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Nicholas Hawksmoor’s Churches

November 17, 2017
by the gentle author

St George’s, Bloomsbury 1716 – 1731

In 1711, Nicholas Hawksmoor was fifty years old and, although he had already worked with Christopher Wren on St Paul’s Cathedral and for John Vanbrugh on Castle Howard, the buildings that were to make his name as an architect in London were yet to come. In that year, an Act of Parliament created the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches to serve the growing population on the fringes of the growing city. Only twelve of these churches were ever built, but Nicholas Hawksmoor designed six of them and – miraculously – they have all survived, displaying his unique architectural talent to subsequent generations and permitting his reputation to rise as time has passed.

Living in the parish of Christ Church and within easy reach of the other five Hawksmoor churches, I realised that sooner or later I should make a pilgrimage to visit them all. And so, taking advantage of some fleeting spells of sunlight and clear skies in recent days, I set out to the west, the south and to the east from Spitalfields to photograph these curious edifices.

In 1710, the roof of the ancient church of St Alfege in Greenwich collapsed and the parishioners petitioned the Commission to rebuild it and Hawksmoor took this on as the first of his London churches. Exceeding any repair, he remodelled the building entirely, although his design was “improved” and the pilasters added to the exterior by fellow architect Thomas Archer, compromising the clean geometric lines that characterise Hawksmoor’s other churches. His vision was further undermined when the Commission refused to fund replacing the medieval tower with an octagonal lantern as he wished, so he retained the motif, employing it at St George-in-the-East a few years later. Latterly, the tower of St Alfege was refaced and reworked by Hawksmoor’s collaborator John James in 1730. Yet in spite of the different hands at work, the structure presents a satisfyingly harmonious continuity of design today, even if the signature of Hawksmoor is less visible than in his other churches.

Before Hawksmoor’s involvement with St Alfege was complete in 1716, he had already begun designs for St George-in-the-East, St Anne’s Limehouse and Christ Church Spitalfields. In each case, he was constructing new churches without any limitation of pre-existing structures or the meddling hands of other architects. These three churches share many characteristics, of arched doorways counterpointed by arched and circular windows, and towers that ascend telescopically, in graduated steps, resolving into a spire at Christ Church, a lantern at St George-in-the-East and a square tower at St Anne’s. This is an energetic forceful mode of architecture, expressed in bold geometric shapes that could easily become overbearing if the different elements of the design were not balanced within the structure, but the success of these churches is that they are always proportionate to themselves. While the outcome of Hawksmoor’s architecture is that they are awe-inspiring buildings to approach, cutting anyone down to size, conversely they grant an increased sense of power to those stepping from the door. These are churches designed to make you feel small when you go in and big when you come out.

In 1716, Hawksmoor began work on what were to be the last two of his solo designs for churches, St Mary Woolnoth and St George’s, Bloomsbury. Moving beyond the vocabulary of his three East End churches, he took both of these designs in equally ambitious but entirely different and original directions. St Mary Woolnoth in the City of London was constructed upon a restricted site and is the smallest of Hawksmoor’s churches, yet the limitation of space resulted in an intense sombre design, as if the energy of his larger buildings were compressed and it is a dynamic structure held in tense equilibrium, like a coiled spring or a bellows camera held shut.

St George’s Bloomsbury was the last of Hawksmoor’s churches and his most eccentric, completed in 1731 when he was seventy as the culmination of twenty extraordinarily creative years. Working again upon a constricted site, he contrived a building with a portico based upon the Temple of Bacchus in Baalbek and a stepped tower based upon the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus which he adorned with a statue of George I upon the top, flanked by the lion and unicorn to celebrate the recent defeat of the Jacobites. Undertaken with such confidence and panache, Hawksmoor’s design is almost convincing and the enclosed location spares exposure, permitting the viewer to see only ever a portion of the building from any of the available angles.

The brooding presence of Hawksmoor’s churches has inspired all manner of mythologies woven around the man and his edifices. Yet the true paradox of Hawksmoor’s work stems from the fact that while he worked in the Classical style, he could never afford the opportunity to undertake the Grand Tour and see the works of the Renaissance masters and ruins of antiquity for himself. Thus, he fashioned his own English interpretation which was an expression of a Gothic imagination working in the language of Classical architecture. It is this curious disconnection that makes his architecture so fascinating and gives it such power. Nicholas Hawksmoor was incapable of the cool emotional restraint implicit in Classicism, he imbued it with a ferocity that was the quintessence of English Baroque.

St Alfege, Greenwich 1712-16

St Mary Woolnoth, Bank 1716-24

St George-in-the-East, Wapping  1714-1729

St Anne’s, Limehouse 1714-1730

Christ Church, Spitalfields 1714-1729

You may also like to take a look at

A View of Christ Church Spitalfields

Spires of City Churches

In City Churchyards

11 Responses leave one →
  1. November 17, 2017

    The Hawksmoor Churches have their own atmosphere. I grew up always seeing these towering edifices wherever I went, and they are a part of my earliest memories. Valerie

  2. November 17, 2017

    Thanks for this. His churches always make me feel rather uncomfortable, St George Bloomsbury especially. Perhaps it is time I took time for a visit as well.

  3. November 17, 2017

    Really nice tight informative piece with great photos. First Class!

  4. Greg Tingey permalink
    November 17, 2017

    Christ-Church Spitalfields:
    1: I see you were able to get a much better viewpoint than most of us (!)
    2: To think that, at one point, a very fashionable sub-bishop ( Huddleston) wanted it demolished.

  5. Robin ballance permalink
    November 17, 2017

    And thanks to Colin Amery and the rest of the Spitalfields Trust for saving Christchurch in Spitalfields along with his work with the World Monuments Fund in Britain for the restoration of St George’s Bloomsbury that included the recharging of the Lion and the Unicorn. For this we owe him a huge debt of thanks in his continued struggle to ensure architectural heritage has been saved

  6. Robin ballance permalink
    November 17, 2017

    And thanks to Colin Amery and the rest of the Spitalfields Trust for saving Christchurch in Spitalfields along with his work with the World Monuments Fund in Britain for the restoration of St George’s Bloomsbury that included the recarving of the Lion and the Unicorn. For this we owe him a huge debt of thanks in his continued struggle to ensure architectural heritage has been saved

  7. Helen Breen permalink
    November 17, 2017

    Greetings from Boston,

    GA, thanks for the informative backdrop on Hawksmoor and his genius. Interesting how the fact that he did not take the classical tour redounded to his advantage (and ours) in that “he fashioned his own English interpretation which was an expression of a Gothic imagination working in the language of Classical architecture.”

    Glad that so many survive. Must check them out when I return to London…

  8. November 17, 2017

    Lovely post! I came late to appreciating Hawksmoor’s work (and laterally, through the overheated but entertaining ‘biography’ by Peter Ackroyd), but have made up for it since. I used to walk past St Mary Woolnoth and suspect that the architects of the Bank of England got their ideas from it – it looks more like a vault for something precious than the bank itself (which I suppose it is, in a way). All of Hawksmoor’s churches are fabulously idiosyncratic – like edifices conceived in a fevered masonic mind.

  9. Peter Holford permalink
    November 17, 2017

    Magnificent churches with Christ Church being the greatest (in my opinion). It’s such a shame that his career was stymied after the death of Wren by being superseded by Benson who had the right connections. Hawksmoor lost out again when, in a blatant act of nepotism, Benson appointed his brother as his deputy. I’m sure things like this can’t happen nowadays.

    Hawksmoor, after a stint as Commissioner for Sewers in Westminster (he was sacked from that job!) was rescued by Vanburgh. Without Vanburgh we probably wouldn’t have had Hawksmoor’s great churches.

  10. November 17, 2017

    Dear GA …I love the expression. “These are churches designed to make you feel small when you go in and big when you come out.”

    Its most appropriate that you should write this blog now. We gathered at Christ Church last week for the funeral of Amber. My stepdaughter who lived for a while in Rodney Archer’s flat. My modest blog features lighting candles in Christ Church this Sunday.

    You have given me a project for Christmas. . Escaping the exigencies of family Christmas I am hiding in the Premier Inn just down the road. I have already lined up the Orange and Lemon churches and now have a new project. Hawksmoor . With Bertie of course.

  11. Margaret MCDermott permalink
    December 10, 2017

    His churches give me the creeps.I’m sure you know Gentle Author that one of Jack the Rippers victims was found in Brush field St, just below the Spitalfields church Coincidence perhaps.

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