north gallery, now a meeting space.
A patten is a kind of wood shoe, and a window of 2000 commemorates the Worshipful Enterprise of Pattenmakers. But in fact the dedication was probably not a reference to pattenmakers at all, but to Ranulf Peyton, a Canon of St Pauls who owned the land in this parish.
(c) Simon Knott, December 2015
Posted by Simon Knott on 2016-01-03 12:23:44
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