The Parish Church of St Luke, Chelsea, is an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

, on Sydney Street, Chelsea, London SW3, just off the

King's Road King's Road or Kings Road (or sometimes the King's Road, especially when it was the king's private road until 1830, or as a colloquialism by middle/upper class London residents) is a major street stretching through Chelsea and Fulham, both ...

. Ecclesiastically it is in the Deanery of Chelsea, part of the

Diocese of London The Diocese of London forms part of the Church of England's Province of Canterbury in England. It lies directly north of the Thames, covering and all or part of 17 London boroughs. This corresponds almost exactly to the historic county of ...

. It was designed by James Savage in 1819 and is of architectural significance as one of the earliest Gothic Revival churches in London, perhaps the earliest to be a complete new construction. St Luke's is one of the first group of

Commissioners' church A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglicanism, Anglican church in England or Wales built with money voted by Parliament of the United Kingdom, Parliament as a result of the (58 Geo. 3. ...

es, having received a grant of £8,333 towards its construction with money voted by

Parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

as a result of the

Church Building Act 1818 A Commissioners' church, also known as a Waterloo church and Million Act church, is an Anglican church in England or Wales built with money voted by Parliament as a result of the ( 58 Geo. 3. c. 45) and the ( 5 Geo. 4. c. 103). The 1818 ...

. The church is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, ...

as a designated Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

. The gardens of St Luke's are Grade II listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

History

In the early 19th century Chelsea was in the process of expanding from a village to an area of London. St Luke's was built as a new, more centrally located replacement for the existing parish church, now known as Chelsea Old Church, which until then was also known, though unofficially, as St Luke's. This was initially a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...

to the new building following its opening. The new church was the idea of the rector of Chelsea, the Hon. and Revd Gerald Wellesley, brother of the 1st Duke of Wellington, who held his office from 1805 to 1832, seeing the consecration of the church in 1824. In 1819 Savage's plans for the church were chosen from among more than forty submissions. Designed in imitation of the Gothic churches of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the church is built of

Bath stone Bath Stone is an oolitic limestone comprising granular fragments of calcium carbonate originally obtained from the Middle Jurassic aged Great Oolite Group of the Combe Down and Bathampton Down Mines under Combe Down, Somerset, England. Its h ...

and has a stone vault supported externally by

flying buttresses The flying buttress (''arc-boutant'', arch buttress) is a specific form of buttress composed of a ramping arch that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass, to convey to the ground the lateral forces that push a wall out ...

. It was, according to Charles Locke Eastlake "probably the only church of its time in which the main roof was groined throughout in stone". Sir

John Summerson Sir John Newenham Summerson (25 November 1904 – 10 November 1992) was one of the leading British architectural historians of the 20th century. Early life John Summerson was born at Barnstead, Coniscliffe Road, Darlington. His grandfather wo ...

notes similarities to

Bath Abbey The Abbey Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, commonly known as Bath Abbey, is a parish church of the Church of England and former Benedictines, Benedictine monastery in Bath, Somerset, Bath, Somerset, England. Founded in the 7th century, i ...

King's College Chapel, Cambridge King's College Chapel is the chapel of King's College in the University of Cambridge. It is considered one of the finest examples of late Perpendicular Gothic English architecture and features the world's largest fan vault. The Chapel was bu ...

, and the tower at

Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalen College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford. It was founded in 1458 by Bishop of Winchester William of Waynflete. It is one of the wealthiest Oxford colleges, as of 2022, and ...

. All are masterpieces of the

Perpendicular style Perpendicular Gothic (also Perpendicular, Rectilinear, or Third Pointed) architecture was the third and final style of English Gothic architecture developed in the Kingdom of England during the Late Middle Ages, typified by large windows, four-ce ...

, although some of the detailing refers to earlier Gothic styles. Savage originally intended the tower to have an open spire, like that of Wren's

St Dunstan-in-the-East St Dunstan-in-the-East was a Church of England parish church on St Dunstan's Hill, halfway between London Bridge and the Tower of London in the City of London. The church was largely destroyed in the Second World War and the ruins are now a publi ...

, but this was forbidden by the Board of Works. Summerson praises "an air of competence and consequence about the design which makes one respect its architect very much. The interior has real dignity and the fittings are carefully detailed". Eastlake, writing in the 1870s, by which time Gothic Revival architects had developed a far better grasp of the historical styles, criticised the building for its "machine made look" and "the cold formality of its arrangement". St Lukes's was an ambitious building, costing £40,000 and designed to accommodate 2,500 people. With Sir

John Soane Sir John Soane (; né Soan; 10 September 1753 – 20 January 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neoclassical architecture, Neo-Classical style. The son of a bricklayer, he rose to the top of his profession, becoming professor ...

Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone Holy Trinity Church, in Marylebone, Westminster, London, is a Grade I listed former Anglican church, built in 1828 and designed by John Soane. In 1818 Parliament passed an act setting aside one million pounds to celebrate the defeat of Napoleon ...

, it was the most expensive Commissioner's church in terms of its total cost. The

organ Organ and organs may refer to: Biology * Organ (biology), a group of tissues organized to serve a common function * Organ system, a collection of organs that function together to carry out specific functions within the body. Musical instruments ...

installed in the new church, with thirty-three sounding stops, was built by W. A. A. Nicholls but completed by Gray. It was rebuilt, using the original case and many of the pipes, by John Compton in 1932. The interior of the church was originally arranged as a "preaching house" with a large

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, accesse ...

, a small altar, and galleries over the aisles. The arrangement was altered in the 1860s, but the galleries over the nave aisles were retained. Unusually for an Anglican church of the period, the St Luke's soon acquired a large

altarpiece An altarpiece is a painting or sculpture, including relief, of religious subject matter made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, ...

of the ''

Deposition of Christ The Descent from the Cross (, ''Apokathelosis''), or Deposition of Christ, is the scene, as depicted in art, from the Gospels' accounts of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus taking Christ down from the cross after his crucifixion (John 19, ). I ...

'' by

James Northcote James Northcote (22 October 1746 – 13 July 1831) was a British Painting, painter. He became a member of the Royal Academy in 1787, and a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, Royal Institute of the Netherlands in 1809 ...

. Originally sharing its parish with Chelsea Old Church, in 1839 a further church, Christ Church, just off Flood St nearby, was added as a

. Between 1860 and 1986 Christ Church was a separate parish, but is now re-united with St Luke's as the parish of St Luke and Christ Church, Chelsea, though many aspects of parish business are done separately for the two churches.

People associated

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

was married at St Luke's to Catherine Hogarth, who lived in Chelsea, on 2 April 1836, two days after the publication of the first part of the ''

Pickwick Papers ''The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club'' (also known as ''The Pickwick Papers'') was the first novel serialised from March 1836 to November 1837 by English author Charles Dickens. Because of his success with ''Sketches by Boz'' published ...

'', his first great success. The architect Frederic Chancellor was baptised at St Luke's on 18 May 1825. The artist Robert Gill was married on 25 May 1825, shortly before returning to India, where he spent the rest of his life, much of it copying the paintings of the

Ajanta Caves The Ajanta Caves are 30 rock-cut architecture, rock-cut Buddhist caves in India, Buddhist cave monuments dating from the second century Common Era, BCE to about 480 CE in Aurangabad district, Maharashtra, Aurangabad district of Maharashtra sta ...

. The architect William Willmer Pocock married here in 1840. The parents of

Robert Baden-Powell Lieutenant-General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell, ( ; 22 February 1857 – 8 January 1941) was a British Army officer, writer, founder of The Boy Scouts Association and its first Chief Scout, and founder, with ...

, the founder of the

Scouting Scouting or the Scout Movement is a youth social movement, movement which became popularly established in the first decade of the twentieth century. It follows the Scout method of informal education with an emphasis on practical outdoor activi ...

movement, were married on 10 March 1846, for the third time in the case of his father Baden Powell, a distinguished mathematician and theologian. Other marriages have included William Hewson the Victorian theological writer, in 1830, John Prideaux Lightfoot, later Vice-Chancellor of the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, in 1835, and the parents of

Harry Arthur Saintsbury Harry Arthur Saintsbury, usually called H. A. Saintsbury (18 December 1869 – 19 June 1939), was an English actor and playwright. A leading man, he became well known for his stage interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, was an early mentor of Char ...

in 1854. The father of the authors

Charles Kingsley Charles Kingsley (12 June 1819 – 23 January 1875) was a broad church priest of the Church of England, a university professor, social reformer, historian, novelist and poet. He is particularly associated with Christian socialism, the workin ...

and

Henry Kingsley Henry Kingsley (2 January 1830 – 24 May 1876) was an English novelist, brother of the better-known Charles Kingsley. He was an early exponent of muscular Christianity in his 1859 novel '' The Recollections of Geoffry Hamlyn''. Life Kingsley ...

became the rector in 1836, when his sons were 18 and 6 respectively. Other clergy serving the parish have included Derek Watson and Ross Hook as Rector and Hugh Otter-Barry as

curate A curate () is a person who is invested with the ''care'' or ''cure'' () of souls of a parish. In this sense, ''curate'' means a parish priest; but in English-speaking countries the term ''curate'' is commonly used to describe clergy who are as ...

. The position of organist and choirmaster has been held by several notable musicians, often as a stepping-stone to cathedral positions. Two organists were composers who also wrote the tunes for hymns: Sir John Goss who wrote '' Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven'' and the carol '' See, Amid the Winter Snow'', and John Ireland. Henry Forbes was another 19th-century composer who was organist. More recently Denis Vaughan and Jeremy Filsell have been Directors of Music. The Earls Cadogan, who owned the land around the church, have always been the patrons of the church, and there is a wall monument to Lt Colonel Henry Cadogan, who died in 1813 at the Battle of Vittoria, by Sir

Francis Chantrey Sir Francis Leggatt Chantrey (7 April 1781 – 25 November 1841) was an English sculptor. He became the leading portrait sculptor in Regency era Britain, producing busts and statues of many notable figures of the time. Chantrey's most notable w ...

. Two actors and actor-managers who were famous in their day are buried in the churchyard: William Blanchard, known for comic roles, and Daniel Egerton. Both died in 1835. The educator, author and natural philosopher

Margaret Bryan Margaret Bryan, Baroness Bryan (c. 1468 – c. 1551/52) was lady governess to the children of King Henry VIII of England, the future monarchs Mary I, Elizabeth I, and Edward VI, as well as the illegitimate Henry FitzRoy.She was also Lady Gover ...

who died in 1836 is buried here alongside her eldest daughter, Anne. James Savage, the architect of the church, is also buried there. St Luke's also houses the memorial chapels of the Punjab Frontier Force and 3rd Gurkha Rifles of the

British Indian Army The Indian Army was the force of British Raj, British India, until Indian Independence Act 1947, national independence in 1947. Formed in 1895 by uniting the three Presidency armies, it was responsible for the defence of both British India and ...

. The screen panels decorated with regimental badges are in

engraved glass Engraved glass is a type of decorated glass that involves shallowly engraving the surface of a glass object, either by holding it against a rotating wheel, or manipulating a "diamond point" in the style of an engraving burin. It is a subgroup of ...

by Josephine Harris.

Gallery

File:St Luke's Church Exterior 1, Chelsea, England - Diliff.jpg , The west front, facing Sydney St File:St Luke's Church Nave, Chelsea, England - Diliff.jpg , The nave, looking east towards the altar File:St Luke, Sidney Street, Chelsea, London SW3 - West end - geograph.org.uk - 1875631.jpg , Looking west down the nave File:The Parish Church of St Luke, Chelsea, Organ - geograph.org.uk - 1569913.jpg , The west end and organ File:St Luke, Sidney Street, Chelsea, London SW3 - Window - geograph.org.uk - 1875632.jpg , The east window, with no human figures

Film and television

*St Luke's featured in a scene of the 1996 film '' 101 Dalmatians.'' *St Luke's also featured in the fourth series of ''

Made in Chelsea ''Made in Chelsea'' (abbreviated ''MIC'') is a British Scripted reality, structured-reality television series broadcast by E4 (TV channel), E4. ''Made in Chelsea'' chronicles the lives of affluent young people in the West London and South West a ...

.'' *In Captain America: Civil War, the funeral of

Peggy Carter Margaret Elizabeth "Peggy" Carter is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. She is usually depicted as a supporting character in books featuring Captain America. Created by writer Stan Lee and artist ...

takes place at St Luke's.

References

External links