On approaching the church the most striking feature is the
gold statues near the top of the spire. The church is built from Portland stone
that has a tinge of the grime that used to be part of London. The front of the
church is the worst, probably due the vicinity of the main road that passes by,
the sides are much cleaner. The architecture seems to be a mix of
styles.
The church's website (visit
link) tells us:
"The present Church of St Marylebone was consecrated by
William Howley, Bishop of London, on February 4th, 1817. It has been erected in
what was then the New Road, a bypass on the very edge of London. Its gleaming
white Portland stone columns and tower faced open country towards Hampstead and
Highgate.
Waterloo had been fought less than two years before.
England, despite post-war crises, was rich and powerful: it was her Age of
Elegance. The Parish of Marylebone has become a desirable residential area, as
the memorial tablets in the Church indicate, for the nabobs who made their
fortune in India. Very soon the Prince Regent was to transform the district by
commissioning John Nash to lay out Regents Park and its imposing stuccoed
terraces of houses. One of Nash’s inspirations was to create a fine view from
the Park of the new church, framed between two blocks of York
Terrace.
The old village of Tyburn had in the eighteenth century
been engulfed in a tide of urban development spreading north from Mayfair. The
population had increased to
at least 70 000. The rich landowners made
provision for many proprietary chapels to be built, on the principle of private
enterprise, where popular preachers harangued fashionable congregations in their
rented pews. The most attractive of these chapels (designed by James Gibbs)
still survives as St Peter’s, Vere Street. But until 1817 the little village
church of old Marylebone remained the only Parish Church for the great urban
streets and squares, as well as for villas and cottages of St John’s Wood and
Lisson Grove. It is not surprising that a letter was written in 1807 to a
magazine referring to the diminutive place of worship as a scandal to the church
and nation. When he visited it, the correspondent observed five corpses
deposited on the pews, awaiting burial, eight christening parties and five women
to be churched. A ‘common basin’ was set on the communion table for baptism, but
the godparents were scattered about in such a disorderly way that it was
impossible to conduct the service decently. Another article referred to the
parish, inhabited by many legislators and holders of high office in church and
state, as ‘wearing the appearance of a quarter appropriated to persons under
sentence of excommunication’.
When at last a new, capacious church was built, there
lay behind its provision a sad history of bureaucratic muddle and
delay.
Parishes were formerly governed by vestries. The vestry
of St Marylebone was originally composed of all the local farmers and tradesmen.
When, however, the area had become urban, grand and wealthy, the vestry was made
‘select’, that is, a self-perpetuating body, not accountable to anyone but its
own members. In 1770 the vestry secured parliamentary permission to raise a rate
for the purpose of building a new church (and so a ‚statutory? church) and a
parsonage. Forty seven years elapsed before the church came into existence and a
freehold parsonage has not materialized yet. Several sites for the church were
proposed and voted down and several designs commissioned. Sir William chambers
planned a magnificent domed structure like a miniature St Paul’s; like much fine
architecture, it would have been impractical to use and ruinous to
maintain.
As a stopgap, Thomas Hardwick was instructed to build
‚two chapels of ease?, one at St John’s Wood (now the parish church of that
name) and the other on our present site. When the latter was nearing completion,
Hardwick was told to carry out improvements in order to give it the dignity
appropriate to a major parish church. Accordingly, he provided the grand portico
in the Roman style reminiscent of the Pantheon, and the highly individual tower,
rising through circle of columns and caryatid angels to a small
dome.
The interior was a notable example of what Regency
churchmanship required: box pews in the nave, an upper as well as a lower
gallery running round three sides and terminating in private boxes (probably
with five places); a large pulpit and reading desk, draped in expensive
material; a tiny sanctuary, above which hovered a choir gallery (facing the
congregation) and above that in turn a huge transparency, or painted window, set
between two sections of the organ. The window design was intended to represent
the angel bringing good tidings to the Christmas shepherds, and it must have
produced a visual shock, something like that of Sutherland’s Christ in Coventry
Cathedral. It was not appreciated, was soon removed, and lost without trace. As
a result, the interior of the church looked more than ever like a concert
hall.
The transparency was the work of the veteran painter
Benjamin West, an American by birth and a President of the Royal Academy. He
presented a painting of the Holy Family to the Vestry as an altar piece. On it
an inscription refers to him curiously as a housekeeper in the parish. The
vestrymen were deeply touched when the venerable white-haired artist offered his
gift, but were dismayed when he presented his bill for the vast transparency at
so much a square foot. The new church was already proving very costly, and angry
complaints were coming from ratepayers, especially from those who were
non-conformists or radicals.
Indeed, non-conformity, atheism and democratic
radicalism were so alarming the government that it was decided to build the
Commissioners’ churches (nicknamed Waterloo churches) to strengthen the
Establishment in popular areas. Only seven years after St Marylebone Church was
built, its parish was decided to form four new Rectory Districts, adorned by All
Souls, Langham Place, Holy Trinity, Christ Church, and St Mary’s, Bryanston
Square. By 1900 the original parish had been further sub-divided into sixteen
independent parishes, but their number has since been much reduced. Holy
Trinity, opposite Great Portland Street Station, no longer serves residents but
is the headquarters of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, founded in
1698 as the oldest Anglican organisation for mission and
evangelism."
The church is a Grade I listed building
and the entry at the English Heritage website (vist link) tells us:
"Parish church. 1813-18 by Thomas
Hardwick; the chancel remodelled by Thomas Harris, 1883-84. Portland stone;
slate roof. Begun by Hardwick as a chapel of ease similar to his St. John's, St.
John's Wood Road q.v. but elaborated as parish church with enlarged portico and
prominent steeple to the "west" front on Marylebone Road and diagonally set
porches flanking tie chancel allowing access by a broad flight of steps from
Marylebone High Street to the south (ritual east). Augustan "regular" classical
design church, apart from the tower caryatids, is in the tradition of Hardwick's
master Chambers. Giant hexastyle Corinthian portico with pediment. Central
architraved and consoled doorway and flanking gallery doorways. Attendant wings
with Corinthian antae doubled columns to returns. Deep entablature and
balustraded parapet. The tower rises behind pediment in 3 stages with square,
rusticated, clock stage carrying Corinthian peristyled belfry stage surmounted
by domed cupola with caryatids separating semicircular arched lights of drum.
Semicircular arched windows to sides with main entablature returned and carried
out over chancel porches. Internally Hardwick's nave has a flat ceiling and
galleries on 3 sides with curved corners, second gallery on west side, all
carried on slender Ionic columns; Thomas Harris's chancel in with Italianate
Renaissance style; numerous early C.19 wall monuments. Nash in laying out the
Regent's Park terraces opened up the fine vista of York Gate axial to Hardwick's
portico."