St. Paul's Shadwell - London, UK - This Old Church on Waymarking.com

The church was built between 1817 and 1820 by John Walters. It is a Grade II* listed building. The base of the church is made from limestone with stock brick above. The spire, which is a local landmark, is also made from limestone.

"The Church is like a rectangular box with roughly equal projections at the east and west ends, which contain the tower and stairs, and chancel, respectively. The central box contains the main body of the Church, and is astylar, whereas the two projections are decorated by pilasters, with a pediment at the west end. The windows are also subtly different, with those on the upper part of the main body having individual cornices above their architraves, whereas those on the projections have plain architraves. Such minor details show the thoughtfulness of Walters as an architect.

The western projection of the Church has stone steps with metal railings leading to central panelled double doors flanked by round-headed niches, set in a tetra-style Tuscan pilaster portico supporting a triangular pediment, above which sits the base of the tower. Three tablets above the door and niches record the rebuilding of the Church and the names of Walters as architect and Streather as builder. The sides of this projection act as the flanks of the temple portico, with pilasters at the north and south corners and two rectangular windows one above the other. Where the flanks meet the main body of the Church are interesting gargoyles at cornice level, much decayed now but just discernible as fish or stylised dolphins, alluding to the Church’s maritime connections.

The steeple rises through several stages from its square base above the pediment, moving from a square lantern with four pairs of corner columns supporting an engaged entablature, to a circular tempietto surmounted by inverted brackets supporting an obelisk. Bridget Cherry notes accurately that ‘The stone steeple evokes Wren’s St Mary-le-Bow via Dance’s St Leonard Shoreditch’. The Gentleman’s Magazine described it as ‘peculiarly beautiful, and it is not too much to say, that in correctness of design, and in the simple harmony of its several parts, it scarcely yields to the most admired object of the kind in the metropolis’. Within it hang eight bells, six of which were recast from the peal of the original Church. The clock and its three clock-faces underneath the lantern would The south and north sides of the central box of the Church are virtually identical. They have two rows of five rectangular windows lighting the ground floor and the galleries. The lower windows rest directly on a stone string course, and both rows are set within stone architraves, which have now been painted white. Each side is capped by a plain rendered frieze and cornice, at the same height as that on the west portico, with a the eastern projection is also decorated with Tuscan pilasters, with another tetra-style portico framing the rear outer wall of the chancel, this time without a pediment. The centre originally featured a door at ground level, with a blank wall above (perhaps originally decorated with a commemorative tablet), though in 1848 William Butterfield blocked up the door and inserted a tripartite round-arched window into the upper part of the wall (see 8 below). Either side of the central bay are niches with tablets above, similar to the west end; the north and south sides of this projection also match those on the west."

Source St Paul's Shadwell website.

2) Please share some comments about your visit.

3) Additional photos are encouraged. If you can have information in addition to that already provided about this church, please share it with us.