Patrick Comerford
It would be easy to walk past 129 Wilton Road in Victoria, thinking it is just one more commercial office building in the City of Westminster. The building is close to Victoria Station and home to corporate tenants like Trident Energy and the events company IQPC.
But as they rush to and from Victoria Station, commuters may not notice the terrace above on the first floor of 129 Wilton Road or realise that the commercial and office building has been inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright and designed to provide a mixture of open plan or collaborative and quiet workspace with break-out zones and meeting rooms.
Were we alone in noticing the large, tall sculpted stonework by the entrance? It is engraved with the words ‘Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children – Frank Lloyd Wright’.
Perhaps the building was designed as a tribute to the great American architect Frank Lloyd Wright (1869-1957). But I was interested in it first because it is site of the former he Church of Saint John the Evangelist, destroyed during the Blitz in World War II.
I was in Pimlico and Belgravia last week, visiting a number of churches in the area, including Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square, Saint Saviour’s Church, Saint George’s Square, and Saint Gabriel’s Church, Warwick Square.
Wilton Road is on land between Pimlico and Victoria that was once part of the larger Grosvenor Estate. The street was named after Lady Eleanor Egerton, daughter of Thomas Egerton (1749-1814), 1st Earl of Wilton, who married Robert Grosvenor (1767-1845), 1st Marquess of Westminster.
Saint John’s Church, Wilton Road, was consecrated in 1874 as a chapel of ease to Saint Peter’s, Eaton Square, in order to reach out to the poor in the heavily populated area around Victoria Station.
The Revd George Howard Wilkinson (1833-1907), who was the Vicar of Saint Peter’s, Eaton Square, in 1870-1883, wished the church to be open to all. It was built with some difficulty on soft ground where barges used to unload their goods from the Grosvenor Basin, and this needed a foundation built on piles.
Fundraising for building the new church attracted a donation of £2,000 from Hugh Grosvenor (1825-1899), 1st Duke of Westminster, while he attending Saint Peter’s Church one Sunday morning, and Queen Victoria donated £150, on the grounds that she was a parishioner.
The church was built on the west side of Wilton Road, between Hudson’s Place and Gillingham Street. The building stood on the site that is now No 129 Wilton Road, Pimlico. It was designed in the Early Gothic style by the architect Sir Arthur Blomfield (1829-1899), who at the time was working on Saint Peter’s Church, Eaton Square, when he enlarged and reordered in 1875, adding a chancel at the east end and north and south transepts, and ‘fiercely normanised’ the interior.
Blomfield’s other works include Saint Luke’s Chapel at the former Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford (1864), Saint Barnabas Church, Jericho, Oxford (1869), Selwyn College, Cambridge (1882-1889), rebuilding the nave of Saint Saviour’s Church, now Southwark Cathedral (1890-1897), and Saint Saviour’s Church, Arklow, Co Wicklow (1899).
Saint John’s Church on Wilton Road was built in brick with stone dressings, with a broad nave, a short chancel, and a thin square tower topped by a squat slate spire. Embellishments were added in succeeding years, including mosaics, a marble high altar and triptych, seven sanctuary lamps in the Anglo-Catholic style, and textiles designed by the architect George Frederick Bodley (1827-1907).
Saint John’s had a ring of eight bells, supplied by John Warner and Sons. They were dedicated on 2 October 1878 by the Archdeacon of London, Piers Claughton (1814-1884), former Bishop of Saint Helena and of Colombo. The bells were later removed when they proved to be too heavy, although some sources they were lost with the church during the Blitz in 1940.
Wilkinson later became Bishop of Truro (1883-1891), Bishop of St Andrews, Dunkeld and Dunblane (1893-1907), and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church (1904-1907).
Meanwhile, Saint John’s became a popular and thriving church in the late 19th century and into the 20th century, with a strong preaching and teaching tradition and a congregation drawn from across London.
It is said the church was known for its work, quiet reverence and absence of fussiness. The Eucharist was the main Sunday service, and Eucharistic vestments were adopted in 1908 – by then, they were in use at Saint Peter’s for over a decade.
Many men from Saint John’s were killed during World War I, and during those years there was a shortage of clergy and little money.
After the war, incense was introduced into the liturgy in 1924, and the sacrament was reserved. A large bronze crucifix was set up facing Wilton Street as a War Memorial, which is now on the south wall of Saint Peter’s Church, near the side entrance to the church office and the Knightsbridge Kindergarten.
When World War II broke out in 1939, the church was first closed, as it was too far from an air raid shelter. It then reopened for weekday masses, with Sunday services taking place in Saint Peter’s.
Saint John’s Church received a direct hit on Friday 11 October 1940 and was mostly destroyed. The remains were pulled down a few years later. The valuable vestments were restored and other items from the interior that survived were given to Saint Peter’s and other churches.
The engraved inscription at the entrance to 129 Wilton Road is ascribed to the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the most influential figures in the architectural movements of the 20th century. He believed in designing in harmony with humanity and the environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture.
But the quotation is a well-known saying about stewardship of the environment for future generations sustainability. It is variously attributed to Crazy Horse, or as an ancient proverb, or a Native American or Kenyan saying. Written records trace variations of it to mid-20th century environmental campaigns and indigenous advocacy, but in Jewish tradition there is also a similar saying in the Midrash: ‘Take care not to spoil or destroy My world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you’ (Midrash Ecclesiastes Rabbah 7:13).
The revolving door at the entrance to 129 Wilton Road obscures the engraved words and makes them difficult to read. Perhaps the building could do with an explanatory panel, and a plaque recalling Saint John’s Church, which stood on the site for 66 years from 1874 to 1940.
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