St Mary le Strand

Written in February 2021

Take a walk east down the Strand from Trafalgar Square and soon you will spy a liitle Baroque church on an island surrounded by swirling cars and buses. Go further and you will find St Clement Dane fortunately offset from the traffic. I remember making this walk, possibly in my twenties, way before Baroque became such a passion. Yet it left a mark. How could this church have been built there? Does anyone worship there? How do you get to it and stay alive? Nowadays, how do you get inside it? Like many London churches it is generally locked. Nor will it fall under the care of City of London Churches, whose members volunteer to caretake and welcome visitors. Sign boards announce regular services so it is alive church but not easy to enter. I can remember the Tory Minister John Selwyn Gummer (Chairman of  the Conservative Party in the 1980s and later Environment Secretary) writing in the paper of his delight to attend lunchtime services there..

Kotomi in Flickr CC

View of exterior by Kan Pac Swire in Flickr CC

This church was one of dozen churches actually built in London after the Great Fire under the 1711 Act of Parliament which had authorised 50 new churches. It was designed by James Gibbs. He had just returned in 1709 from Baroque Rome under the tutelage of Carlo Fontana. St Mary is the only one of the twelve designed by him. It was built 1714-1717. It has no aisles and is only lit from the upper storey. Kerry Downes in his English Baroque Architecture (Zwemmer 1966)believes although the overall effect inside and out reflects Italian Baroque, the apse inside and the west end both derive from Christopher Wren's St Paul's Cathedral. I am fortunate to own this beautiful old book and reproduce a photo of the inside. 

We have been locked down nearly a year through the Corona Virus and I look forward later in the year to getting in this lovely old church and supplementing this post with my own pictures.

Delighted to update this! My first trip into London Monday 19 April 2021. Here are my pictures of the exterior. So little traffic! Closed but one day I will get in and more updates!

 

                                          Very brief (90 sec) introduction by Peter Marshall

Brief view of the inside with suitable choir music (a change from the jangle that usually accompanies many European videos)

Stop press ! Update from December 2022  

Traffic has been removed from this part of Strand and the church has been liberated. This is London's newest pedestrian square and the church is a focal point. Imagine my excitement at finding this by accident on a London walk in early December! The doors were open and there was a piano recital later that day. The church has come alive and I am sure that in time will be a well known destination for concerts and worship.