Patrick Comerford
During my walking tour of churches and chapels in Bloomsbury, Fitzrovia, Soho and Mayfair earlier this month, I visited the Fitzrovia Chapel, an enchanting jewel of Byzantine-inspired architecture in the heart of Fitzrovia. This is the former chapel of the Middlesex Hospital, and today it is an enriching cultural space.
The Fitzrovia Chapel is a registered charity without public subsidy, and the chapel’s charitable activities and the preservation of the building are mostly funded through commercial hire. This includes weddings, exhibitions, book launches and shoots. The chapel is open to everyone of all faiths, beliefs, backgrounds and cultures.
The site of the former Middlesex Hospital is now occupied by Pearson Square, a development of apartments, restaurants and office space. The chapel is the one main survivor of the hospital, located at the core of the new development. The chapel is in a central square, partly behind a row of trees, looking very different from the buildings that surround it.
The exterior of the Fitzrovia Chapel is relatively plain, built mainly of red brick with very little in the way of exterior decoration, but a very different experience awaits you once you step inside.
The Fitzrovia Chapel in Pearson Square stands in the centre of Fitzroy Place, a site that borders Mortimer Street, Cleveland Street, Nassau Street and Riding House Street in Fitzrovia. The chapel was built in 1891-1892 as the Middlesex Hospital Chapel. It was designed by the architect John Loughborough Pearson (1817-1897) in the Gothic Revival style with colourful interior decor and mosaics.
The Middlesex Hospital was founded in 1745, moved to Mortimer Street in 1757, and remained there until 2005.
Before Pearson designed the chapel, the Middlesex Hospital had little non-clinical or non-administrative space. Wood-panelled boardrooms hosted chaplaincy services, but there was no space specifically set aside for peace, prayer and reflection. The chapel was commissioned by the hospital governors in the 1880s as a memorial to Major Alexander Henry Ross, who chaired the hospital’s board of governors for 21 years.
Initial funds were raised through donations, and Pearson was engaged by the hospital board to design the small building in the heart of the hospital complex. Pearson was a Gothic Revival architect who worked primarily on churches and cathedrals. He revived and practised largely the art of vaulting, and acquired a proficiency that was unrivalled in his generation. He worked on at least 210 church buildings in England over 54 years.
Pearson was born in Brussels on 5 July 1817 and was brought up in Durham. At 14, he was articled to Ignatius Bonomi, a Durham architect whose clergy clientele helped develop Pearson’s long association with religious architecture, particularly of the Gothic style. He moved to London, where he became a pupil of Philip Hardwick (1792-1870), the architect of the Euston Arch and Lincoln’s Inn.
From the erection of his first church at Ellerker, in Yorkshire, in 1843, to that of Saint Peter’s, Vauxhall (1864), Pearson’s buildings are geometrical in manner but show an elegance of proportion and refinement of detail. Holy Trinity, Westminster (1848), and Saint Mary’s, Dalton Holme (1858), are notable examples of this phase. Charles Locke Eastlake described Christchurch at Appleton-le-Moors in North Yorkshire as ‘modelled on the earliest and severest type of French Gothic, with an admixture of details almost Byzantine in character.’
Pearson is best known for Truro Cathedral (1880), the first Anglican cathedral built in England since 1697, and incorporates the south aisle of the ancient church. Many consider Saint John’s Cathedral in Brisbane, Australia, his finest work. There, he employed a broad mix of styles, using Spanish Gothic extensively in the internal design of the nave and sanctuary, drawing inspiration from Barcelona Cathedral.
Pearson also worked on the cathedrals in Bristol, Chichester, Exeter, Gloucester, Lincoln, Peterborough and Rochester, and at Saint George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, Westminster Hall, Westminster Abbey, and Saint Margaret’s Church at Westminster Abbey. He succeeded Sir George Gilbert Scott as surveyor of Westminster Abbey, where he refaced the north transept and designed the organ cases.
His other churches include Saint John the Baptist, Peterborough; Saint Lawrence, Towcester, Northamptonshire; Saint Peter’s, Vauxhall (1864), his first groined church; Saint Augustine’s, Kilburn (1871); Saint John’s, Red Lion Square, London (1874); Saint Alban the Martyr, Birmingham (1880); Saint Michael’s, Croydon (1880); Saint John’s, Norwood (1881), Saint Stephen’s, Bournemouth (1889), and All Saints’ Church, Hove (1889).
Pearson died on 11 December 1897, and his son Frank Loughborough Pearson (1864-1947) followed in his footsteps, completing much of his work before embarking on his own original designs. Pearson’s work on the Fitzrovia Chapel was overseen by Frank Loughborough Pearson, and the chapel was completed 32 years later in 1929.
One reason why it took so long to complete the chapel was a commitment that no money meant for patient care would be used for the chapel. Time was needed for building and for the complex decoration, but time was also needed to collect sufficient donations to finish this beautiful building.
Construction began on the red brick exterior in 1891, when Pearson was already near the end of his life. His son and apprentice, Frank, took over after his father’s death, writing to the board of hospital governors to tell them of his father’s death, and his own wish to complete the project.
The finished chapel is a combination of both their designs, and it is a fine example of Gothic Revival architecture, designed by Pearson in the Italian Gothic-style. Unusually, the chapel is aligned on a north-south axis instead of the traditional liturgical east-west alignment.
The rib vaulted ceiling is richly decorated with polychrome marble and mosaics, with blue stars against a gold background representing the firmament and bands of decoration meeting at the centre.
The wall mosaics are lined with green onyx and a zigzag pattern. The mosaics were completed in the 1930s by Maurice Richard Josey, assisted by his son John Leonard Josey.
There is a Cosmatesque pillar piscina in the arched chancel. An aumbry set into an ogee arch is adorned with an image of the Pelican in her Piety carved in white marble, erected in memory of Prince Francis of Teck, younger brother of Queen Mary, who died in 1910.
There are 23 windows in the chapel, and all have stained glass. Nine of the windows are on the liturgical north side, and with 12 on the south side, there is the east window and the other is on the staircase. Eleven windows have two lights and the others are single-light windows.
The early stained glass is the work of Clayton and Bell. When the chapel was restored in the early 2010s the windows were removed and restored by Chapel Studios Stained Glass of Kings Langley, Hertfordshire.
Sculpted busts of the Twelve Apostles and the Old Testament prophets are set into roundels beneath the arches.
The organ gallery at the west end is surmounted by an arch decorated with a mosaic inscription of the opening words from Gloria in Excelsis Deo: Gloria in Excelsis Deo et In terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis, ‘Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of goodwill’.
The baptismal font is carved from a solid block of green marble and is adorned with the symbols of the Four Evangelists. The inscription, Nipson anomemata me monan opsin, is a palindrome in Ancient Greek inscribed on a Byzantine holy water font outside the Church of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople: Νίψον ἀνομήματα, μὴ μόναν ὄψιν, ‘Wash the sins, not only the face’.
A brass monastery bell hangs outside the vestry door and is adorned by an angel adorns the front. The Latin quotation is: Qui Me Tangit Vocem Meam Audit, ‘He who touches me hears my voice’.
The first service in the chapel was held on Christmas Day 1891, with an official opening by the Bishop of London in June 1892.
The chapel took more than 25 years to complete. It includes more than 40 types of marble used in its finished design. In its early life, it had candlesticks, effigies, pews and altar cloths – all bought through fundraising by the medical community.
The vestibule between the entrance to the chapel and the nave is lined with plaques recording the names of people who donated towards the costs of the chapel, eminent hospital staff, as well as hospital staff who died on duty, including nurses such Dorothy Adams, Maudie Mason, and Grace Briscoe who died from influenza and scarlet fever in 1919.
The chapel hosted regular services throughout the week, led by the Middlesex Hospital’s resident chaplain. Sermons were broadcast throughout the wards over hospital radio so that those too sick to visit could be a part of the chapel’s activity. On two occasions, the BBC broadcast from the chapel as part of a series of national hospital radio shows.
The decaying 18th century hospital building was gradually demolished between 1929 and 1935, and rebuilt around the chapel.
The most unusual funeral in the chapel was probably that of the poet Rudyard Kipling in January 1936. Kipling was taken to the chapel, where his coffin was draped in a Union Jack and was placed before the altar. A bunch of violets on his coffin was sent by Lucy Baldwin, the wife of the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who was Kipling’s first cousin. His body was later cremated and his ashes were interred in Westminster Abbey.
Although the chapel was not consecrated, and there was no legal Deed of Consecration, it was dedicated by Archbishop Cosmo Gordon Lang of Canterbury on 31 January 1939, when he described it as ‘without question one of the most beautiful hospital chapels in the realm’.
After the Middlesex Hospital was amalgamated into University College Hospital, the hospital buildings other than the chapel were completely demolished in 2008-2015, and were replaced by a new residential development.
When the hospital was demolished, the chapel was preserved as a Grade II* listed building and was renamed as the Fitzrovia Chapel. Today the chapel stands within Pearson Square, a privately owned public space belonging to Jones Lang LaSalle.
• The Fitzrovia Chapel no longer holds religious services and is managed by a charity, the Fitzrovia Chapel Foundation. It is a venue for non-religious ceremonies such as weddings and memorials, and has regular guided tours, exhibitions, quiet days and a cultural programme. It is open most Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11 am to 5 pm, on one Sunday a month from 12 noon to 5 pm, and takes part in Open House London in September and the Fitzrovia Arts Festival.
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