St Luke's is a historic Anglican church building in central London, and in the

London Borough of Islington The London Borough of Islington ( ) is a London borough in Inner London. Whilst the majority of the district is located in north London, the borough also includes a significant area to the south which forms part of central London. Islington ha ...

. It served as a parish church from 1733 to 1959. It was designed by John James and

Nicholas Hawksmoor Nicholas Hawksmoor (probably 1661 – 25 March 1736) was an English architect. He was a leading figure of the English Baroque style of architecture in the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries. Hawksmoor worked alongside the princip ...

, and is a

Grade I listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ire ...

. Following closure in 1959, the church stood derelict and roofless for some 40 years, but since 2003 has been a music centre operated by the

London Symphony Orchestra The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) is a British symphony orchestra based in London. Founded in 1904, the LSO is the oldest of London's orchestras, symphony orchestras. The LSO was created by a group of players who left Henry Wood's Queen's ...

and known as LSO St Luke's. It is the home of the LSO's community and music education programme, LSO Discovery. The main body of the building seats up to 372 and is used by the LSO for rehearsals, and by a wide variety of musicians for performances and recording. Additional rooms in the crypt provide practice facilities for professional musicians, students and community groups.

History

The church is sited on

Old Street Old Street is a street in inner north-east Central London that runs west to east from Goswell Road in Clerkenwell, in the London Borough of Islington, via St Luke's and Old Street Roundabout, to the crossroads where it meets Shoreditch Hi ...

, north of the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

. It was built to relieve the City church of

St Giles-without-Cripplegate St Giles-without-Cripplegate is an Anglican church in the City of London, located on Fore Street within the modern Barbican complex. When built it stood without (that is, outside) the city wall, near the Cripplegate. The church is dedicated to ...

Cripplegate Cripplegate was a gate in the London Wall which once enclosed the City of London. The gate gave its name to the Cripplegate ward of the City which straddles the line of the former wall and gate, a line which continues to divide the ward into ...

, under the

Commission for Building Fifty New Churches The Commission for Building Fifty New Churches (in London and the surroundings) was an organisation set up by Act of Parliament in England in 1711, the New Churches in London and Westminster Act 1710, with the purpose of building fifty new churc ...

, an attempt to meet the religious needs of London's burgeoning 18th-century population. The ancient parish of St Giles lay partly within the City and partly outside its boundaries in

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a historic county in southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the ceremonial county of Greater London, with small sections in neighbourin ...

: under the Commissioners' scheme these two parts were to be separated, with the Middlesex portion (historically the Manor of Finsbury) becoming a new parish of St Luke's. Construction began in 1727 and was completed in 1733, when the church was consecrated on 18 October (

St Luke Luke the Evangelist (Latin: '' Lucas''; grc, Λουκᾶς, '' Loukâs''; he, לוקאס, ''Lūqās''; arc, /ܠܘܩܐ לוקא, ''Lūqā’; Ge'ez: ሉቃስ'') is one of the Four Evangelists—the four traditionally ascribed authors of t ...

's day), and the parish detached from that of St Giles. The architects were the joint salaried surveyors to the Commission, John James and

. James is thought to have been responsible for the body of the church, and Hawksmoor for the west tower, the flanking staircase wings, and the

obelisk An obelisk (; from grc, ὀβελίσκος ; diminutive of ''obelos'', " spit, nail, pointed pillar") is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape or pyramidion at the top. Originally constructed by An ...

spire (a most unusual feature for an Anglican church).Downes 1960. The spire was topped by an unusual

weather vane A wind vane, weather vane, or weathercock is an instrument used for showing the direction of the wind. It is typically used as an architectural ornament to the highest point of a building. The word ''vane'' comes from the Old English word , ...

depicting the head of a dragon with a fiery

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma, and sometimes also a Comet ta ...

-like tail: this was misinterpreted locally as a

louse Louse ( : lice) is the common name for any member of the clade Phthiraptera, which contains nearly 5,000 species of wingless parasitic insects. Phthiraptera has variously been recognized as an order, infraorder, or a parvorder, as a result ...

, and by the mid-20th century had gained the church the nickname "lousy St Luke's". The church stood on often waterlogged ground, near the (historically) notoriously marshy

Moorfields Moorfields was an open space, partly in the City of London, lying adjacent to – and outside – its northern wall, near the eponymous Moorgate. It was known for its marshy conditions, the result of the defensive wall acting like a dam, i ...

area, and from an early date (but particularly from the beginning of the 20th century) suffered from problems of subsidence. The effects of the subsidence remain visible in the distorted shapes of the windows on the north side of the building.

Burials

Burials in the small churchyard included: *

Mark Catesby Mark Catesby (24 March 1683 – 23 December 1749) was an English naturalist who studied the flora and fauna of the New World. Between 1729 and 1747 Catesby published his ''Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands'', the fi ...

(1683–1749), naturalist. His grave is lost. *

William Caslon William Caslon I (1692/1693 – 23 January 1766), also known as William Caslon the Elder,Oxford Dictionary of National Biography was an English typefounder. The distinction and legibility of his type secured him the patronage of the leadin ...

the elder (1692/1693–1766), type founder, his son

William Caslon II The Caslon type foundry was a type foundry in London which cast and sold metal type. It was founded by the punchcutter and typefounder William Caslon I, probably in 1720. For most of its history it was based at Chiswell Street, Islington, was the ...

(1720–1778) and other members of the family. They are commemorated by a listed chest tomb. * George Dance the Elder (1695–1768), architect, and at one time a member of the

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquial ...

. His grave is lost. In preparation for the conversion of the church into a music centre, the crypt was cleared of burials in the year 2000. A total of 1053 burials were archaeologically recorded, removed, and reburied at

Brookwood Cemetery Brookwood Cemetery, also known as the London Necropolis, is a burial ground in Brookwood, Surrey, England. It is the largest cemetery in the United Kingdom and one of the largest in Europe. The cemetery is listed a Grade I site in the Regi ...

, Surrey. A television documentary, "Changing Tombs" (2001), recorded the process.

Deconsecration and reuse

In 1959, in response to structural problems at the church resulting from subsidence, and to a declining inner-city population, 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. For centuries the diocese covered a vast tract and bordered the dioceses of Norwich and Lincoln to the nort ...

closed St Luke's and the parish was re-absorbed into that of

.Purcell Miller Tritton 2000, pp. 19, 43. The following year the font and organ case were moved to St Giles' church, the

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ...

and altar rails to

St Andrew Holborn __NOTOC__ St Andrew Holborn was an ancient English parish that until 1767 was partly in the City of London and mainly in the county of Middlesex. Its City, thus southern, part retained its former name or was sometimes officially referred to as ...

, and the roof was removed for safety reasons. The crypt was bricked up in 1964. The empty shell of St Luke's became a dramatic ruin for some 40 years, overgrown with trees, despite being a Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...

. After several controversial proposals to redevelop offices inside the retained walls, it was converted by the St Luke Centre Management Company Ltd for the

as a

concert hall A concert hall is a cultural building with a stage that serves as a performance venue and an auditorium filled with seats. This list does not include other venues such as sports stadia, dramatic theatres or convention centres that m ...

, rehearsal and recording space, and educational resource. The conversion was designed by Axel Burrough at London architects Levitt Bernstein, who installed a heavy concrete slab roof which keeps out traffic noise from the nearby road. Though this is similar in profile to the former eighteenth-century roof, its great weight is supported on tall steel columns inside the hall described by the designer as "tree-like". The interior acoustic can be varied for different events, from full orchestra to soloists, by the use of absorbent surfaces that unroll like blinds across the ceiling and down the walls, whilst the seating and staging are also highly flexible. Work was completed in 2002, and the centre was brought into use early in 2003.

Special events

The venue regularly hosts open rehearsals by the

in advance of concerts at the nearby

Barbican Hall The Barbican Centre is a performing arts centre in the Barbican Estate of the City of London and the largest of its kind in Europe. The centre hosts classical and contemporary music concerts, theatre performances, film screenings and art exh ...

, and has pioneered genre-busting events such as the Eclectica series, which combines classical, jazz, experimental and electronic sound-worlds. Junior Trinity, the junior department of

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance is a music and dance conservatoire based in London, England. It was formed in 2005 as a merger of two older institutions – Trinity College of Music and Laban Dance Centre. The conservatoire has ...

have also performed at LSO St Luke's as part of their seasonal concerts with their Symphony Orchestra, Wind Orchestra, Sinfonia, Big Band, and other notable groups. During 2006 the BBC used the venue to record concerts by

Bruce Springsteen Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949) is an American singer and songwriter. He has released 21 studio albums, most of which feature his backing band, the E Street Band. Originally from the Jersey Shore, he is an originat ...

and Paul Simon for broadcast. Sir

Elton John Sir Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is a British singer, pianist and composer. Commonly nicknamed the "Rocket Man" after his 1972 hit single of the same name, John has led a commercially successful career a ...

also recorded a concert to publicise his album '' The Captain & the Kid''. In 2007 MTV used the venue to record a concert from Editors, for broadcast in the same year.

Patti Smith Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter and author who became an influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album ''Horses''. Called the "punk poet ...

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive ...

and Lenny Kaye performed a tribute to

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Genera ...

in 2007.

Van Morrison Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards. As a teenager in ...

recorded a concert at St Luke's on

BBC Four BBC Four is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was launched on 2 March 2002

Sessions on 25 April 2008 featuring songs from his 2008 album, '' Keep It Simple''.BBC Four sessions
/ref> In September 2008,

Duffy Duffy may refer to: People *Duffy (surname), people with the surname Duffy or Duffey *Duffy (nickname) *Duffy (singer) (born 1984), Welsh singer, born Aimee Ann Duffy Places *Duffy, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Duffy, Ohio ...

played there for BBC Sessions; the concert was televised on 12 October 2008.

References

Sources

* * *

External links

*
LSO site on church
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Luke Old Street Churches in the London Borough of Islington Grade I listed churches in London Former churches in London John James (architect) buildings Music venues in London London Symphony Orchestra Nicholas Hawksmoor buildings 1733 establishments in England