I’ve always liked the buildings of Nicholas Hawksmoor. Even as a kid I remember driving past St Anne’s Limehouse on the road from Essex to central London and thinking it was different to other churches. Hawksmoor, an architect and student of Christopher Wren, designed six churches as part of the ‘Commission for Building Fifty New Churches’ in 1711. Only twelve of these churches were actually built in total and were known as the Queen Anne Churches. I’ve visited all six of the Hawksmoor churches over the last few years and despite being totally agnostic about religious matters they’ve had a real impact on how I look at London.

This post about St. George’s, Bloomsbury, the sixth and final Hawksmoor church, is the first in a series of about Hawksmoor and his architecture.

St. George’s, Bloomsbury was built in 1730 and can be seen in the Hogath engraving Gin Lane (see below).

The tower is the most interesting feature of the church and was based on the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.

The statue on the top is King George I in Roman dress and there are statues of lions and unicorns fighting around the base of the steps.

The church has had an interesting history with events including the funeral of suffragette Emily Davison, and a requiem for the dead of the Abyssinian war which was attened by Emperor Haile Selassie.

The many stained glass windows in the church depict Jesus and the saints. A great time to visit the church is late afternoon when the sun is pouring through the windows.

In recent years the church has been restored by the World Monuments Fund and is bright and clean compared to a few years ago when it was blackened by pollution from Londons’ roads (St Pauls and The Monument have also gone through a cleaning process recently).