St. Paul's Shadwell - London, UK
N 51° 30.565 W 000° 03.138
30U E 704545 N 5710596
St. Paul's church is located on the south side of The Highway in east London and just to the north of Shadwell basin.
Waymark Code: WMDMMA
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 02/01/2012
Views: 3
The church was built between 1817 and 1820 by John
Walters. It is a Grade II* listed building. The base of the church is made from
limestone with stock brick above. The spire, which is a local landmark, is also
made from limestone.
"The Church is like a rectangular box with roughly
equal projections at the east and west ends, which contain the tower and stairs,
and chancel, respectively. The central box contains the main body of the Church,
and is astylar, whereas the two projections are decorated by pilasters, with a
pediment at the west end. The windows are also subtly different, with those on
the upper part of the main body having individual cornices above their
architraves, whereas those on the projections have plain architraves. Such minor
details show the thoughtfulness of Walters as an architect.
The western projection of the Church has stone steps with metal railings leading
to central panelled double doors flanked by round-headed niches, set in a
tetra-style Tuscan pilaster portico supporting a triangular pediment, above
which sits the base of the tower. Three tablets above the door and niches record
the rebuilding of the Church and the names of Walters as architect and Streather
as builder. The sides of this projection act as the flanks of the temple
portico, with pilasters at the north and south corners and two rectangular
windows one above the other. Where the flanks meet the main body of the Church
are interesting gargoyles at cornice level, much decayed now but just
discernible as fish or stylised dolphins, alluding to the Church’s maritime
connections.
The steeple rises through several stages from its square base above the
pediment, moving from a square lantern with four pairs of corner columns
supporting an engaged entablature, to a circular tempietto surmounted by
inverted brackets supporting an obelisk. Bridget Cherry notes accurately that
‘The stone steeple evokes Wren’s St Mary-le-Bow via Dance’s St Leonard
Shoreditch’. The Gentleman’s Magazine described it as ‘peculiarly beautiful, and
it is not too much to say, that in correctness of design, and in the simple
harmony of its several parts, it scarcely yields to the most admired object of
the kind in the metropolis’. Within it hang eight bells, six of which were
recast from the peal of the original Church. The clock and its three clock-faces
underneath the lantern would The south and north sides of the central box of the
Church are virtually identical. They have two rows of five rectangular windows
lighting the ground floor and the galleries. The lower windows rest directly on
a stone string course, and both rows are set within stone architraves, which
have now been painted white. Each side is capped by a plain rendered frieze and
cornice, at the same height as that on the west portico, with a the eastern
projection is also decorated with Tuscan pilasters, with another tetra-style
portico framing the rear outer wall of the chancel, this time without a
pediment. The centre originally featured a door at ground level, with a blank
wall above (perhaps originally decorated with a commemorative tablet), though in
1848 William Butterfield blocked up the door and inserted a tripartite
round-arched window into the upper part of the wall (see 8 below). Either side
of the central bay are niches with tablets above, similar to the west end; the
north and south sides of this projection also match those on the west."
Source
St Paul's Shadwell website.
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