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St James's Church, Piccadilly
The Church in 2011
51°30′31″N 0°8′12″W / 51.50861°N 0.13667°W / 51.50861; -0.13667Coordinates: 51°30′31″N 0°8′12″W / 51.50861°N 0.13667°W / 51.50861; -0.13667
Location	Piccadilly, London
Country	England
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Liberal
Website	www.sjp.org.uk
History
Dedicated	13 July 1684
Architecture
Heritage designation	Grade I
Architect(s)	Christopher Wren
Administration
Diocese	Diocese of London
Clergy
Rector	The Revd Lucy Winkett
Curate(s)	The Revd Lindsay Meader
NSM(s)	The Revd Hugh Valentine The Revd Ivan Khovacs
Laity
Churchwarden(s)	Deborah Colvin and Trevor Lines

View looking southeast from the tower, showing many of the landmarks of London.

St James's Church, Piccadilly, also known as St James's Church, Westminster, and St James-in-the-Fields, is an Anglican church on Piccadilly in the centre of London, United Kingdom. The church was designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren.

The church is built of red brick with Portland stone dressings. Its interior has galleries on three sides supported by square pillars, and the nave has a barrel vault supported by Corinthian columns. The carved marble font and limewood reredos are both notable examples of the work of Grinling Gibbons.

Present

Like many central London churches surrounded by commercial buildings and ever fewer local people, St James’s lost numbers and momentum in the 1960s and 1970s. When, in 1980, Donald Reeves was offered the post of rector, the bishop allegedly said "I don’t mind what you do, just keep it open."^{[citation needed]} During that decade and most of the 1990s numbers and activity grew, the clergy and congregation gaining a reputation for being a progressive, liberal and campaigning church. That has continued. The "congregation" rejects that description and prefers "community". It is centred on the Eucharist, the celebration of the principal Christian sacrament. It finds expression in a wide range of interest groups: spiritual explorers, labyrinth walking, Julian prayer meetings, the Vagabonds group (a lively discussion group which takes its name from a William Blake poem and in faithfulness to that text meets in a local alehouse), a LGBT group and many others. The community has actively supported, and supports, the ordination of women to all the orders of the church, the just treatment of asylum seekers and those living in poverty. It celebrates what it regards as the "radical welcome" found in the heart of the Gospels and attested to by the Incarnation.

Concerts

Concerts are regularly held in the church.^[1] Concerts have included performances by popular contemporary musicians such as R.E.M.,^[2] the folk musician Laura Marling as part of her "church tour",^[3] the collegiate Indian-American music group Penn Masala ^[4] and Devin Townsend on his 2015 UK acoustic tour.^[5]

Outdoor art space

Replica section of the Israeli Security Wall, built in the church grounds, as part of the international protest against the Israeli wall.

Hauser & Wirth, a contemporary art gallery, is running a programme of outdoor sculpture exhibitions in Southwood Garden in the grounds of the church. The first exhibition was of work by the Swiss sculptor Hans Josephsohn, running from September 2009 to January 2010.^[6] Southwood Garden was created in the churchyard by Viscount Southwood after World War II as a garden of remembrance, "to commemorate the courage and fortitude of the people of London," and was opened by Queen Mary in 1946.^[7]

From 23 December 2013 to 5 January 2014 the "Bethlehem Unwrapped" demonstration against the Israeli West Bank barrier featured an art installation by Justin Butcher, Geof Thompson, and Dean Willars, which included a large replica section of the wall. The installation blocked the view of the church, other than a section of the top of the tower, which was stated by church authorities to be part of the point of the demonstration.

Market

The Piccadilly Market was established in 1981 and operates six days a week in the courtyard of St James's Church. Monday and Tuesday: Food Market, 11:00 am – 5:00 pm. Wednesday – Saturday: Arts and Craft Market, 10:00 am – 6:00 pm.

History

Interior circa 1806

The Church interior on Easter Sunday 2016

In 1662, Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans, was granted land for residential development on what was then the outskirts of London. He set aside land for the building of a parish church and churchyard on the south side of what is now Piccadilly. Christopher Wren was appointed the architect in 1672 and the church was consecrated on 13 July 1684 by Henry Compton, the Bishop of London. In 1685 the parish of St James was created for the church.

The church was severely damaged by enemy action in 1940, during the Second World War. Works of restoration were designed by Sir Albert Richardson and carried out by Rattee and Kett.^[8]

Notable vicars and other staff

• 
  Samuel Clarke was rector from 1709 to 1729 and was one of the leading intellectual figures of eighteenth-century Britain.


• Gerrard Andrewes


• 
  Leopold Stokowski was choirmaster from 1902 until 1905 when he left for a similar position in New York.

Notable baptisms

• 
  William Blake, baptised 1757.


• 
  George Thomas Smart, baptised 2 Jun 1776.^[9]
  


• Lord Chesterfield


• Lord Chatham

St James's in 1815

Notable weddings

• John Ross and Alicia Arnold (the great-grandparents of Francis Scott Key; who wrote the American national anthem) were married.^[10]
  


• 
  Ince and Mayhew, founding partners of the furniture-makers, married sisters in a double wedding here in 1762.


• 
  Frederick de Horn and Angelica Kauffman, 1767. Horn was an imposter who was already married and Kauffman was a successful artist.^[11]
  


• 
  George Bass, explorer of Australia and the Bass Strait, married Elizabeth Waterhouse in 1800.


• 
  Philip Hardwick, the architect, married Julia Shaw in 1819.


• 
  General Sir Robert Arbuthnot, KCB, married Harriet Smith in 1826.


• Prince Friedrich Wilhelm von Hanau, eldest son of Frederik William, Elector of Hesse-Kassel (or Hesse-Cassel), married the actress Auguste Birnbaum in 1856.


• Also in 1856, George Augustus Hopley, the Belgian Consul to Charleston South Carolina, in the US, married the French-born Felicité Claudine Rancine on 26 July. (George later died in Paris on 28 May 1859, age 52.)


• 
  John Cyril Porte, an aviation pioneer and air racer, married Minnie Miller on 16 August 1916. The ceremony was conducted by John E T Evitt, Curate.


• 
  Robert Graves, an author and poet, married Nancy Nicholson in the church in 1918. The best man was George Mallory.


• 
  James Arbuthnot MP, married Emma Broadbent, daughter of Michael Broadbent, in 1984.


• 
  John Seward Johnson I, the American heir and son of Robert Wood Johnson I (co-founder of Johnson & Johnson, married Ruth Dill, the sister of Diana Dill, in 1924.

Notable burials

• 
  John Arbuthnot, buried 1735


• 
  Sir Charles Asgill, 2nd Baronet, equerry to Frederick, Duke of York
  


• 
  Mary Beale, one of the first professional women artists, buried 1699


• 
  Sir Richard Croft, obstetrician


• 
  William Douglas, 4th Duke of Queensberry (also known as "Old Q.")^[12]
  


• 
  William Elliot of Wells, equerry to King George II, buried 1764


• 
  James Gillray, notable caricaturist


• The Earl of Grantham, Lord Chamberlain to Queen Caroline of Ansbach
  


• 
  Lord Anne Hamilton, younger son of James Hamilton, 4th Duke of Hamilton
  


• 
  William Hunter, anatomist


• 
  Pedro Vicente Maldonado, Ecuadorian scientist


• 
  William McGillivray and his wife, Magdalen MacDonald


• 
  Benjamin Stillingfleet, botanist, the first bluestocking^[13]
  


• 
  Thomas Sydenham (1624–89)


• 
  Willem van de Velde, the elder, marine painter


• 
  Willem van de Velde, the younger, marine painter


• 
  Samuel Turner, early British visitor to Tibet, interred 1802

Sources

• 
  London Architecture, written by Marianne Butler, published in 2004 by Metro Publications, .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit}.mw-parser-output q{quotes:"""""""'""'"}.mw-parser-output code.cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration{color:#555}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration span{border-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{font-size:100%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-right{padding-right:0.2em}
  ISBN 1-902910-18-4
  

See also

• List of Christopher Wren churches in London


• List of churches rebuilt after the Great Fire but since demolished


• List of churches and cathedrals of London

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to St James's Church, Piccadilly.

• St James's Church, Piccadilly website


• Detailed architectural description and history from the Survey of London


• Deanery of Westminster (St Margaret)


• Piccadilly Market at St James's Church Piccadilly


• 360° panorama inside St James's Church Piccadilly