Showing 1-23 of 23 results
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All Souls Church
A Nash solution for the curving, northern sweep of Regent St was this delightful church, which features a circular columned porch and distinctive needlelike spire, reminiscent of an ancient Greek temple. It was bombed during the Blitz and renovated in 1951, and is now one of the most distinctive churches in central London.
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Brompton Oratory
Also known as the London Oratory and the Oratory of St Philip Neri, this Roman Catholic church was built in the Italian baroque style in 1884. It has marble, candles and statues galore, and Tony Blair is a regular. There are six daily Masses on weekdays, one at on Saturday, and nine between and on Sunday.
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Buddhapadipa Temple
A surprising sight in a residential neighbourhood half a mile from Wimbledon Village, this is as authentic a Thai temple as ever graced this side of Bangkok. The Buddhapadipa Temple was built by an association of young Buddhists in Britain and opened in 1982. The wat (temple compound) boasts a bot (consecrated chapel) decorated with traditional scenes by two leading Thai artists. Remember to take your shoes off before entering.
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Chelsea Old Church
This church is principally a monument to Thomas More (1477-1535), the former chancellor (and now Roman Catholic saint) who lost his head for refusing to go along with Henry VIII's plan to establish himself as supreme head of the Church of England.
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Great Mosque
The best example of the changes in population that this area has experienced over the past several centuries is this house of worship on Brick Lane. Built in 1743 as the New French Church for the Huguenots, it served as a Methodist chapel for a time until it was transformed into the Great Synagogue for Jewish refugees from Russia and central Europe in 1899. In 1975 it changed faiths yet again, becoming the Great Mosque
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Lambeth Palace
The redbrick Tudor gatehouse beside the church of St Mary-at-Lambeth leads to Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Although the palace is not usually open to the public, the gardens occasionally are; check with a tourist office for details.
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Queen's Chapel
The royal sights generally don't leave people breathless, but this one may touch your heartstrings: it's where all the contemporary royals from Princess Diana to the Queen Mother have lain in their coffins in the run-up to their funerals. The church was originally built by Inigo Jones in the Palladian style and was the first post-Reformation church in England built for Roman Catholic worship.
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Southwark Cathedral
The earliest surviving part of this relatively small cathedral is the atmospheric retrochoir, which was part of the 13th-century Priory of St Mary Overie (from 'St Mary over the Water'). However, most of the building, including the nave, is Victorian.
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St Andrew Holborn
This church on the southeastern corner of Holborn Circus, first mentioned in the 10th century, was rebuilt by Wren in 1686 and was the largest of his parish churches. Even though the interior was bombed to smithereens during WWII, much of what you see inside today is original 17th century as it was brought from other churches.
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St Bartholomew-the-Great
This spectacular Norman church dates from 1123, originally a part of the monastery of Augustinian Canons, but becoming the parish church of Smithfield in 1539 when King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries. The authentic Norman arches, the weathered and blackened stone, the dark wood carvings and the low lighting lend this space an ancient calm - especially as you'll often be the only visitor.
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St Bride's, Fleet Street
Rupert Murdoch might have frogmarched the newspaper industry out to Wapping in the 1980s, but this small church off Fleet St remains 'the journalists' church'. Candles were kept burning here for reporters John McCarthy and Terry Anderson during their years as hostages in Lebanon during the 1990s, and a memorial plaque here keeps tab of the growing number of journalists killed in Iraq.
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St Clement Danes
This isn't the St Clements referred to in the famous 18th-century verse - that's St Clements Eastcheap in the City - but historical fact needn't get in the way of a good story, and the bells of this church chime the old tune every day. Wren designed the original building in 1682 but only fragments survived the Luftwaffe, and the church was rebuilt after the war as a memorial to allied airmen.
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St Giles-in-the-Fields
Built in what used to be countryside between the City and Westminster, St Giles church isn't much to look at but has an interesting history, while the area around St Giles High St had perhaps the worst reputation of any London quarter. The current structure is the third to stand on the site of an original chapel built in the 12th century to serve the leprosy hospital.
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St James's Piccadilly
The only church Christopher Wren built from scratch and on a new site (most of the others were replacements for ones razed in the Great Fire), this simple building is exceedingly easy on the eye and substitutes what some might call the pompous flourishes of his most famous churches with a warm and elegant user-friendliness. The spire, although designed by Wren, was added only in 1968.
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St John's Gate
What looks like a toy-town medieval gate cutting across St John's Lane turns out to be the real thing. It dates from the early 16th century but was heavily restored 300 years later. During the Crusades, the Knights of St John of Jerusalem were soldiers who took on a nursing role. In Clerkenwell they established a priory that originally covered around four hectares.
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St John's Smith Square
In the heart of Westminster, this eye-catching church was built by Thomas Archer in 1728 under the Fifty New Churches Act (1711), which aimed to build 50 new churches for London's rapidly growing metropolitan area. Though they never did build all 50 churches, St John's, along with a dozen others, saw the light of day.
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St Lawrence Jewry
To look at the Corporation of London's extremely well-preserved official church, you'd barely realise that it was almost completely destroyed during WWII. Instead, it does Sir Christopher Wren, who built it in 1678, and its subsequent restorers proud, with its immaculate alabaster walls and gilt trimmings. The arms of the City of London adorn the organ above the door at the western end.
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St Pancras Chambers
Its current rundown surroundings make it tempting to describe this Victorian Gothic masterpiece as the poor cousin of the Houses of Parliament. But it's an unusual building nonetheless. Today it constitutes part of St Pancras' train station and with the adjacent Eurostar Terminal due to have opened in late 2007, it's partly being redeveloped into the same thing George Gilbert Scott built it for in 1876 - a hotel.
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St Peter's Church
This wonderful Norman church has been a place of worship for 1300 years and parts of the present structure date from 1266. It's a fascinating place, not least for its curious Georgian box pews, which local landowners would rent while the serving staff and labourers sat in the open seats in the south transept.
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Temple Church
This magnificent church lies within the walls of the Temple, built by the legendary Knights Templar, an order of crusading monks founded in the 12th century to protect pilgrims travelling to and from Jerusalem. The order moved here around 1160, abandoning its older headquarters in Holborn.
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Tyburn Convent
One of the buildings of this sorrowful and silent place has the distinction of being the smallest house in London, measuring just over a metre in width. A convent was established here in 1903, close to the site of the Tyburn Tree gallows where many Catholics were executed because of their faith during the 16th century, and which later became a place of Catholic pilgrimage.
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Westminster Cathedral
John Francis Bentley's 19th-century cathedral is a superb example of neo-Byzantine architecture: its distinctive candy-striped redbrick and white-stone tower features prominently on the west London skyline. This is the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church in Britain.
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Whitechapel Bell Foundry
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry been standing on this site since 1738, although an earlier foundry nearby is known to have been in business in 1570. Both Big Ben (1858) and the Liberty Bell (1752) in Philadelphia were cast here, and the foundry also cast a new bell for New York City's Trinity Church, damaged in the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001.
Showing 1-23 of 23 results
