St James's Church, Piccadilly

St. James's Church, Piccadilly
Current photo of St. James's Church
51°30′31″N 0°8′12″W
Address	Piccadilly, London
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Church of England
Website	www.st-james-piccadilly.org
Architecture
Architect(s)	Christopher Wren
Administration
Diocese	London

St James’s Church, Piccadilly is an Anglican church on Piccadilly in the centre of London, UK. It was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren.

The church is built of red brick with Portland stone dressings. The church’s interior has galleries on three sides supported by square pillars, and the nave has a barrel vault supported by Corinthian columns. The carved marble font and limewood reredos are both good examples of the work of Grinling Gibbons.

History

Interior circa 1806.

St James's Church Interior present day

In 1662, Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans was granted land for residential development on what was then the outskirts of London. He set aside land for the building of a parish church and churchyard on the south side of what is now Piccadilly. Christopher Wren was appointed the architect in 1672 and the church was consecrated on 13 July 1684 by Henry Compton, the Bishop of London.

Samuel Clarke was rector from 1709 to 1729 and was one of the leading intellectual figures of eighteenth-century Britain. William Blake was baptised at the church in 1757. Leopold Stokowski was choirmaster from 1902 until 1905 when he left for a similar position in New York.

The church was severely damaged by enemy action in 1940, during the Second World War. The church’s website carries a detailed history.

Baptisms

• William Blake, baptised 1757.
• Lord Chesterfield
• Lord Chatham

St James's in 1815.

Marriages

• Ince and Mayhew, founding partners of the furniture-makers, married sisters in a double wedding here in 1762.
• Philip Hardwick, the architect, married Julia Shaw in 1819.
• General Sir Robert Arbuthnot, KCB married Harriet Smith in 1826.
• Prince Friedrich Wilhelm von Hanau, eldest son of Frederik William, Elector of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), married the actress Auguste Birnbaum in 1856.
• Also in 1856, the Belgian Consul to Charleston S.Carolina USA, George Augustus Hopley married French born Felicite Claudine Rancine on 26 July. (George later died in Paris 28 May 1859, age 52.)
• Aviation pioneer and air racer John Cyril Porte, married Minnie Miller 16 August 1916. Ceremony conducted by John E T Evitt, Curate
• Author and poet, Robert Graves, married Nancy Nicholson in the church in 1918. Best man was George Mallory
• John Seward Johnson I, American heir and son of Robert Wood Johnson I (co-founder of Johnson & Johnson, married Ruth Dill, the sister of actress Diana Dill in 1924.
• James Arbuthnot MP, married Emma Broadbent, daughter of Michael Broadbent, in 1984.

Burials

• John Arbuthnot, buried 1735.
• Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet (equerry to Frederick, Duke of York)
• Mary Beale one of the first professional women artists, buried 1699.
• Sir Richard Croft, obstetrician
• William Elliot of Wells (equerry to George II ), buried 1764
• James Gillray, the influential and ground-breaking caricaturist.
• “Old Q.,” William Douglas, 4th Duke of Queensberry.
• Pedro Vicente Maldonado (Ecuadorian scientist)
• The Earl of Grantham (Lord Chamberlain to Queen Caroline of Ansbach)
• William Hunter (anatomist)
• William McGillivray and his wife, Magdalen MacDonald
• Benjamin Stillingfleet, botanist, the first bluestocking
• Willem van de Velde, the elder (marine painter).
• Willem van de Velde, the younger (marine painter)

Concerts

Concerts are regularly held in the church. Concerts have included performances by popular contemporary musicians such as REM, folk musician Laura Marling as part of her ‘church tour’, as well as collegiate Indian-American music group Penn Masala.

Outdoor art space

Contemporary art gallery Hauser & Wirth are running a programme of outdoor sculpture in Southwood Garden in the grounds of the church. The first exhibition is of work by Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn, running from September 2009 to January 2010. Southwood Garden was created in the churchyard by Viscount Southwood after World War II as a garden of remembrance, "to commemorate the courage and fortitude of the people of London," and was opened by Queen Mary in 1946.

Piccadilly Market

Piccadilly Market was established in 1981 and operates six days a week in the courtyard of St James's Church. Mondays: Food Market, 11-5pm. Tuesdays: Antiques and Collectables Market, 10-6pm. Wednesday - Saturday: Arts and Craft Market, 10-6pm.

Present

Like many central London churches surrounded by commercial buildings and ever fewer local people, St James’s lost numbers and momentum in the 1960s and 70s. When, in 1980, Donald Reeves was offered the post of rector, the bishop allegedly said "I don’t mind what you do, just keep it open." During that decade and most of the 1990s numbers and activity grew, the clergy and congregation gaining a reputation for being a progressive, liberal and campaigning church. That has continued. The "congregation" rejects that description and prefers "community". It is centred on the Eucharist - the celebration of the principal Christian sacrament. It finds expression in a wide range of interest groups: spiritual explorers, labyrinth walking, Julian prayer meetings, the Vagabonds group (a lively discussion group which takes its name from a William Blake poem and in faithfulness to that text meets in a local alehouse), a LGBT group and many others. The community has actively supported, and supports, the ordination of women to all the orders of the church, the just treatment of asylum seekers and those living in poverty. It celebrates what it regards as the "radical welcome" found in the heart of the Gospels and attested to by the Incarnation.

See also

• List of churches and cathedrals of London

Sources

• Book London Architecture, written by Marianne Butler, published in 2004 by Metro Publications, ISBN 1-902910-18-4.
• Web page http://www.st-james-piccadilly.org/, retrieved on the 6th April 2004 at 15:00 BST.

See also

• List of Christopher Wren churches in London
• List of churches rebuilt after the Great Fire but since demolished

External links

• St James's Church, Piccadilly website
• Detailed architectural description and history from the Survey of London
• Deanery of Westminster (St Margaret)
• St James's Church, Piccadilly website ~ Piccadilly Market