The Secrets Of St Anne’s Limehouse
Click here to book for my tour through September and October
Tomorrow, Sunday 10th September, I am having a bookstall in Limehouse Town Hall from 12-6pm as part of Limehouse Creates. Please come and say hello, and take the rare opportunity to visit St Anne’s which is open to the public at the same time.
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
You may also like to take a look at
The Secrets of Christ Church, Spitalfields
Gorgeous photographs! Wish I was there.
The photo taken inside the roof is beautiful, and I’m assuming that there has been impressive restoration up there. Thank you for these photos. The stunning engineering and design, and the building’s rich history need to be known in this jaded time.
What wonderful atmospheric photos!
Thanks GA, always wanted to see the interior with the font where my grandmother was baptised in 1867. Her father was a Vestryman (Churchwarden) there in the 1870’s.
Just wonderful.
Your talents are so very welcome, cherished, there’s so many from you but this is a fave.
They remind us of the happy house, when our london crew at arch 10 was a place of greatness.
As for the madhouse at the other number 10…
What utterly gorgeous photos. They evoke the sense of mystery you describe, GA. A sense of architecture in the service of connecting us mere humans to something timeless and sublime.
Great photographs.
Here’s an off-piste art link that the photo’s made me rememberf – Michael Simpson’s paintings of ladders and leper squints, confessionals and benches.
http://www.michael-simpson.co.uk/LSquintPages/Leper-Squint16.html
What beautiful plaster ceiling moldings, GA! The bucket window openings to bring in air and keep out rain are an architectural feature I’d never seen before. Thank you!
What great photos! I’ve only seen the outside but hope to visit the interior one day. The anchor-shaped clock hands are a wonderful reminder of St. Anne’s proximity to the water. Thank you for posting these images.
Lovely photos, the clock at St Anne’s was our living room clock for 20 years, as our windows on Gill Street gave us a wonderful view. Now living in Haarlem in the Netherlands with another church clock tower keeping us connected with chimes throughout the day.
Thank you for your evocative photos which compelled me to visit the Limehouse event today. Having an historical interest in the area, inspired by discovering ancestral connections, it meant a lot to me to be able finally to go inside St Annes. I even took the tour up to the Bell Tower and rang a bell. That’s a first for me! I’m sorry that I didn’t get to meet the Gentle Author but I did have a very interesting chat about the history of the area with one of the stall holders. I will be back!