Secrets Of St Anne’s, Limehouse
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The exhibition The Original Chinatown in Limehouse, Myths & Realities is at St Anne’s Limehouse, Three Colt St, E14 8HH, each Thursday to Saturday 10-4pm until July, admission free.
To me, St Anne’s Limehouse has always been the most mysterious of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s churches. So it was the fulfilment of a long-held ambition when I was granted the opportunity to visit the hidden spaces – from the secret chambers high up inside the tower, graven with eighteenth century graffiti, all the way down to the depths of the crypt which harbours the relics of a World War II Air Raid shelter.
Chamber in the tower with a wall of eighteenth century graffiti
Staircase winding ever upward
The workings of the clock with the names of clock-winders chalked on the door
Ladder up to into the tower
Door into the roof
Inside the roof
View from the rear roof towards the tower
In the gallery
In the gallery
In the gallery
Plasterwork above the gallery
Stairs to the gallery
Lamp bracket in the rear vestibule
Clock hand in the shape of an anchor in the vestibule
The font
In the crypt
St Anne’s, Limehouse
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Fascinating. You are brave to go all the way up to the roof like that.
That exquisite lamp bracket, and the photograph of the winding stairs particularly fine, I thought.
Thank you.
Shame about the rubble in the second to last picture, perhaps whoever looks after St Anne’s could organise some volunteers to remove it ?
Some really lovely photos. Thank you for sharing.
Perhaps more magical than Christ church in its current status of decay. And the churchyard is beautiful, transporting you away from London despite being adjacent to commercial road.
It’s fascinating that Hawksmoor churches in legend share a connection to sacred geometry & that St Anne’s in Limehouse too is said to form part of a mythical pentacle pattern ..!