St Mary's Church, Charing Cross Road (in full, St Mary the Virgin), was 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 in

Charing Cross Road Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus (the intersection with Oxford Street), which then merges into Tottenham Court Road. It leads from the north in the direc ...

(originally Crown Street),

Westminster Westminster is the main settlement of the City of Westminster in Central London, Central London, England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, ...

, from 1851. The building was formerly the site of an ancient church, called 'The Greek Church', and St Mary's was never fully built, with only the chancel and the north aisle being completed. The structure was demolished in the 1930s.

Description

The parish was originally part of the parish of

St Anne's Church, Soho St Anne's Church serves in the Church of England the Soho section of London. It was consecrated on 21 March 1686 by Bishop Henry Compton as the parish church of the new civil and ecclesiastical parish of St Anne Within the Liberty of Westminst ...

, and became a separate parish in its own right in 1854, within 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 ...

. In the 1860s J.C.Chambers was the incumbent and among his helpers was Sister Kate who was then a Novice with the

Society of Saint Margaret The Society of Saint Margaret (SSM) is an order of women in the Anglican Church. The Anglican religious order, religious order is active in England, Haiti, Sri Lanka, and the United States of America, United States and formerly Scotland. History ...

. She helped with caring for the sick and dying and teaching at the church's day schools and night schools. The work was abandoned in 1865 but her experience was recorded in her two books ''Memories of a Sister of S Saviour's Priory'' and ''Old Soho Days and other Memories'' (in 1906). In 1900,

Leopold Stokowski Leopold Anthony Stokowski (18 April 1882 – 13 September 1977) was a British-born American conductor. One of the leading conductors of the early and mid-20th century, he is best known for his long association with the Philadelphia Orchestra. H ...

formed and trained the choir there and played the organ. In 1932, St Mary's was united with St Anne's, and by the end of 1934 the church had been demolished. The 17th-century stone bearing the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

inscription which recorded the construction of the old nave was presented to the

Greek Orthodox Greek Orthodox Church (, , ) is a term that can refer to any one of three classes of Christian Churches, each associated in some way with Greek Christianity, Levantine Arabic-speaking Christians or more broadly the rite used in the Eastern Rom ...

cathedral of Aghia Sophia, Moscow Road, Bayswater where it was re-erected. The cornerstone of 1900 was similarly set up in the church of St. Mary the Virgin, Kenton, Middlesex, which was built with the aid of funds from the sale of the site. The sale was concluded in March 1935, when the site was bought by the

London County Council The London County Council (LCC) was the principal local government body for the County of London throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today ...

to form part of the site of a new building to house

Saint Martin's School of Art Saint Martin's School of Art was an art school, art college in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1854, initially under the aegis of the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Saint Martin's beca ...

References

*'The Greek Church (Later St. Mary's, Crown Street) and St. Martin's Almhouses', Survey of London: volumes 33 and 34: St Anne Soho (1966), pp. 278–87.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Mary's Church, Charing Cross Road Religious organizations established in 1851 1934 disestablishments in England Former Church of England church buildings Former churches in the City of Westminster 19th-century Church of England church buildings 1851 establishments in England Demolished buildings and structures in London