St John's Waterloo - Waterloo, London, UK
N 51° 30.267 W 000° 06.737
30U E 700405 N 5709878
This church sits opposite Waterloo Station.
Waymark Code: WMBYC8
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 07/04/2011
Views: 7
In 1818, when the country was settling down into a period of peace after the Napoleonic Wars and the population was beginning to expand rapidly, Parliament decided to allocate a sum not exceeding a million pounds for the building of additional churches in populous parishes and “more particularly in the Metropolis and its Vicinity.” Of this sum, the Commissioners for Building New Churches appropriated £64,000 in 1822 for the needs of the parish of Lambeth. It was decided that a new church should be built on the Waterloo Bridge approach and a piece of ground on the east side of the road was purchased from the Archbishop of Canterbury and his lessee and the sub-lessee, Sir Gilbert East and Mr. Anderson. The ground was very swampy, consisting in part of a pond, and the advice of John Rennie was sought as to the most suitable type of foundation. His recommendation that piling should be used under all the walls was adopted with such success that, after the lapse of 125 years, heavy damage by bombing and ten years' exposure to the weather, the walls were still strong and sound enough to be used in the renovated church. In view of the fact that the church was, in the words of the vestry, “in the more immediate vicinity of the Metropolis,” a more imposing design was selected than would otherwise have been chosen. The architect was Francis Bedford, who also designed the church of St. Mary the Less, Black Prince Road.
St. John's was consecrated by the Bishop of Winchester on 3rd November, 1824. James Elmes described it in 1827 as having “some faults and many beauties; the columns of the portico are of the lightest style of the Doric order, and, though rather effeminate for that masculine order, are beautifully proportioned and systematically arranged. The portico is hexastyle and joined to the body of the church, with antique propriety, as a continuation of the lateral cornice and roof. But all this propriety of annexation and real beauty of proportion is absolutely destroyed by the atrocity of a steeple, the ugliest perhaps in London, which is straddled a cock-horse across the pediment.”
The church was renovated by A. W. (later Sir Arthur) Blomfield in 1885. In 1924 Sir Ninian Comper carried out a number of repairs and alterations to the building. Among other things, the baldachino was erected in front of the altar, and the space behind was made into a Lady Chapel.
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