Yesterday I went with The Friends of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to the Fitzrovia Chapel. Above, is what it looked like when the Middlesex Hospital was demolished; rather forlorn.
I think it apt to quote a few lines by Shelley.
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Now it looks like this, surrounded by high-rise blocks of flats.
It is a well-restored unremarkable small church – from the outside. It was built in 1891 by John Loughborough Pearson, as the chapel for Middlesex Hospital, and completed in 1929 by his son Frank. The long gestation period was because of lack of funds. If you read JLP’s wiki entry, Truro Cathedral is considered his UK masterpiece although some think St John’s Cathedral in Brisbane takes first prize.
May I beg to differ? Step into the Fitzrovia Chapel and marvel at the richness of the decoration in marble and mosaic. But you say why have I never heard of this gem? Well it needed extensive restoration and only re-opened in 2015. One moment you are in an unremarkable residential development north of Oxford Street and the next you are in a Byzantine gleaming jewel box. Actually Historic England calls it Italian Gothic but I like my description better. Take a look. The font is Connemara marble.
It is magnificent and well worth visiting. The only jarring note is he lamps from Habitat, above.
What an excellent building and thank goodness that it was not demolished as part of the development.
The ‘before’ image makes very clear why churches have naves. The temporary props even make it look like a trireme.
Alan Higgs
Thank you for your piece on Pearson and his Fitzrovia chapel. By chance I have been visiting Pearson’s All Saints, in Hove actually. It is more obviously Gothic Revival than your marbled offering. But huge, all of a piece and uplifting. I am not at all sure that all the glass in all the windows is by the same hand, Clement Bell of the firm Clayton and Bell, as is sometimes claimed. But it seems some of it dates from the 1920s and maybe the ’30s. Anyway, it all fits well into the unity of the place.
It is astonishing how vigorous and enduring the spirit of the Victorian Anglo-Catholic movement has proved. Brighton and Hove has several of their great piles, and a good few of them have practically daily services, with doors open to all. I am only a spiritual tourist, but got a welcome.
It is curious how the 19th Ruskinite and Arts and Crafts taste survived well into the last century, and into Modernism. WW1 memorial stained glass often shows the bold simplicity which flourished in Socialist Realism, but sits perfectly well with the medieval glass all around it whether original or cod. And then of course there is your admired Evie Hone (and what might be called her school) and John Piper – and after them what I cannot help thinking is mostly a post-Beetle decline into a happy-clappy nursery aesthetic.
A gem! Am I right in thinking that it is no longer consecrated?
Should we start a collection to replace the lamps? A pair of Italian Gothic/Byzantine Jewel lamps shouldn’t be too expensive?
In fact it was never consecrated as patients and workers at the Middlesex were drawn from many different faiths.
Didn’t Rudyard Kipling lie in state in this chapel? Hope it is well cared for…who maintains the structure…local authority?
Indeed he did – and Peter Sellers.