St Luke's was a large, crowded parish on Old St, EC1, just beyond the wall, on the north side of the City of London. From the London Encyclopaedia: "One of the last churches to be built under the Act of 1711 which provided for 50 new churches in London. St Luke's was built in 1727-33 to relieve St Giles Cripplegate. George Dance the Elder was a member of the vestry; and the church has often been erroneously attributed to him. But, in fact, it was designed by the Surveyors of the Commissioners for Building 50 New Churches, John James and Nicholas Hawksmoor. In 1959 the building was found to be unsafe and the roof was taken off leaving only the obelisk spire and the walls. The parish was reunited with St Giles Cripplegate. Buried here are George Dance the Elder, in 1768 (a black marble slab was provided 20 years later by his children but has now gone), and the type founders, William Caslon, father and son, in 1766 and 1778 respectively." It exists as a ruin. Some of the burial ground around the church survives. St Lukes was in the Rural Deanery of the City of London and the last baptism and marriage registers closed in 1966, when the church integrated with St Giles Cripplegate and others. The scope of registers is: 1733-1966 baptisms, marriages and burials (with gaps) and indexed. Registers deposited with London Metropolitan Archives. The Archive reference is P76/LUK. Burials probably took place up to approx. 1855, after which there was a general cessation in London churchyards because of a danger to public health. Several municipal and private cemeteries were then established to accommodate the dead, such as Abney Park. Many of the dead are thought to be buried at the huge St. Pancras and Islington Cemetery. The body of the church was simple and not unusual. It was of Portland stone neatly put together. The angles of the tower were chamfered below and re-entrant above: a skilful arrangement. On top of the tower however was a most innocent looking obelisk. The architect is not known. Horace Walpole said John James; vestry records show that George Dance the Elder was paid a sizeable sum for mason's work, but that two other masons received more. This was, anyway, the season for obelisks. St Luke's was a new parish in 1732, cut out of St Giles Cripplegate, and it partly extended over Moorfields. This great bog, made by the silting up of the Wall Brook and other streams where they entered the city walls, was only reclaimed in the sixteenth century. It became first a pleasure resort for Londoners then, during the Plague and the Fire, a place of refuge and lastly a new suburb. As such it qualified for one of the Fifty Churches. The land was bought in 1718 and the church consecrated in 1733. In spite of alterations in 1877-78 under Sir Arthur Blomfield, when the east end was chancelled up a little and the reading desk removed. An Ionic order supported an extremely heavy entablature from which rose a depressed vault. Attached to the columns were galleries North and South, curving into the western organ gallery, all light-looking in contrast to the heaviness above. Each bay over the galleries was made small by its own little barrel-vault. East and West the nave ceiling ran suddenly up against the end wall, unprepared, rather clumsy. In the eighteenth century a neatly varied screen of tiny lodges, railings, urned gates and pedestalled urns stood between the street and the churchyard. At the center of the parapet on the south side of the roof was a large urned sundial. Until the 1930's two small domes surmounted the flat roofs on either side of the tower. The roof was taken off in 1959, as the building had become unsafe (War damage, perhaps?) and the parish was reunited with St Giles Cripplegate. The shell of St Luke's is still there, with its distinctive spire in the shape of an obelisk, in its churchyard. The area generally known as St Luke's is bounded by Goswell Rd, City Rd and the northern City boundary. It was part of the Borough of Finsbury, and is now part of the London Borough of Islington. The London Metropolitan Archives has most of the church's records, but some very interesting vestry records are held by the Islington local Studies Archives. St Lukes - known as Lousy St Lukes, because its weather vane was supposed to look like a louse, was closed in the 1966 because the foundations had settled and the church had become unsafe. Compiled from information received from individuals in response to an email enquiry on St Lukes. |
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