St Marylebone Parish church, Marylebone, London

I have passed Marylebone many time, either in a taxi or underneath on the Tube, and have always meant to go in. And with a morning spent in the area last month, I walked over Euston Road to find all three doors open, and a good number of people coming and going.

 

From the outside it could be a City Wren church, inside it has lots of space and a fine painted chancel.

 

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St Marylebone Parish Church is a place of active and engaged Christian witness, set at the very heart of central London. With a history stretching back nearly 900 years, those of us who worship here continue seek to offer God worship that has long been renowned for musical and liturgical excellence and to serve the diverse community in which we are set.

 

For more than 30 years, St Marylebone, just a few metres from Harley Street, has pioneered the work of Christian healing and, as well as being home to the internationally respected St Marylebone Healing and Counselling Centre, which offers low-cost analytical psychotherapy and spiritual direction, the Crypt at St Marylebone also houses an innovative NHS doctor’s surgery - the Marylebone Health Centre. Our work is enhanced by maintaining close and active links with some of medicine’s Royal Colleges and through our provision of chaplaincy to The London Clinic and King Edward VII’s Hospital.

 

St Marylebone has a flourishing Young Church, which complements our two schools: The St Marylebone Church of England School, an Outstanding Academy, National Teaching School and Maths Hub, and The St Marylebone Church of England Bridge School, a Free Special School working with secondary school age students who have speech, language and communication difficulties. Alongside our two schools St Marylebone works closely with the Royal Academy of Music and the University of Westminster, providing chaplaincy services to both, and also with Regent’s University.

 

As a parish church in the Diocese of London, we share a vision of a Church for this great world city that is Christ-centred and outward looking. By God’s grace we seek to be more confident in speaking and living the Gospel of Jesus Christ, more compassionate in serving others with the love of God the Father and more creative in reaching new people and places in the power of the Spirit.

 

Construction of the present church was first considered in 1770. A site was given in Paddington Street and plans were prepared by Sir William Chambers, Architect to the King, but the scheme was abandoned and the land purchased for a burial ground. In 1810-11 the present site was secured, and it was intended that this building should be another Chapel of Ease supporting the work of the nearby Parish Church.

 

Plans were prepared by Thomas Hardwick, who was a pupil of Sir William Chambers, and the foundation stone was laid on 5 July 1813. Later, it was decided to enlarge the building and make it the Parish Church; the present tower was erected, the front widened, and the gigantic Corinthian-columned Portico built. A vaulted crypt extended under the whole area of the church, with extensive catacombs under the west side.

 

These catacombs were bricked up in 1853, and in the mid-1980s, with due authority, the coffins were removed from the crypt for reinternment at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey and the crypt was transformed into the present-day Healing and Counselling Centre, Sacrament Chapel, Jerusalem Chapel and NHS Marylebone Health Centre.

 

The present parish church, opened in February 1817, is the fourth known parish church building to serve this parish.

 

The first, established sometime in the early 12th century, was dedicated to St John the Evangelist and was the parish church of the manors of Tyburn and Lisson (Lillestone); it stood on what is now Oxford Street, on a site near Stratford Place. Indeed, it is thought that the open courtyard of Stratford Place is the graveyard of the first parish church.

 

By 1400, St John's had fallen into disrepair and was demolished; a new parish church was built opposite Tyburn Manor House (now the site of the Duchess of Devonshire Wing of The London Clinic). The site of this parish church and its successor church (is now the Old Church Memorial Garden at the north end of Marylebone High Street); Francis Bacon was married in this Church on the 11th May 1606.

 

In 1740, a new parish church was built on the same site and here you will find buried one of the founders of Methodism, Charles Wesley, along with other members of his family. He is commemorated by an obelisk memorial. Here it was that Lord Byron was christened, and here Lord Nelson attended services and, on the 3rd May 1803, brought his daughter by Lady Hamilton (who had herself been married here) to be baptised. This parish church was associated with many famous figures and the interior was used by William Hogarth for the ‘Marriage of the Rake’ in his ‘Rake’s Progress’ cycle of paintings. Some of the many memorials that crowded its walls, including a memorial to the cupbearer to Ann of Denmark and Queen Henrietta Maria, may be seen in the present parish church’s stairways, to which they were transferred when the old parish church was demolished (following damage in World War II) in 1949. Other people connected with this building include: James Figg, James Gibbs, Edmond Hoyle, John Rysbrack, John Allen, James Ferugson, Alan Ramsay, Stephen Storace, the dukes of Portland and Caroline Watson.

 

The present parish church was originally built (at a cost of some £80,000.00) without its fine Roman Renaissance style frescoed apse; this was added in 1884 by Thomas Harris. The original position of the altar was in what is now the Choir, just below the cross built into the ceiling. This altar (before which Robert Browning married Elizabeth Barrett in 1846) can be seen in the Holy Family Chapel. Above it hangs the painting of the Holy Family donated to the new parish church by Benjamin West, PRA (1738 -1820).

 

The parish church of 1817 is reputed to have sat 3,000 people and, above the present gallery, a second gallery (the remains of which can be seen either side of the organ) wrapped around three sides of the building.

 

The present organ, one of the finest recital instruments in the country, was built by Rieger Orgelbau of Austria and was commissioned in July 1987; it was a joint venture between the parish church and the neighbouring Royal Academy of Music. The organ pipes, which can be seen at the ends of the first floor galleries, belong to earlier instruments.

 

Charles Dickens and his family lived for many years next door to the parish church in Devonshire Terrace. He brought his son here to be baptised and the ceremony is described in his novel Dombey and Son.

 

Bomb damage sustained during World War II destroyed the stained glass windows and also the Georgian roof. Fragments of the destroyed windows were collected and set in the windows you see today.

 

The fine crystal chandeliers were relocated here in 1968 from the old Council Chamber in St Marylebone Town Hall when the Borough of St Marylebone merged with other metropolitan boroughs of Middlesex to form the City of Westminster.

 

A fine collection of memorials adorn the walls of the parish church; many of them belonging to colonial administrators and governors and members of the East India Company

 

St Marylebone Parish Church has always had a fine musical tradition and today the professional choir of ten voices is supported by the Director of Music, the Assistant Director of Music and an Organ Scholar. Sir John Stainer wrote his Oratorio Crucifixion for the choir in 1886 and it has been performed every year since.

 

The Browning Room, which commemorates the marriage of the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett here on 12th September 1846, has a stained glass window gifted by The Browning Society of Winnipeg. Two fine brass bas reliefs of the poets can also be found in this room.

 

The fine apse, the mahogany benches and choir stalls together with the gilded English baroque decorative scheme all date from the mid-1880s and were designed by Thomas Hardwick. Work begun in 1884 and a memorial stone laid by Mrs Gladstone can be seen on the outside wall of the apse. The decoration of the apse was carried out by Edward Armitage, RA; his decorative scheme once included murals between the great windows on the gallery level but these were painted over in the late 1940s.

 

A Christian place of worship has served his part of central London for 900 years. Every London parish church north of Oxford Street, to the east of the Edgware Road and to the west of Cleveland Street, has been ‘planted’ by the Rector and Wardens of this parish. In 2016, the Heritage Lottery Fund awarded the parish church a grant of nearly £4 million to help complete an ambitious programme of works that will repair the ravages of time, extend the crypt and help tell the story of St Marylebone from rural hamlet to urban metropolis. St Marylebone, by God’s Grace, continues its work of Changing Lives and Shaping Community.

 

The Revd Canon Stephen Evans, Rector

 

www.stmarylebone.org/index.php?option=com_content&vie...

 

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St Marylebone Parish Church is an Anglican church on the Marylebone Road in London. It was built to the designs of Thomas Hardwick in 1813–17. The present site is the third used by the parish for its church. The first was further south, near Oxford Street. The church there was demolished in 1400 and a new one erected further north. This was completely rebuilt in 1740–42, and converted into a chapel-of-ease when Hardwick's church was constructed. The Marylebone area takes its name from the church. Located behind the church is St Marylebone School, a Church of England school for girls.

 

The first church for the parish was built in the vicinity of the present Marble Arch c.1200, and dedicated to St John the Evangelist.

 

A new, small church built on the same site opened in April 1742. It was an oblong brick building with a small bell tower at the west end. The interior had galleries on three sides. Some monuments from the previous church were preserved in the new building.In 1818 it became a chapel-of-ease to the new parish church which superseded it .[4] It was demolished in 1949, and its site, at the northern end of Marylebone High Street is now a public garden.[5]

 

Charles Wesley lived and worked in the area and sent for the church's rector John Harley and told him "Sir, whatever the world may say of me, I have lived, and I die, a member of the Church of England. I pray you to bury me in your churchyard."[citation needed] On his death, his body was carried to the church by eight clergymen of the Church of England and a memorial stone to him stands in the gardens in High Street, close to his burial spot. One of his sons, Samuel, was later organist of the present church.

 

It was also in this building that Lord Byron was baptised in 1788, Nelson's daughter Horatia was baptised (Nelson was a worshipper here), and Richard Brinsley Sheridan was married to Elizabeth Ann Linley. This is also the church in which the diplomat Sir William Hamilton married Emma Hart (Amy Lyon), later the lover of Admiral Horatio Nelson.[citation needed] The architect James Gibbs was buried there in 1751.[6] The crypt was the burial place of members of the Bentinck family, including William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland (died 1809)

 

Construction of a new church was first considered in 1770, with plans prepared by Sir William Chambers and leadership given by the 3rd and 4th Dukes of Portland (owners of much of the area, by now a wealthy residential area to the west of London that had outgrown the previous church), but the scheme was abandoned and the land donated for it in Paddington Street purchased for a burial ground.

 

In 1810–11[citation needed] a site was secured to build a chapel-of-ease on the south side of the new road near Nottingham Place.[8] facing Regent's Park.[9] Plans were drawn up by Chambers's pupil Thomas Hardwick [10] and the foundation stone was laid on 5 July 1813. When construction was almost complete, it was decided that this new building should serve as the parish church, and so alterations were made to the design. On the north front, towards the new road, a Corinthian portico with eight columns (six columns wide, and two deep at the sides), based on that of the Pantheon in Rome, replaced the intended four-column Ionic portico surmounted by a group of figures. A steeple was built, instead of a planned cupola.[11] No changes were made to the design of the interior, but plans to build houses on part of the site were abandoned.[12]

 

Entrance to the church from the north is through three doorways beneath the portico, each leading into a vestibule.[13] There are arched windows above the outer doorways. A blank panel above the central one was intended to house a bas-relief depicting Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Hardwick's church was basically rectangular in plan, with two small extensions behind the entrance front, and two wings placed diagonally flanking the far end (the liturgical east),[14] which originally housed private galleries equipped with chairs, tables and fireplaces.[15][16] Two tiers of galleries, supported on iron columns ran around three sides of the church.[17] The organ case was immediately above the altar screen; in the centre of the organ case was an arched opening with a "transparent painting" by Benjamin West, of the angel appearing to the shepherds. Other church furniture included a large pulpit and reading desk and high box pews.

 

The steeple, placed over the central vestibule, rises around 75 feet (23 m) above the roof (and thus about 120 feet (37 m) above the ground).[18] It is in three storeys;the first, square in plan, contains a clock, the second circular in plan, has twelve Corinthian columns supporting an entablature, while the third is in the form of a miniature temple raised on three steps and surrounded by eight caryatids, with arched openings between them. The whole structure is topped by a dome and weathervane.[19]

 

The vaulted crypt, extending under the whole church, with extensive catacombs under the west side was used for burials until being bricked up in 1853. Since 1987, following the reinterment of the 850 coffins it previously contained at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey, it has housed a healing and counselling centre.

 

The church was completed in 1817, at an overall cost of £80,000.

 

A local resident was Charles Dickens (1812–1870), in Devonshire Terrace, whose son was baptised in this church (a ceremony fictionalised in "Dombey and Son"). Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett were married in this phase of the church in 1846 (their marriage certificate is preserved in the church archives). The church was also used in location filming for the 1957 film recounting their story, The Barretts of Wimpole Street.[20]

 

Composer Sir John Stainer wrote an oratorio specifically for the choir at St Marylebone; The Crucifixion was first performed in the church on 24 February 1887, which was the day after Ash Wednesday. It has been performed annually at the church ever since, usually on Good Friday.

 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Marylebone_Parish_Church

 

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