One of the capital’s most wonderful buildings
The Guardian
Tour
When Henry the Eighth left the Pope in the lurch
The Protestants made him the head of the Church;
But George’s good subjects, the Bloomsbury people,
Instead of the Church, made him head of the steeple
Interior: alterations to Hawksmoor’s original design
St George’s Bloomsbury was designed by Hawksmoor as an
‘auditory’ church, following guidelines written by Christopher
Wren. The space was designed specifically for the liturgy of
the Book of Common Prayer; it was of paramount importance
that the service be heard (even if it wasn’t clearly seen) by all
members of the congregation. Following the Commissioners’
stipulation, the altar was to be sited in the traditional
position in the east. Hawksmoor’s original designs for the site
show a church built in the shape of an oval, however these were
rejected by the Commissioners. Others, including
James Gibbs (also responsible for designing St Martin in the
Fields) and Sir John Vanbrugh submitted unsuccessful
designs before Hawksmoor was persuaded to revisit the
project with the results you see today.
As soon as the church opened in 1730, however, the parish
Vestrymen were up in arms at what they perceived as a lack
of accommodation: 447 seats compared with the 2,000 who
could be accommodated inside Wren’s St James Piccadilly.
Disputes and a lack of certainty over whether the vestry had
the authority to make decisions on temporal as well as
ecclesiastical issues to do with the church meant that nothing
was done until 1781, when the addition of 337 new seats
required a complete re-orientation of the church interior with
the altar and reredos being moved to the north. This was just
the beginning of the alterations that would be made to
Hawksmoor’s original design during the late-18th and 19th
centuries; further work included the erection of galleries on
the west and east walls, making St George’s perhaps the
only church in London which has had galleries on all four
sides during its history. In 1870, under the eye of G.E. Street,
the east and west galleries were taken down leaving the
church in the state it would remain until 2003.
Nave
The nave of St George’s Bloomsbury is a cube, lit by raised
clerestory windows. The plasterwork flower the centre of the
ceiling is the work of Isaac Mansfield who, like many of the
craftsmen working for Hawksmoor at St George’s, regularly
worked for the Office of Works. At the centre of all but one of the
proscenium arches is a keystone embellished by a tongue of
flame; this represents the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
There are seven such keystones in total; as a group, these
probably represent the gifts of the Holy Spirit received at
Confirmation. The keystone above the east apse is different
however; it is inscribed with the Tetragrammaton (the name of
God in Hebrew). This can also be found inscribed towards the
top of the reredos.
In the 1730s, the nave would have been filled with box pews,
positioned so that the congregation would face inwards
(north/south), as in choir stalls or in the collegiate manner.
These were mostly replaced in the 19th century with pews; some
of these have been placed in the north gallery. As part of the
recent restoration, the Victorian pews were replaced with new
bespoke oak benches designed specifically for the space by Luke
Hughes & Co. of Drury Lane. These benches were built in a way
that enables us to use the space as flexibly as possible.
Chandelier
World Monuments Fund Britain helped to fund the £9 million
restoration of St George’s Bloomsbury. The finishing touch was
the installation in October 2009 of this 17th century Dutch
chandelier, kindly loaned from the Victoria and Albert Museum
where it formerly graced the Grand Entrance. Over two metres
wide at its core with thirty-six scrolling branches, it is a rare
example of a north-west European chandelier from that period.
We would like to thank the Victoria and Albert Museum for
loaning the chandelier to St George’s Bloomsbury and for all
their support during the installation.
Galleries and organ
Perhaps the most important aspect of the recent restoration
has been the return of the church to its original East-West
orientation. Crucial to Hawksmoor’s original design was the
provision of two galleries; one on the south and one on the
north. Not only did these galleries serve as visual blinkers for
visitors arriving via the west tower entrance, (thus countering
the north-south orientation of the site by discouraging visitors
from facing anywhere but east), but they also satisfied the
Vestry’s need for two separate, yet equally visible, seating
positions for its most important parishioners; the Dukes of
Bedford and Montague.
A new North Gallery has been reinstalled, as the original was
removed during the 1780s re-orientation of the church;
whilst the South Gallery has been conserved and restored to
its original condition, as the middle section of this gallery had
been moved forwards in 1952 to accommodate an organ, itself
removed during the recent restoration.
St George’s Bloomsbury did not have an organ until 1788. In
1792, the church organ was moved to the south gallery
before being moved to the north-west in 1871 on Street’s
instructions. In 1900, the organ was enlarged and divided into
two sections placed on either side of the altar (in the north).
This organ was eventually dismantled in advance of a new
organ’s arrival in 1952 - however this instrument proved
unsuitable for the space and was subsequently also removed.
East Apse and furnishings
As part of the recent restoration of St George’s, the reredos
and altar have been restored to their original position in the
east apse. The reredos is made from ‘Cuban’ mahogany
(from the West Indies, but not necessarily from Cuba itself)
and inlaid with numerous other woods. It was made by
Thomas Phillip, John How and John Mead. When the church
was re-orientated in the 1780s, the reredos was moved to the
north, and the east apse became a baptismal area containing
the original 1730s font, carved by the mason Edward Strong.
The apse remained a baptismal area during the Victorian
period, hence the stained glass in this part of the church shows
baptismal themes (much of St George’s original clear glass was
replaced with stained glass made by Clayton & Bell as part of the
late-nineteenth century restoration supervised by Street).
Famous people baptised here include the Victorian novelist
Anthony Trollope (1815), and Richard Benson (1824), founder of
the ‘Cowley Fathers’ (an Anglican religious order).
Above the reredos, the ceiling decoration by Isaac Mansfield
depicts winged cherubs above mitres and crosiers, the
pastoral staffs carried by the bishops shaped like a shepherd’s
crook. In the centre, you can see a pelican situated above a
baptismal shell. According to popular tradition, the pelican
pierces its own breast and feeds its young with its own blood;
so that together with the sheaves of corn also depicted, the
pelican represents the bread and wine of the Holy Communion.
The pulpit is original to Hawksmoor’s design and was made
by Thomas Phillips. It was moved from its original position
towards the centre of the north apse where, mounted on a
bar of iron cased in wood, it apparently ‘swayed like an
enormous tulip’ when a preacher climbed its steps.
Undercroft
The undercroft (or vaults) beneath the church were largely
unused until 1803, when the Vestry decided to allow bodies
to be buried there. This decision was made in an attempt to
reduce the number of burials taking place in St George’s
burial ground (now St George’s Gardens, close to Coram Fields),
which the Vestry feared would soon be full. By 1844, many
coffins deposited in the undercroft were so decayed that they had
to be bricked up in a side vault, and after 1856, no further bodies
were buried beneath the church.
The funeral monuments inside the church all relate to
individuals buried in the undercroft. The most ornate
memorial, located by the west tower entrance, is that of
Charles Grant, Chairman of the East India Company and
friend of abolitionist William Wilberforce, with whom Grant
created the free colony of Sierra Leone.
During the restoration of St George’s, an initial survey of the
undercroft suggested that it contained approximately 300
coffins. In fact, the final total was closer to 900. Each was
reverently disinterred and their contents reburied in a marked
plot in St Pancras and Islington cemetery.
South front and steeple
The south front, described by Pevsner as “the most grandiose
of London’s 18th century church fronts,” is dominated by a
large Corinthian portico. Near-contemporaries of Hawksmoor
(particularly the antiquarian William Stukeley, Rector of
nearby St George’s, Queen’s Square), believed that the
inspiration behind the portico was the Roman Temple of
Bacchus at Baalbek in the Lebanon. This view is supported
by the fact that, in 1703, Hawksmoor was commissioned to
provide illustrations for a book about the Baalbek temples
written by Henry Maundrell; did these drawings serve as a
model for the south front of St George’s?
Looking up at the tower, you can see recessed arches; a
typical feature of Hawksmoor’s work, however, the steeple is
completely unique. The
statue of George I at its pinnacle was paid for by William
Hucks; parishioner, MP for Abingdon and royal brewer, whose
motives for doing so must remain a matter for debate. The
statue sits proudly on top of a stepped pyramid whose design
was based upon Pliny’s description of the Mausoleum at
Halicarnassus in Turkey. Architects of this period would often
include full or partial reconstructions of classical structures in
their designs; a similar stepped pyramid can be seen on top
the west dome of Wren’s 1673 design for St
Paul’s Cathedral; however, St George’s was the first time
such a pyramid had been built as part of a final design.
The lions and unicorns clambering around the base of the
steeple are reconstructions, created by the sculptor Tim
Crawley and installed on the tower in 2006. The original lions
and unicorns were commissioned by Hawksmoor without the
permission of the Commissioners, who initially refused to pay for
them. They were removed in the 1870s for reasons that remain
unclear; with the steeple as a whole recorded in the parish
minutes as being “a dangerous state”, were the costs of
repairing/preserving them too high or had years of derision
made them unwanted? They were certainly held in affection by
some as they can be clearly seen in replica on top of the two 20th
Century lamps located at the portico steps.
North front
The site of St George’s Bloomsbury has always been
surrounded by tall buildings on all sides. Hawksmoor took full
advantage of this fact and designed a north front completely
different to the south. This design resembles an Italian palace
along the lines of those illustrated in the many books of Italian
architecture owned by Wren and subsequently by
Hawksmoor. The use of large keystones is a typical feature of
Hawksmoor’s work and can also be seen, for example, at St
Mary Woolnoth, another of his six 1711 Act churches.
Anon
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town
Traditional rhyme, early 18th C
Tour
When Henry the Eighth left the Pope in the lurch
The Protestants made him the head of the Church;
But George’s good subjects, the Bloomsbury people,
Instead of the Church, made him head of the steeple
Interior: alterations to Hawksmoor’s original design
St George’s Bloomsbury was designed by Hawksmoor as an
‘auditory’ church, following guidelines written by Christopher
Wren. The space was designed specifically for the liturgy of
the Book of Common Prayer; it was of paramount importance
that the service be heard (even if it wasn’t clearly seen) by all
members of the congregation. Following the Commissioners’
stipulation, the altar was to be sited in the traditional
position in the east. Hawksmoor’s original designs for the site
show a church built in the shape of an oval, however these were
rejected by the Commissioners. Others, including
James Gibbs (also responsible for designing St Martin in the
Fields) and Sir John Vanbrugh submitted unsuccessful
designs before Hawksmoor was persuaded to revisit the
project with the results you see today.
As soon as the church opened in 1730, however, the parish
Vestrymen were up in arms at what they perceived as a lack
of accommodation: 447 seats compared with the 2,000 who
could be accommodated inside Wren’s St James Piccadilly.
Disputes and a lack of certainty over whether the vestry had
the authority to make decisions on temporal as well as
ecclesiastical issues to do with the church meant that nothing
was done until 1781, when the addition of 337 new seats
required a complete re-orientation of the church interior with
the altar and reredos being moved to the north. This was just
the beginning of the alterations that would be made to
Hawksmoor’s original design during the late-18th and 19th
centuries; further work included the erection of galleries on
the west and east walls, making St George’s perhaps the
only church in London which has had galleries on all four
sides during its history. In 1870, under the eye of G.E. Street,
the east and west galleries were taken down leaving the
church in the state it would remain until 2003.
Nave
The nave of St George’s Bloomsbury is a cube, lit by raised
clerestory windows. The plasterwork flower the centre of the
ceiling is the work of Isaac Mansfield who, like many of the
craftsmen working for Hawksmoor at St George’s, regularly
worked for the Office of Works. At the centre of all but one of the
proscenium arches is a keystone embellished by a tongue of
flame; this represents the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.
There are seven such keystones in total; as a group, these
probably represent the gifts of the Holy Spirit received at
Confirmation. The keystone above the east apse is different
however; it is inscribed with the Tetragrammaton (the name of
God in Hebrew). This can also be found inscribed towards the
top of the reredos.
In the 1730s, the nave would have been filled with box pews,
positioned so that the congregation would face inwards
(north/south), as in choir stalls or in the collegiate manner.
These were mostly replaced in the 19th century with pews; some
of these have been placed in the north gallery. As part of the
recent restoration, the Victorian pews were replaced with new
bespoke oak benches designed specifically for the space by Luke
Hughes & Co. of Drury Lane. These benches were built in a way
that enables us to use the space as flexibly as possible.
Chandelier
World Monuments Fund Britain helped to fund the £9 million
restoration of St George’s Bloomsbury. The finishing touch was
the installation in October 2009 of this 17th century Dutch
chandelier, kindly loaned from the Victoria and Albert Museum
where it formerly graced the Grand Entrance. Over two metres
wide at its core with thirty-six scrolling branches, it is a rare
example of a north-west European chandelier from that period.
We would like to thank the Victoria and Albert Museum for
loaning the chandelier to St George’s Bloomsbury and for all
their support during the installation.
Galleries and organ
Perhaps the most important aspect of the recent restoration
has been the return of the church to its original East-West
orientation. Crucial to Hawksmoor’s original design was the
provision of two galleries; one on the south and one on the
north. Not only did these galleries serve as visual blinkers for
visitors arriving via the west tower entrance, (thus countering
the north-south orientation of the site by discouraging visitors
from facing anywhere but east), but they also satisfied the
Vestry’s need for two separate, yet equally visible, seating
positions for its most important parishioners; the Dukes of
Bedford and Montague.
A new North Gallery has been reinstalled, as the original was
removed during the 1780s re-orientation of the church;
whilst the South Gallery has been conserved and restored to
its original condition, as the middle section of this gallery had
been moved forwards in 1952 to accommodate an organ, itself
removed during the recent restoration.
St George’s Bloomsbury did not have an organ until 1788. In
1792, the church organ was moved to the south gallery
before being moved to the north-west in 1871 on Street’s
instructions. In 1900, the organ was enlarged and divided into
two sections placed on either side of the altar (in the north).
This organ was eventually dismantled in advance of a new
organ’s arrival in 1952 - however this instrument proved
unsuitable for the space and was subsequently also removed.
East Apse and furnishings
As part of the recent restoration of St George’s, the reredos
and altar have been restored to their original position in the
east apse. The reredos is made from ‘Cuban’ mahogany
(from the West Indies, but not necessarily from Cuba itself)
and inlaid with numerous other woods. It was made by
Thomas Phillip, John How and John Mead. When the church
was re-orientated in the 1780s, the reredos was moved to the
north, and the east apse became a baptismal area containing
the original 1730s font, carved by the mason Edward Strong.
The apse remained a baptismal area during the Victorian
period, hence the stained glass in this part of the church shows
baptismal themes (much of St George’s original clear glass was
replaced with stained glass made by Clayton & Bell as part of the
late-nineteenth century restoration supervised by Street).
Famous people baptised here include the Victorian novelist
Anthony Trollope (1815), and Richard Benson (1824), founder of
the ‘Cowley Fathers’ (an Anglican religious order).
Above the reredos, the ceiling decoration by Isaac Mansfield
depicts winged cherubs above mitres and crosiers, the
pastoral staffs carried by the bishops shaped like a shepherd’s
crook. In the centre, you can see a pelican situated above a
baptismal shell. According to popular tradition, the pelican
pierces its own breast and feeds its young with its own blood;
so that together with the sheaves of corn also depicted, the
pelican represents the bread and wine of the Holy Communion.
The pulpit is original to Hawksmoor’s design and was made
by Thomas Phillips. It was moved from its original position
towards the centre of the north apse where, mounted on a
bar of iron cased in wood, it apparently ‘swayed like an
enormous tulip’ when a preacher climbed its steps.
Undercroft
The undercroft (or vaults) beneath the church were largely
unused until 1803, when the Vestry decided to allow bodies
to be buried there. This decision was made in an attempt to
reduce the number of burials taking place in St George’s
burial ground (now St George’s Gardens, close to Coram Fields),
which the Vestry feared would soon be full. By 1844, many
coffins deposited in the undercroft were so decayed that they had
to be bricked up in a side vault, and after 1856, no further bodies
were buried beneath the church.
The funeral monuments inside the church all relate to
individuals buried in the undercroft. The most ornate
memorial, located by the west tower entrance, is that of
Charles Grant, Chairman of the East India Company and
friend of abolitionist William Wilberforce, with whom Grant
created the free colony of Sierra Leone.
During the restoration of St George’s, an initial survey of the
undercroft suggested that it contained approximately 300
coffins. In fact, the final total was closer to 900. Each was
reverently disinterred and their contents reburied in a marked
plot in St Pancras and Islington cemetery.
South front and steeple
The south front, described by Pevsner as “the most grandiose
of London’s 18th century church fronts,” is dominated by a
large Corinthian portico. Near-contemporaries of Hawksmoor
(particularly the antiquarian William Stukeley, Rector of
nearby St George’s, Queen’s Square), believed that the
inspiration behind the portico was the Roman Temple of
Bacchus at Baalbek in the Lebanon. This view is supported
by the fact that, in 1703, Hawksmoor was commissioned to
provide illustrations for a book about the Baalbek temples
written by Henry Maundrell; did these drawings serve as a
model for the south front of St George’s?
Looking up at the tower, you can see recessed arches; a
typical feature of Hawksmoor’s work, however, the steeple is
completely unique. The
statue of George I at its pinnacle was paid for by William
Hucks; parishioner, MP for Abingdon and royal brewer, whose
motives for doing so must remain a matter for debate. The
statue sits proudly on top of a stepped pyramid whose design
was based upon Pliny’s description of the Mausoleum at
Halicarnassus in Turkey. Architects of this period would often
include full or partial reconstructions of classical structures in
their designs; a similar stepped pyramid can be seen on top
the west dome of Wren’s 1673 design for St
Paul’s Cathedral; however, St George’s was the first time
such a pyramid had been built as part of a final design.
The lions and unicorns clambering around the base of the
steeple are reconstructions, created by the sculptor Tim
Crawley and installed on the tower in 2006. The original lions
and unicorns were commissioned by Hawksmoor without the
permission of the Commissioners, who initially refused to pay for
them. They were removed in the 1870s for reasons that remain
unclear; with the steeple as a whole recorded in the parish
minutes as being “a dangerous state”, were the costs of
repairing/preserving them too high or had years of derision
made them unwanted? They were certainly held in affection by
some as they can be clearly seen in replica on top of the two 20th
Century lamps located at the portico steps.
North front
The site of St George’s Bloomsbury has always been
surrounded by tall buildings on all sides. Hawksmoor took full
advantage of this fact and designed a north front completely
different to the south. This design resembles an Italian palace
along the lines of those illustrated in the many books of Italian
architecture owned by Wren and subsequently by
Hawksmoor. The use of large keystones is a typical feature of
Hawksmoor’s work and can also be seen, for example, at St
Mary Woolnoth, another of his six 1711 Act churches.
Anon
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town
Traditional rhyme, early 18th C