In the middle of the Strand, just before the entrance way to the City, established on an island surrounded by hordes of traffic on either side, proudly stands St Mary le Strand. Referred to as the “jewel in the Strand”, today this church has recently reopened to the public prior to a major restoration and redevelopment of the area.
The original church of St Mary’s was destroyed in 1549 for the building of Somerset House. The parishioners petitioned Church Commissioners in 1711 for a new church to be reinstated on the Strand. Fortuitously, the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches following the Great Fire of London in 1666 had been set up by an Act of Parliament the year before. St Mary le Strand was the first of twelve executed. Building work started in 1714 and the new church was consecrated on 1st January 1724.
James Gibbs received the commission to design and rebuild St Mary’s: his first architectural commission. Scottish born Gibbs had studied in Rome with Carlo Fontana and Pietro Francesco Garroli and returned to England in 1709. John Erskine, Earl of Mar, and Sir Christopher Wren backed him onto the Commission and from his other works, especially St Martin in the Fields which he built over 1721-6, we can see the influence Wren had upon him. Gibbs intermixed traditional English baroque with Italian styles. His architectural style placed him as a rival to Lord Burlington and Colen Campbell who engineered the move towards the prominence of Palladian architecture in the mid-1700s. Gibbs architectural designs were seen as controversial. Indeed, his original design for St Mary le Strand was rejected and his plans were scaled down to the church we see today.
St Mary le Strand’s interior features a barrel-vaulted nave with a plaster worked ceiling of white and gold. The carvings were inspired by Luigi Fontana’s work in the church of Saint Apostoli and Pietro da Cortona’s Santi Luca e Martina in Rome. Wooden pews and a intricately carved wooden pulpit finish off the décor. The steeple which Gibbs completed in 1717 looks very similar to that of St Clement Danes church, several yards to the west, which Gibbs added to Wren’s church in 1719.
The church did suffer bomb damage during the Second World War but luckily managed to escape demolition. Its location has always been problematic, especially with regards to the noise of the traffic, much like Sir Christopher Wren’s St Martin Ludgate.
Notable figures attached to the church include Bonnie Prince Charlie who allegedly renounced his Catholicism and converted to the Anglican faith during a secret visit to London in 1750. Also, the parents of Charles Dickens were married there in 1809.
St Mary le Strand is the church of the WRNS (Women’s Royal Navy Service) and currently it is open to the public on weekdays for worship and outreach. Plans have been developed for redesigning the Strand which will be executed in the coming years – St Mary le Strand will dominate the centre as the jewel in the crown.
Trafalgar Times 