Places of Worship (Heritage Open Days)

Somehow I ended up visiting several places of worship during Heritage Open Days. It made me realise what a variety of history and culture is contained in them.

German Lutheran Church
German Lutheran Church
German Lutheran Church
German Lutheran Church

I started with a visit to St George’s German Lutheran Church in east London on the first Saturday. This church was built in 1762 for the influx of German immigrants during that time. It’s a beautiful, austere church, and there were information boards explaining the history.

St Margaret's of Lothbury
St Margaret’s of Lothbury
St Margaret Lothbury
St Margaret Lothbury

The following week I visited St Margaret Lothbury, which is found in the City. This church was built by Christopher Wren and boasts one of only two screens in the City of London made by English woodworkers.

St Alfege's Church, Greenwich
St Alfege, Greenwich

Next I headed down to Greenwich, to St Alfege’s Church. I’ve been here before to attend concerts, and in fact I got there just in time to enjoy an opera recital before my tour of the crypt – my reason for visiting.

There has been a church on this site for over a thousand years, and the current building by Nicholas Hawksmoor dates from 1718. The crypt was built beneath to store bodies. The floor is higher than it used to be because there are bodies beneath the floor, and other coffins are stored in the bricked-in parts of the crypt.

Entrance to the crypt
Entrance to the crypt

The most famous of these is probably General Wolfe, mentioned in Hamilton by Aaron Burr as the general who “took a bullet in the neck in Quebec”. During World War II, the crypt was used as an air raid shelter for Greenwich locals.

The crypt
The crypt
Vault of General Wolfe
Vault of General Wolfe

The London Fo Guang Shan Temple is not far from Oxford Street. It was established in 1992 and is also known as the International Buddhist Progress Society. It is one of two British branches of the Fo Guang Shan Monastery, Taiwan.

Fo Guang Shan Temple
Fo Guang Shan Temple

The temple is located in a former parish school and Church House of 1868–70 designed by William Butterfield, which is grade II* listed. I got to watch (and sample) a vegetarian cooking demonstration, and then got a tour of the building, including the spaces for meditation and prayer.

St Giles in the Fields
St Giles-in-the-Fields
St Giles in the Fields
St Giles-in-the-Fields

My final visit was to St Giles-in-the-Fields, also known as the Poets Church. Here there was a short theatrical performance, based on the life of Alicia, Duchess of Dudley. Distraught when her husband left her for a younger woman, she resolved to dedicate her life to good works and the education of her five daughters, one of whom is buried in the church. In real life, the Duchess was largely responsible for the rebuilding of the church.

St Giles in the Fields
St Giles-in-the-Fields
Tomb of Alice's daughter
Tomb of Alicia’s daughter

Buried here are poet Andrew Marvell (of To His Coy Mistress fame) and George Chapman, the first translator of Homer’s Iliad into English, referenced in Keats’ On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer. There is also a pulpit formerly used by Charles Wesley.

Plaque to Andrew Marvell
Plaque to Andrew Marvell
Wesley's pulpit
Wesley’s pulpit

Overall, then, a fantastically varied selection of places.

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