Ship of Fools: St Anne’s, Soho, London, England

The Mystery Worshipper

Ship of Fools: St Anne’s, Soho, London, England

Circling the altar for communion in a welcoming, inclusive, accessible church in the heart of London

Read the full Mystery Worshipper report here

Revd Simon Buckley

Thank you for this lovely review. What caught your eye on the bronze crucifix was not a piece of stray masking tape (perish the thought!) but a leaf cast in the metal work, it does rather catch the light: a sign of new life emerging from the cross.......

Bishops Finger

Welcome aboard @Revd Simon Buckley - the review was well-deserved.


I used to work in London (many years ago) and the tower of the old St Anne's was familiar to me, but I never got to go inside the *new* church. It's great to hear of St Anne's flourishing, given that so many of the other churches of the area (I can think of 3 or 4) have disappeared over the years...

Ariel

My great grandparents were married there, I believe. That would be in the 19th century, and, like the rest of Soho, it would have been very different then.

Bishops Finger

Soho was at one time a very poor and populous area, resulting in a number of new churches being provided in the 19thC (mostly carved out of the parish of the still-flourishing St James, Piccadilly).

St Thomas, Regent Street, along with St Luke, Berwick Street, St Peter, Great Windmill Street, and St John the Baptist, Great Marlborough Street, all sprang up, but subsequently withered and died. Hence my delight at hearing that St Anne's is still going strong, in what looks to be a very attractive and useful building!

The only other nearby C of E church I can think of is the justly-famous St Martin-in-the-Fields...I'm sure @Revd Simon Buckley won't mind me saying that St Anne's is on a much more modest scale, and none the worse for that.

Revd Simon Buckley

Yes the building is modest, and I am thankful for that , as it means more of our energy can go into ministry to people rather than maintenance of a huge and ornate building.

Bishops Finger

Revd Simon Buckley wrote: »

Yes the building is modest, and I am thankful for that , as it means more of our energy can go into ministry to people rather than maintenance of a huge and ornate building.

Indeed!

Box Pew

I get the attractions of a low-maintenance building, but here the worship space is described as window-less. Traditionally, churches have windows to connect what happens inside with the outside world, the weather, the time of day, the infinite heavens.

Its a bit sad if, in the name of affordability, worship has to be in a windowless room. I wonder why, when St Anne's was reconstructed after bombing, that choice was made? Maybe the church wanted to hide from Soho outside, which in those days was a byword for prostitution and strip-clubs. I do hope thats not the explanation!

Revd Simon Buckley

St Anne's isn't window-less, and the reviewer doesn't describe it as such. It has interesting stained glass designed by students from St Martin's College of Art: a large window depicting an abstract image of St Anne and another the shattering of the original glass in the blitz. The back of the church has glass patio doors opening onto a shady courtyard garden. Light doesn't come streaming in due to the high buildings and trees around us, but windowless it isn't!

Bishops Finger

There are some views of the interior - complete with windows and glass! - here:

https://londonchurchbuildings.com/2014/05/10/st-anne-soho/

Bishops Finger

ETA: I've just checked the MW Report, and, oddly enough, the interior is described as windowless - which it clearly isn't!