A sermon I preached on the 324th anniversary of the consecration of the London church I served for twenty-eight years (1992-2020) whilst concurrently following the model of the priest-workers by holding secular jobs. St James' has a remarkable history spanning class-ridden conformity and adventurous, on-the-margins, Christian life. Click the 'Read more' button.
A barbarous brick-cased and ill-shaped pile
Being a sermon preached by Hugh Valentine at St James’s Piccadilly London on 13 July 2008, the 324th anniversary of the consecration of the church
On this day (13 July) in the year 1684, the Bishop of London went to Henry Jermyn's house in St James's Square where he received the title-deeds of this church from one Martin Folkes, acting on behalf of Thomas, Lord Jermyn. The Bishop then made his way here in solemn procession, for the consecration service (and would have entered by the main door which at that time was in the middle of the south wall).
And here we are, 324 years later to the day, gathered in that same place. I realise that 324 is not a special anniversary, but an anniversary it is nonetheless, and there may be some interest and even profit in our taking time to consider a few events in the history of the building and its successive congregations. Except for those of you who happen to be visiting this morning, having taken a wrong turn and instead of finding yourself on a comfortable chair in the coffee house with a skinny latte find yourself here on an unyielding pew and too embarrassed to sneak out - apart from such visitors – most of us here are the heirs and successors of those first parishioners. We have taken our places, however briefly and for whatever motives, in a long line of men and women who have spent time in this place and formed an attachment to it. And we might give a thought to those who follow, and who may well take an interest in our stewardship of the building and its witness.
Even if you have a liking and a sense for history it is still difficult to imagine what the world was like, in London, in the 1680s. Given recent changes in climate, you may be interested to know that in the year this church was consecrated, England experienced its coldest winter in living memory: the River Thames and the sea as far as two miles out from land froze over. Only a few years before, Hooke's microscope had discovered the existence of cells; British troops had captured New Amsterdam and renamed it New York; London had been devastated first by the Great Plague and then the Great Fire; Isaac Newton was publishing his ground-breaking theories; England become a constitutional monarchy after the Commonwealth ended. The ideological landscape was foaming. There were the Levellers who wanted a more representative and accountable parliament and religious toleration. Though they wanted a more democratic society, their proposed franchise did not extend to women or to the poorest. There were the Diggers, who wanted an even more equal society than the Levellers. They advocated a lifestyle that was an early form of communism, with communal ownership of land, and absolute equality for men and women in law and in education. There were the Baptists, the Ranters, the Quakers, and the Fifth Monarchy Men, who opposed all "earthly" governments, believing they must prepare for God's kingdom on earth by establishing a "government of saints" (it makes you wonder how they were planning to recruit the candidates).
Within eight years of this church being consecrated, the Salem witch trials took place in Massachusetts. And tea, selling for less than a shilling a pound in Europe, became too expensive for most English people to afford once the Government applied an import tax of five shilling a pound. Consumption of smuggled tea outstripped consumption of shop bought tea (I had never associated ‘illicitness’ with a cup of rosy lee but rather like the idea).
It was against such a background that this church came into being. The parish had been carved out of that of St Martin in the Fields, though its creation had been opposed by the Vicar and Vestry of our parent church. Things did not go smoothly. Funding was a problem. Finding reliable workmen was difficult. (Perhaps things weren’t so different after all). An ‘insufficiency’ was revealed in the newly laid foundations, raising fears that the steeple would collapse. The mortar that had been used was found to be 'very bad' and the work 'very ill performed'.
The Vestry concluded (in something of a marathon sentence) that 'when the waite of the Lead shall be laid on the spire and the waite of the Bells together with the rocking which will be occasioned by strong winds and the Ringing [of] the Bells which may happen together that this steeple with soe bad a bottome and ill workmanshipp cannot be able long to resist those violent motions but that there must be a continuall fear and consternation of some great misfortune to befall'. The steeple was removed and its replacement lowered.
Over the centuries the congregations have been varied though for most of the last 324 years they (‘we’) have been wealthy and influential. There is a delightful and understated sub heading in the Survey of London entry dealing with this church which reads: ‘congregation – not docile’. History records a string of unreasonable demands made on the vestry (what we today call the PCC). One such demand came from the Earl of Clarendon who, living locally, wanted to make a door in the churchyard wall 'for the Convenience of his Lord[ship’s] Beere, Wine and Coles to be brought that way into his house.' Tactfully, the vestry refused the request. Individual members of the congregation also altered the pews to suit their convenience and sent carpenters to put up benches, and rails on the seats.
Accounts by visitors to St. James's during the eighteenth century stress the fashionable element in the congregation. John Evelyn remarked that a sermon which he had heard elsewhere on the subject of costly apparel would have been more appropriately delivered at 'St. James's or some other of the Theatrical Churches in London, where the Ladys and Women were so richly and wantonly dressed and full of Jewells'. James Macky complained that a stranger had to pay for a convenient seat [here] so that 'it costs one almost as dear to see a Play', but he still thought the church worth a visit 'on a Holiday or Sunday, when the fine Assembly of Beauties and Quality [are to be seen] there'.
The display of wealth tempted undesirable characters to attend services and the payment of ten shillings is recorded in 1693 to a man called 'Simmonds . . . for his care in lookeing after and taking pickpocketts in the Church'. In later years James Boswell confessed that his mind was distracted when he attended a service here, but excused himself because his 'warm heart and a vivacious fancy' made him 'given to love . . . and to the most brilliant and showy method of public worship'.
The interior of the church, which had been admired for its beauty by contemporary writers, owed its brilliance not only to the richness of the congregation's dress but also to the whiteness of the walls, the gilded fittings, and the handsome furniture, all illuminated in winter by hundreds of candles. The interior beauty has often been contrasted with the simple utilitarian exterior of the church. One Joseph Gwilt called the exterior a 'barbarous brick-cased and ill-shaped pile' and likened it to the toad which is 'ugly and venomous, yet wears a precious jewel in its head', the jewel being the universally admired interior.
The church, over the centuries, was attended by the aristocracy that lived in the parish but who live here no more. I think the only one I would have wished to have known was a local who was given the honorific title of the ‘Duchess of Jermyn Street’: Rosa Lewis was the owner and manageress of the Cavendish Hotel. One of her friends was a colonial Bishop, and on one of his visits to the hotel in the 1930s he privately confirmed her in her room. After that the rector took her Communion from time to time. All the makings, there, of an interesting novel.
This church has never had any endowments and so at times has struggled to balance the books. That became a serious problem in the early part of the last century. But something of a jackpot was struck when, in 1937, the church found itself on the procession route of King George’s Coronation. The London and Midland Scaffolding Co asked the church if it might erect a vast stand over the fore-court and sell tickets to those who could afford them. It resulted in the parish receiving fee income of £9,750 (equal today to £336,500).
Of all the changes to the building the most dramatic took place on 14 October 1940. The air raid sirens sounded at 7pm. At 8pm a bomb exploded in the fore-court. The rectory fell ‘like a pack of cards’ and the north wall of the church was severely damaged. Hundreds of incendiary bombs set the roof alight, which then collapsed in on itself. The parish Clerk, Charles Murray, and his wife Edith were trapped in the rubble of the Rectory: he was brought out dead, she died of her injuries the following week.
The church was all but destroyed and the north wall had to be completely demolished. A temporary church was created by bricking up a side aisle. In 1948 restoration work began. Four thousand books of gold leaf were used to gild the plaster work. And a later Bishop of London visited once again in solemn procession to re-dedicate the restored building in June 1954.
So you and I are inheritors of quite a building and parish. Designed by Christopher Wren, frequented by the establishment, noted for its aristocratic totty, served by a few distinguished rectors who became Archbishops of Canterbury and by less distinguished curates who didn’t; and rising, phoenix-like, from the ashes of war, only to sink again as part of changing demographics and changing attitudes to religion in the decades following its post-war restoration. But another rising took place in the 1980s, occasioned by a heady brew of progressive rector and congregation and the coming together of influences and characters our esteemed forebears would have been pretty shocked by. And so today, no longer the Parish Beadle stopping traffic in Piccadilly with his stave of office to allow parishioners to dismount from their carriages on their way into church, no more sombre Mattins, no more ‘Lady Worker’, ‘Preacher Assistant’ or Clerk. Instead, a different way of ‘being the church in this place’: talks, seminars, experimental liturgies; the Alternatives project; a counselling caravan; Labyrinth Walking; a concerts programme; Julian Prayer Groups; the boozy Vagabonds group celebrating William Blake’s baptism here; a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered Group plus banners hanging from the church in greeting not of a monarch about to be crowned but the Gay Pride March as it drifts down Piccadilly. And an approach to liturgy, to our celebration of the Eucharist, moving it away from a spectator sport to something which encourages the participation of all the people of God in what we believe is act of remembrance and something that energises and changes our present and helps us fashion a better future. And all illuminated by photovoltaic power-generating cells on the roof and sustained by Fairtrade tea and coffee and kept lively by the occasional arguments and differences and frustrations that beset any community, especially one which modestly aims to ‘change the world – starting with ourselves’.
Thank you Thomas Jermyn, Christopher Wren, Charles and Edith Murray and the endless list of men and woman who have contributed to this place and formed its heart. Thank you to each one of us who today forms its heart and who share responsibility for its future. Happy birthday to a remarkable building. Here’s to the next 324 years.
Hugh Valentine