Churches of the British Isles

The small tower contains a single bell and a clock, beneath a short spire. The architect was probably Benjamin Timbrell, and his work apparently inspired much church building in the English colonies of New England. The lease ran out in 1829, so the chapel was quickly made a chapel of ease to St George Hanover Square (see 'related links'). American serviceman and women frequented it during the Second World War, and a tablet on the west wall commemorates that.

The Church of the Immaculate Conception is on the northern side of Farm Street, midway between Chesterfield Hill and the western corner of Farm Street before it turns southwards. The church, which is also known as Farm Street Church, was opened in 1849 as the first to be run by the Society of Jesus, otherwise known as the Jesuits, a religious order within the Roman Catholic Church. Originally a simple Jesuit church, it became a parish church in 1966.

Third Church of Christ Scientist, London lies on the northern side of Curzon Street, opposite Half Moon Street. Built by Lanchester & Rickards, who are best known for their design of Methodist Central Hall (see below), the corner stone at the lower left-hand side of the door was laid on 9 July 1910. An extra floor was added in 1930, along with the tower. The original auditorium at the rear of the site was redeveloped as offices and apartments surrounding a courtyard.

Christ Church Mayfair shares its premises with Bible Talks at 21 Down Street, on the north-west corner with Brick Street. It opened as Christ Church Down Street in 1865 for this section of Mayfair. With congregations falling, it closed for Anglican worship in the 1990s. It re-opened as the Evangelical Bible Talks church which brought in congregation from St Helen Bishopsgate (see links). A second service was started in 2004, named Christ Church for a new congregation.

The Queen's Chapel is on the eastern side of Marlborough Road in St James's, which joins Pall Mall to The Mall. This Christian chapel was designed by Inigo Jones and was built between 1623 and 1625 as an adjunct to St James's Palace. It is one of the facilities of the British monarch's personal religious establishment, the Chapel Royal Buckingham Palace, and should not be confused with the room which serves as that chapel in the palace, which is just across the road.

The chapel was built for the Roman Catholic Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, at a time at which Catholic churches were prohibited in England. From the 1690s it was used by continental Protestant courtiers, built as an integral part of St James's Palace. When the adjacent private apartments burned down in 1809 they were not replaced and in 1856-1857 Marlborough Road was built between the palace and the chapel. It became a Chapel Royal again in 1938.

Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, is on Victoria Street, just off Parliament Square, next to the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre, and facing Westminster Abbey (see links). It was built in 1912 to mark the centenary of the death of John Wesley, founder of Methodism. It took over the site previously occupied by the 1876 Royal Aquarium, Music Hall & Imperial Theatre. Between 1932-2000 the hall was the headquarters of the Methodist organisation.

St Margaret's Church stands alongside Westminster Abbey, on its northern flank. Until 1540, the abbey itself was run by Benedictine monks. They found themselves being disturbed by the people of Westminster who came to hear mass, so they arranged for the construction of this church next to the abbey to serve the public. The church was dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch about whom little is known, although her cult was extremely popular in the Middle Ages.

The church was built around the later part of the eleventh century, ministered by the monks until the Dissolution in 1540. The first church was Romanesque and survived until the reign of Edward III (1327-1377). Its nave was then replaced with one in the Perpendicular style. The entire church was rebuilt between 1482-1523, and has undergone restoration in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. The church now serves the Houses of Parliament.

All photos on this page by P L Kessler.