Patrick Comerford
Marylebone in Central London is part of the West End, and Oxford Street marks its southern boundary. An ancient parish and then a metropolitan borough, it merged with the boroughs of Westminster and Paddington to form the City of Westminster in 1965.
The name Marylebone originates from an ancient hamlet located near Marble Arch, on the east banks of the Tyburn. A parish church dedicated to Saint Mary was built there in 1400. The name Marylebone is derived from Saint Mary-burne, or ‘the stream of Saint Mary’, the Anglo-Saxon word burna meaning a small stream.
The ancient parish church, or Saint Marylebone Parish Church, has been rebuilt several times at various locations within the parish. Saint Marylebone Parish Church on Marylebone Road was built to the designs of Thomas Hardwick in 1813-1817.
On a recent weekend, with an hour or so on my hands, I visited five other churches in Marylebone, each with a different style, flavour and history, and each within a short five or ten minute walk from Marylebone Station or Baker Street.
1, Saint Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square:
Saint Mary’s Church, Bryanston Square, is a prominent landmark in the heart of London. It was built in 1823-1824 as one of the Commissioners’ churches, 600 new churches built by the Church Building Commission between the 1820s and 1850s in thanksgiving for and as a celebration of Britain’s victory at the Battle of Waterloo, and to meet the needs of growing populations in the suburbs.
Saint Mary’s was designed by Robert Smirke (1780-1867), best known as the architect of the British Museum. He designed Saint Mary’s to seal the vista from the lower end of Bryanston Square towards York Street. It is a brick building in the Greek Revival style, with a rounded stone portico, a round tower and a small dome, topped by a cross.
The tower rises in three stages from a plain drum base. The main stage has an engaged order of fluted columns with Graeco-Egyptian capitals carrying deep entablature with acroteria to a blocking course and a wreathed clock in drum base to a crowning arcaded cupola with a stone dome and a cross finial. Some internal remodelling was designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield in 1874.
A major project to restore the Grade 1 listed building to its original Georgian splendour as carried out in 2000-2002.
Today, Saint Mary’s is an HTB-linked charismatic evangelical church led by the Revd John Peters. The congregation is a church plant from Holy Trinity Brompton and Saint Paul’s, Onslow Square, and was allocated the church building by the Bishop of London in 2002. Saint Mary’s is a long-standing member of the New Wine network of churches.
The church holds two services on Sunday: an informal 11 am service, with groups for children and youth, and an informal service 5:30 pm, and there are several midweek groups and courses. I can easily find details and times for serving coffee and pastries on Sunday mornings and afternoons, but can find no details about when Holy Communion or the Eucharist is celebrated on Sundays.
2, Christ Church, Cosway Street:
Christ Church, Marylebone, also known as Christ Church, Lisson Grove, and Christ Church, Cosway Street, is a Grade II* listed building, mid-way between Paddington Station and Regent’s Park. It was was one of the first of the Commissioners’ churches, and was built in the 1820s to designs by Thomas and Philip Hardwick.
The parish of Christ Church, Cosway Street, was created in 1825 by Act of Parliament as one of four new district rectories within the ancient parish of St Marylebone. The Revd George Saxby Penfold was the first rector, and in 1828 he was succeeded by a notable classical scholar, Robert Walpole, a grandson of Horatio Walpole and a great-nephew of Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister.
Constance Lloyd, later the wife of Oscar Wilde, was baptised at Christ Church in 1858.
Christ Church is an example of square Georgian neoclassical architecture, covered in pale limestone, with a four-columned Ionic portico, a blank pediment, and further pairs of pillars on each side.
A square tower rises above the church, with clock faces and Corinthian pillars. Above this is an octagonal cupola with a roof shaped like a bell. Inside the church are an eight-bay Corinthian arcade, with Corinthian pilasters on the east wall, clerestory windows above an entablature, and a brick-built nave with a low arched ceiling with ribs and oval panels. The church also has galleries.
Some alterations to the church in 1887 were also designed by Sir Arthur Blomfield.
A post-war scheme to reorganise the Marylebone parishes in 1945 was not implemented until 1952. With parish reorganisation in the Diocese of London again in the 1970s, the parish of Christ Church was united with Saint Paul, Rossmore Road, in 1971 to create the parish of Christ Church and Saint Paul. Christ Church was declared redundant and closed in 1977.
The former church became an antiques market and then a restaurant. It was bought in 2014 by Greenhouse Sports, a youth charity, and was refurbished as a multi-sports centre, while the crypt was converted into changing rooms and meeting rooms.
3, Saint Paul’s Church, Lisson Street:
Saint Paul’s Church, on Lisson Street and Rossmore Road in North Marylebone, was designed by JW Higgins and was built by voluntary contributions as Saint Paul’s Chapel in 1837-1838 soon after the closure of the Bentinck Chapel on Lisson Street. It was consecrated in 1838 and was assigned a district. The solemnisation of baptisms was authorised in 1838 and marriages in 1860.
After World War II, Saint Paul’s parish was united with Emmanuel, Maida Hill, and Saint Matthew, Maida Hill, to form the parish of Saint Paul with Saint Matthew and Emmanuel. The parish was united with Christ Church, Cosway Street, in 1971. Saint Paul’s Church became one of the parish churches of the parish of Christ Church and Saint Paul, St Marylebone, until Christ Church was closed in September 1977.
In recent years, the interior of Saint Paul’s has been subdivided and refurbished, the galleries have been removed, and the worship space is in part of the nave and the sanctuary area. The reredos and the windows remain in place.
Canon Clare Dowding is the Rector of Saint Paul’s, Priest in Charge of Saint Cyprian’s and Area Dean of Marylebone; the Revd Rachel Sheppard is the Assistant Curate; and the Revd Michele Lee is the Associate Priest.
The Parish Eucharist is celebrated in Saint Paul’s every Sunday at 10 am, Morning Prayer is said on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 9:15, Evening Prayer is said every Monday at 4:30, and Holy Communion is celebrated every Friday at 8:30 am. Through a partnership with West London Synagogue and Foodcycle, Saint Paul’s offers a free community meal every Wednesday night to over 70 people at the church.
4, Saint Cyprian’s Church, Glentworth Street:
Saint Cyprian’s Church in Marylebone is a Grade II* listed building at the north end of Glentworth Street (formerly Park Street) and near the Clarence Gate Gardens entrance to Regent’s Park. The church off Baker Street was designed by Sir Ninian Comper and was consecrated in 1903, but the parish was founded in 1866.
The parish was formed as part of the work of the slum priest Father Charles Gutch (1822-1896), a senior fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, for 52 years. His campaigning Anglo-Catholic views and pastoral mission to London’s poor led him to propose a mission church in the then slum enclave north-east corner of Marylebone. The new mission district was formed from portions of the parishes of Saint Marylebone and Saint Paul, Rossmore Road, although neither the Rector of Saint Marylebone nor the Vicar of Saint Paul’s approved of his Anglo-Catholic style or his pastoral approach.
The mission district was in an area where church attendance was poor and it was densely populated with overcrowded slums. Saint Cyprian’s Mission Chapel, designed by George Edmund Street, was a low-budget conversion of a terraced house on Park Street and a mews hay barn, and about 150-180 people could be squeezed in.
Gutch died in 1896, without realising his vision of a permanent church and was succeeded by the Revd George Forbes. The new Saint Cyprian’s Church was designed by Sir Ninian Comper (1864-1960) in a Perpendicular Gothic style and was built in 1901. It was modelled on the wool churches of East Anglia, and was the first new church completed to Comper’s designs.
Saint Cyprian’s is built of red brick with stone dressings, with a nave with clerestory and two aisles. There is no tower, but a small bellcote on Chagford Street. It has large Perpendicular windows but the stained glass designed by Comper is confined to the east end.
Although I did not get inside Saint Cyprian’s that afternoon, the church is regarded by many as one of London’s most beautiful church interiors. In its design, Saint Cyprian’s reflects Comper’s emphasis on the Eucharist and the influence of the Oxford Movement. He said his church was to resemble ‘a lantern, and the altar is the flame within it.’
The sanctuary fittings include a carved and painted rood screen and parclose screens around an English Altar, surrounded on three sides by hangings and a painted dossal, riddel posts with angels and a painted and gilded reredos.
The left-hand screen leads to what was originally called the All Souls’ Chapel, later re-dedicated as the Chapel of the Holy Name. The right-hand screen separates the liturgical south aisle from the Lady Chapel. The central screen below the rood was completed in stages up to 1938. The gilded square tester over the high altar was completed in 1948 and shows Christ holding an open book with a Greek inscription: ‘I am the Light of the World’.
The poet Sir John Betjeman once described Saint Cyprian’s as ‘Comper’s superb church … a Norfolk dream of gold and light within.’ The architectural historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner also praised Comper’s work at Saint Cyprian’s: ‘If there must be medieval imitation in the twentieth century, it is here unquestionably done with joy and care.’
The Parish Mass in Saint Cyprian’s on Sundays is at 10:30 am, and Choral Evensong is sung on the second Sunday of each month at 6 pm. Canon Clare Dowding is the Priest in Charge.
5, Rossmore Hall Evangelical Church:
Rossmore Hall Evangelical Church, also known as Paragon Gospel Hall, is a Brethren church on Rossmore Road, off Lissom Grove in Marylebone. It may have taken its name from Rossmore Hall, a mission hall that once stood on Morning Lane in Hackney.
A ‘Mystery Worshipper’ or visitor from the site Ship of Fools described it as sandwiched between two residential houses on a Georgian street, and said in a report: ‘Rossmore Hall is basically a big square room with a high ceiling. At one end there is a long wooden plaque on the wall, with ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ painted on it in gold Gothic lettering, and beneath this an upright piano and a Victorian harmonium.’
A Portuguese-speaking congregation uses the hall on Sunday afternoons.
