Christ Church, Spitalfields
| Christ Church | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 51°31′8.73″N 00°04′27.05″W / 51.5190917°N 0.0741806°WCoordinates: 51°31′8.73″N 00°04′27.05″W / 51.5190917°N 0.0741806°W | |
| Location | London |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Denomination | Church of England |
| Website | www |
| History | |
| Consecrated | July 1729 |
| Architecture | |
| Status | Parish church |
| Functional status | Active |
| Heritage designation | Grade I listed |
| Architect(s) | Nicholas Hawksmoor |
| Style | English Baroque |
| Specifications | |
| Number of spires | 1 |
| Spire height | 202 feet (62 m) |
| Administration | |
| Archdeaconry | Hackney |
| Diocese | London |
| Province | Canterbury |
| Clergy | |
| Rector | Andy Rider |
| Curate(s) | Phil Williams Darren Wolf |
| Laity | |
| Organist(s) | Gerard Brooks |
Christ Church Spitalfields, is an Anglican church built between 1714 and 1729 to a design by Nicholas Hawksmoor. Situated on Commercial Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, on its western border and facing the City of London, it was one of the first (and arguably one of the finest) of the so-called "Commissioners' Churches" built for the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, which had been established by an Act of Parliament in 1711.
The purpose of the Commission was to acquire sites and build fifty new churches to serve London's new settlements. This parish was carved out of the huge medieval Stepney parish for an area then dominated by Huguenots (French Protestants and other 'dissenters' who owed no allegiance to the Church of England and thus to the King) as a show of Anglican authority. Some Huguenots used it for baptisms, marriages and burials but not for everyday worship, preferring their own chapels (their chapels were severely plain compared with the bombastic English Baroque style of Christ Church) though increasingly they assimilated into English life and Anglican worship—which was in the eighteenth century relatively plain.
The Commissioners for the new churches included Christopher Wren, Thomas Archer and John Vanbrugh appointed two surveyors, one of whom was Nicholas Hawksmoor. Only twelve of the planned fifty churches were built, of which six were designed by Hawksmoor.
The architectural composition of Christ Church demonstrates Hawksmoor's usual abruptness: the very plain rectangular box of the nave is surmounted at its west end by a broad tower of three stages topped by a steeple more Gothic than classical. The magnificent porch with its semi circular pediment and Tuscan columns is attached bluntly to the west end: it may indeed be a late addition to the design intended to add further support to the tower. Like those of Hawksmoor’s other London churches and many of Wren’s, the central space is of the nave is organised around two axes, the shorter originally emphasised by two entrances of which only that to the south remains. It has a richly decorated flat ceiling and is lit by a clerestory. The aisles are roofed with elliptical barrel-vaults carried on a raised Composite order (cf. Wren's St James's, Piccadilly), and the same order is used for the screens across the east and west ends. The Venetian window at the east may show the growing influence of the revival of Palladian Architecture, or it may be a rhyme with the arched pediment of the entrance portico, repeated in the wide main stage of the tower. The east window is a double window, one inside, one outside, the effect now obscured by the Victorian stained glass window between the two.
...
Wikipedia