Last week, the Society’s annual Awards ceremony took place at the church of St Anne’s, Limehouse, one of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s six London churches. Here, Philip Reddaway of Care for St Anne’s, writes more about its history and the plans to deliver its full restoration alongside the opening of new spaces and the churchyard to the local community.

Next time you take the number 15 bus along the Commercial Road, you will eventually come to a wondrous sight. Rearing improbably in gleaming Portland Stone from the clutter of surrounding fried chicken shops, Bet Freds and Turkish barbers is Nicholas Hawksmoor’s St. Anne’s, surely one of the finest examples of English Baroque Architecture.

Consecrated in 1730, St. Anne’s was one of six London churches designed exclusively by Nicholas Hawksmoor and was the result of Queen Anne’s Fifty New Churches Act, 1711. This Act was intended to provide new churches, which in turn would proclaim the authority of Anglicanism in areas where population growth had risen rapidly, and where many non- conformist groups were prospering. Originally the church was even more imposing, built on open pasture but within easy reach of the maritime trades – sea captains, chandlers, rope makers and ordinary seamen – prospering on the Thames nearby. To this day St. Anne’s is a designated maritime church, permitted to fly the Naval White Ensign flag from its tower.

As the visitor approaches the church from St. Anne’s Passage, the exterior stonework has little decoration other than the edging and chunky, rusticated quoins on the corners. Hawksmoor imbues this apparent simplicity with energy. Heavy buttresses support the structure, throwing shadows which are then caught by the heavily recessed windows, and on the flanks of the church. This effect is accentuated by the tower being wider than it is deep, with the vertical lines of the buttresses emphasising its exceptional height (for collectors of pub quiz facts – the second highest mounted clock in London after Big Ben). The lantern at the top provides a dynamic contrast, its diagonal corners exploding from the centre.

Hawksmoor was never one for following the architectural styles of the day. St. Anne’s evocatively demonstrates Hawksmoor’s animated approach to the components of classical design and shows well his idiosyncratic style which has attracted so many passionate devotees and has influenced so many subsequent architects. The Poet Laureate John Betjeman, an enthusiastic supporter of Baroness Kennet’s 1970s campaign to prevent the demolition of Hawksmoor churches, wrote in a newspaper article that St. Anne’s was one of the ten buildings in England “for which I am prepared to go to the stake.”

Not everything at St Anne’s today is attributable to Hawksmoor. Sadly, on Good Friday 1850 a calamitous fire engulfed the interior of the church destroying the existing stained-glass east window, the organ and all the interior furniture as well as the ceiling and the roof. The architect Philip Hardwick was commissioned to restore St. Anne’s with a brief to follow the Hawksmoor original as closely as possible. It seems – not necessarily a given with Victorian architects – that he was true to the brief. A contemporary account from The Builder attests to the restoration mirroring the original and more recent research has confirmed this.

In fact, Hardwick, together with his son, also a Philip, and later Sir Arthur W. Blomfield were responsible for much that is admired in the interior by visitors today such as the great stained-glass window by Charles Clutterbuck, the pulpit with ornate wood carving by William Gibbs Rogers and the new organ, a prize winner at the 1851 Great Exhibition, by Gray & Davison, and Hardwick’s intricately carved stone font.

Visitors who enjoy the churchyard should also be grateful to another Victorian innovator, Fanny Wilkinson, the first professional female landscape designer. She transformed the space, no longer by law a burial ground following the cholera epidemics of the 1850s, into an elegant, tree lined park, the largest green space in Limehouse.

But the twentieth century was not so kind to St. Anne’s. Located in one of London’s poorest boroughs, Tower Hamlets, there was little financial resilience against the dilapidated fabric of the building and facilities remained hopelessly inadequate for changing times. It perhaps reached its nadir in the early 1970s with a congregation shrunk to around ten, most of the windows onto the nave with gaping holes, and no space for parish meetings; the adjacent Church Institute in Three Colt Street having been sold off to developers (it is now smart flats) for an absurdly low price.

Rescue, to a degree, arrived with the radical reshaping of the Docklands urban landscape in the 1980’s. The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC), perhaps looking for positive PR as they bull-dozed the area, gave generously to any heritage sites on their designated regeneration map., Fortunately St. Anne's fell just within the northern perimeter. Under the energetic and highly creative direction of architect Julian Harrap, repairs were made to the tower, a part of the crypt was cleared and restored for parish use and the exterior given a much-needed facelift. Harrap’s extraordinary elaborate system of steel trusses securing the ceiling to the roof still attracts a reaction of awe from visiting young architects.

But forty years on, this Grade 1 listed heritage church building remains on the Historic England At Risk Register, with interior decoration visibly suffering from water ingress. It lacks step-free access, and the presence of more than 20 family vaults in the crypt, complete with coffins, represents a serious barrier to our ambition to create much needed space for community activities. But with a re-energized Care for St. Anne’s, the secular charity set up in the 70s to restore the church and an increasingly evolving remit to better connect the building to the local community, there is both clear need and a focused vision for change.

That vision is to transform the church by developing a vibrant community and cultural programme that breathes new life into this landmark structure. The aim is to reconnect people with the heritage and stories of this architecturally significant building in which creativity, community and Christian ministry thrive together, serving one of London’s densest, poorest and ethnically diverse population, as Hawksmoor always intended.

With the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, we are 18 months into our Hawksmoor300 campaign. With the tercentenary of the church’s consecration in sight, the ambition is to gloriously restore St Anne’s as St. George’s Bloomsbury and Christchurch Spitalfields have been in recent times. The vision is for an accessible working church fully adapted to the future needs of its community and taking centre stage in the cultural life of Limehouse.

St. Anne’s Limehouse is the last of the great Hawksmoor churches to receive a full restoration.

The cost of the project is now c.£10m. The National Heritage Lottery Fund has offered £3.5m but Care for St Anne’s need to raise the remainder and the need for funding is urgent. Please consider a donation to the Hawksmoor300 campaign

You can learn more about St Anne’s here and donate here.

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