St Anne's Church - Wardour Street, Soho, London, UK - Anglican and Episcopal Churches on Waymarking.com

The oldest remaining part of the church, the tower, is Grade II* listed with the remainder of the church having to be rebuilt after being bombed in the Second World War.

The entry at English Heritage reads:
"Tower of St Anne's Church, Soho G.V. II* Church tower. 1801-03 by S. P. Cockerell, the body of the church, by Wren or Talman, blitzed and since entirely demolished. Stock brick and Portland stone, lead spire cum clock tower. Exceptional and original exercise in neo-classical rationalism with sophisticated planar modelling. 3 stages, the lower 2 in brick on stone plinth with semicircular arched recess and flanking battered buttress- piers slightly inset from corner, block cornice with stone tablet set below "hanging" over recess; stone plinth to 2nd stage with shallow segmented recess cut out above block cornice, louvred oculus and quoin pilasters with corresponding breaks in cornice and blocking course above; tall stone belfry with marked batter, chamfered corners and Doric columns "squeezed" in antis flanking louvred openings, deeply moulded crowning cornice. Above rises the remarkable steeple cum clock tower starting off as a truncated stone cone, becoming a lead drum with oculi and then waisted before swelling as intersecting "barrels" for the 4 clock faces, finished off with finial and weathervane.

Source English Heritage

The church website gives some history of the church:
"Worship has been offered to God on the site of St Anne's since the original Church was consecrated by Bishop Henry Compton in 1686.

When Soho was fashionable in the eighteenth century, Frederick, Prince of Wales (who lived in Leicester Field’s) ‘discovered an inclination’, to come to this Church and had his pew here.

After society moved away, the old Church remained the focus of identity for the cosmopolitan population of craftsmen, musicians, painters and writers who moved here, together with religious and political refugees, from all over Europe.

In 1699 St. Anne's founded its Parish School for boys where education was provided free of charge. The School opened its doors to girls in 1704, a cause of some friction since we read in the minutes of 30th August 1704, "Ord: that ye girls (for ye future) do wash ye boys school and that ye boys to fetch ye water".

From the time of its consecration St. Anne's was well known for its "singing boys", and the quality of the music. Dr. Croft, the first organist, wrote while here the tune "St. Anne", used for the hymn “O God our help in ages past",' and started a strong music tradition.
Sir Joseph Barnby, (organist 1871-1888), introduced performances of Bach's Passion Music, (St. John), which was sung annually until the Second World War. In 1886 the choir was summoned to Windsor Castle to sing Spohr's, "Last Judgement", before Queen Victoria and on one occasion it sang at Buckingham Palace for Queen Alexandra. Later the excellence of the choir led to its participation in the 1920's in the first religious services ever broadcast on the wireless.

By the nineteenth century Soho had become crowded and poor and the Church became noted for its commitment to reform social abuses. A succession of remarkable Rectors campaigned against sweated labour and for improved working and housing conditions for Soho residents irrespective of religion or race.

On the evening of the 24th September 1940 the Church received a direct hit from a bomb during the height of the London blitz. The body of the Church was completely burned out and only the tower and walls remained.

The destruction of the Church, and the war, when many of the residents were evacuated, broke up parish life.

Worship continued at St. Thomas's Regent Street and in a Chapel on the ground floor of the Tower (all that remained of the Church)."

Source St Anne's Church website

The church website gives further insight during and after the Second World War:
"Between 1941 and 1958 St. Anne's played a special role in promoting a link between the Church and the literary world.
The St. Anne's Society included Dorothy L. Sayers, (whose ashes are buried in the Tower) and Rose MacCauley, both of whom were Churchwardens here. T.S. Eliot and other Christian writers, all took part in regular meetings at St. Anne's House.

In the mid 1960's Piccadilly became a centre for drug addicts and in 1969 Ken Leech, a priest on the staff at St. Anne's, set up Centrepoint in the basement of St. Anne's House as an emergency and, it was hoped, temporary night shelter for homeless young people. Over forty years later Centrepoint is still at St. Anne's House but this is now just one small part of a large independent charity which works with the young homeless.
In the 1960's and 1970's attempts were made to redevelop the site of the Church but these foundered on seemingly endless difficulties.

Worship was continued by a handful of people in the Chapel on the first floor of St. Anne's House, with Sunday services for a time held at St. Barnabas Chapel and at St. Paul's Covent Garden. At this time successive Parish priests were also Chaplains to the Actors Church Union.

Meanwhile Soho was in a sorry state. The site of the Church was a car park. The Parish School in Great Windmill Street was threatened with closure. The sex industry had taken over the area and the local authority was moving tenants out of Soho.

In·1972 the local residents who remained decided they had had enough and the Soho Society was formed with the aim of making Soho a better place in which to live, work and visit.
In July 1975 St. Anne's and the Soho Society joined forces with the aim of developing the Church site to achieve the greatest benefit for Church and Community. As a consequence of this partnership the Tower room was renovated in 1976 to 'be the headquarters of the newly formed’ Soho Housing Association and by 1979 enough money had been raised in the community for the whole Tower to be refurbished and the Parish clock restored to celebrate the Queen's Silver Jubilee.
'Let people know that life and heart and hope are in Soho', wrote John Betjeman, patron of the fund raising appeal.
Out of the Church/Community partnership grew several schemes for the development of the site which would include a Church, Community Centre and flats, and by 1984 a plan was agreed by the Diocese, the Church Council and the Soho Housing Association.
We were very fortunate to have Arundel House act as the developer and our architects, the Westwood Partnership, to lead the team of professionals.

Of course there were many problems to be overcome before the Princess Royal kindly agreed to lay the foundation stone of the new Church in March 1990."

Source St Anne's Church website