Mark Lutyens

Mark Lutyens, great-nephew of the architect, visiting the church today

Guide to St Jude's

Photo by Henry Walker

Saint Jude-on-the-Hill (St Jude's) is the Parish Church of Hampstead Garden Suburb which was founded in 1907 by Henrietta Barnett to be a model community where all classes of people would live together in attractive surroundings and social harmony.

The church was built to the designs of Edwin Landseer Lutyens (1869-1944), the greatest English architect of the first part of the twentieth century. It is a hybrid. Simon Jenkins calls it "the confident application of Queen Anne Revival to traditional church form". Building began in 1909, but the west end was not completed until 1935. The church was consecrated on 7th May 1911. Externally it is 200 feet long and the spire rises 178 feet above the ground.

Inside, the church is 122 feet from the west door to the chancel steps, and forty feet to the highest part of the roof. The ceiling is barrel-vaulted and domed. There are three vaults between the west end and the crossing; a saucer dome over the crossing; one further vault over the crossing and a saucer dome over the sanctuary. The east end finishes in an apse completed in 1923.

The murals and paintings are by Walter Starmer (1877-1962). He began with the Lady Chapel in 1920 and finished with the apse in 1929. Some commentators have suggested that Lutyens would have preferred the church to have remained undecorated and that the paintings spoil the purity of the interior of the church. A recent study, however, concludes that although the architect might not have admired Starmer's style, Lutyens had no objection in principle to the use of frescoes in Saint Jude's, and it is known that he inspected and praised much of the work.

The west window (dedicated 1937) is to the design of Starmer and depicts Saint Jude holding the cross in his right hand and this church in his left. Below is his symbol, the ship; above, Christ in glory, surrounded by the traditional symbols of the four evangelists.

On the north side of the west door is a memorial to the horses killed in the First World War. Made in 1970 by Rosemary Proctor (died 1995), it replaces the original bronze model of a horse by Lutyens's father, and its replacement, which were stolen. Near it is a memorial to Basil Bourchier, the first vicar, and, on the south pillar, a commemoration of the completion of the west end.

The ceiling panels over the centre aisle depict: the wise men and the shepherds; Christ feeding the multitude and stilling the storm; Christ healing the blind and lepers; the crucifixion (dome); and the entry into Jerusalem with Christ carrying the cross (chancel).

The memorials on the north wall are to John Raphael, a popular sportsman killed in the First World War; to Father Maxwell Rennie, a bust by his daughter Rosemary Proctor; and, in the lunette above St George's altar, a painting by Starmer represents the last few moments in the life Michael Rennie, the Vicar's son, who died of exhaustion after rescuing several evacuee children after their ship, the City of Benares, had been torpedoed on its way to Canada in 1940.

The murals here and in the south aisle represent the teaching of Jesus in the parables of the kingdom. The Stations of the Cross, also by Starmer, begin here and continue into the south aisle.

The fine iron screens that flank the sanctuary are much older than the church and bear the name Matthias Heit and the date 1710. The sanctuary floor is patterned in brick and marble. The high altar includes two stones from Canada: a smaller dark one from the former French royal chapel of Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia (where the first European settlement north of Florida was established in 1605, and where the first regular Church of England services were held in Canada in 1710), and a larger and lighter coloured one from the altar steps of Montreal Cathedral. The foundation stone on the north side of the chancel was laid on St Mark's Day 1910 and is by Eric Gill. The pulpit was also a gift from Canada.

Over the south door (into the car park) is a commemoration of the unveiling of the murals by the Prince of Wales in 1924, and, over the door, a figure of Christ by Rosemary Proctor in memory of her brother. Nearby, on the south wall, is a memorial to Edward VII.

To the left of the chancel is the Lady Chapel, the oldest part of the church, completed and opened for worship in 1910. On the pillar at the right of the entrance is a key to the pictures in the chapel (of noted Christian women). Over the arch is a memorial to the unveiling of the frescoes. In the sanctuary is a wooden statue of Our Lady, a reproduction of the early sixteenth century Mourning Virgin or 'Nuremberg Madonna' which would originally have been part of a crucifixion scene. Its curious proportions suggest that it was meant for a very high position and to be seen from far below. In the central panel of the altar is a modern reproduction of the Madonna and Child by Bernini. The Blessed Sacrament is reserved in the tabernacle behind the altar.

St John's Chapel, to the right of the sanctuary, was a gift of the Harmsworth family in 1923. The murals draw on the Gospel of John and the book of Revelation. The memorial window to Sir John Harmsworth is by Robert Anning Bell, one of the most distinguished artists of his day. It has been described as one of the most charming of his designs, and makes use of features from seventeenth century English Baroque sepulchral monuments.

The green and white marble altar is by Lutyens. In the central panel is a picture by Maurice Greiffenhagen (a friend and colleague of Anning Bell at the Glasgow School of Art, and a fellow Royal Academician) of St John holding a chalice from which is emerging a serpent. This refers to the legend in which the priest of the temple of Diana gave St John poison to drink as a test of faith. Two men had already died of the poison, but St John survived, and restored the other two to life as well. The vestries lie behind the altar of St John.

The 'Father Willis' organ comes from St Jude's church in Whitechapel where Canon Samuel Barnett, husband of Henrietta Barnett, the founder of Hampstead Garden Suburb, was vicar. It stood for ten years at the west end and was moved, after restoration, to its present position in the chancel in 1934. The organ was rededicated in October 2002 following extensive rebuilding and renovation works, including the commissioning of a new console.

‘I went to church with my parents, who had taken to frequenting Saint Jude’s, Hampstead Garden Suburb, a fine Lutyens edifice then in the charge of a highly flamboyant clergyman named Basil Bourchier . . . Personal devotees flocked to him from all parts of London. His sermons were dramatic, topical, irrational and quite without theological content. . . . Despite all Mr Bourchier’s extravagant display I had some glimpse of higher mysteries."

(Evelyn Waugh, A Little Learning, 1964)

"a building of true originality" and a "key work" of its period

(Roslin Mair, Key Dates in Art History, 1979)

Lutyens' "ecclesiastical masterpiece" and "one of the best twentieth-century church exteriors in England"

(Simon Jenkins, The Companion Guide to Outer London, 1981).

St Jude's is one of [Lutyens'] most successful buildings. It exhibits all his best qualities and even turns that 'naughtiness' or wilful originality which often mars his late buildings into a decided advantage"

(Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: London 4: North, 1998).

"a magnificent Edwardian period piece. . . The tunnel like domed interior contains a wonderful collection of gay furnishings, the wilful naughtiness of which was quite in keeping with the emancipated outlook of the people who lived in the hand-made red brick houses designed by Raymond Unwin, Baillie Scott, . . . and Crickmer - all of whom were then regarded as the last word of fashion. Gorgeous is the best word to use for the painted ornaments and decorations. . . ."

Peter Anson (Fashions in Church Furnishings, 1960)

"[It] broke new ground . . . the repudiation of Gothic is total; there is not a pointed arch in the building. . . . The central tower [rises] above the crossing to be surmounted by a Byzantine spire - majestic, imperious, Elgarian. . . . The interior is quieter but no less impressive. Again the overall style is Byzantine, but it is a modern, western interpretation of Byzantium"

(John Leonard, London's Parish Churches, 1997).

March 2010

Other pictures by Karri Devereux

Centenary Book

St Jude-on-the-Hill is one of the most distinctive of modern English churches. The ecclesiastical masterpiece of Sir Edwin Lutyens, of cathedral-like proportions, and decorated with an extensive mural scheme by Walter Percival Starmer, it expresses the unconventional Christianity of the founders of the model community of Hampstead Garden Suburb and the radical outlook of its early inhabitants. Making use of the church’s own considerable archive as well as recently discovered Starmer papers the Centenary Book celebrates the consecration of the church in 1911 with a close examination of its foundation and early years. It suggests this ordinary parish church was as much a temple to fin de siècle spirituality as to Anglican orthodoxy.

Published in August 2011.

Order now.

Study Day 23 September 2017

Open House 17 - 18 September 2016

St Albans U3A Architecture Group visit to the church

St Albans U3A Architecture Group

We had a really lovely visit to St Jude's today - and we are very grateful to you for giving the time to us to bring to life the history of Hampstead Garden Suburb and your beautiful church.

I particularly liked the wall paintings in the Lady Chapel, and the insights you gave us into what Henrietta Barnett and her colleagues were trying to achieve.  We walked around the Suburb after our visit with new eyes.

I hope that your lottery bid is successful - an uphill struggle indeed to maintain such a large building!  I attach two photos I took and hope they are useful.

What a lovely programme for the St Jude's Proms - although we will be away so I won't be able to come to any of them - but I will look out for them again next year.

Once again,  thank you for your time and expertise, and for making us so welcome.

Lutyens Trust visit St Jude's

Members of the Lutyens Trust visiting the church today with Suburb historian Dr Mervyn Miller

The witch's hat

James Alexander Cameron, a second-year PhD research student at the Courtauld Insitute of Art researching sedilia, the seats for the priest, deacon and subdeacon found in the walls of many of England’s parish churches, recently visited the Suburb and St Jude's.  

He posted his reactions - and links to his photos - on his blog stainedglassattitudes.wordpress.com

"I don’t need this “Open House” nonsense to get in interesting buildings, I left the queuing to hoi polloi and went on a guided tour of Hampstead Garden Suburb, in which we got to tramp through a newly-moved-in-resident’s back garden which was rather exciting. I feel it is above and beyond my call of duty to upload and label my pictures of the various properties (this is also the third time I’ve been round with a Pevsner) so I’d just like to say I think I decided that day I would like to live in this one, with a Neo-Elizabethan glazed bay, the most (please).

The centrepiece of course to the suburb is Nedi’s bizarre witch’s hatted, at the very least stylistically bizarre and at worst downright reckless (barrel vaulted nave with open timber aisles?? What are you thinking, you fool?!) St. Jude-on-the-Hill. The most amazing thing about the church are the paintings, over seemingly every inch of wall and ceiling space, by Walter Starmer, 1919-30. If you’ve never heard of him that’s probably because much of his career was spent here. The New Testament is absolutely ransacked for subjects: Christ’s ministry, but also His parables and aphorisms. There are some clever formal parallels, such as Christ dragging His Cross mirroring Him riding a donkey on the other side of the vault, as well as the spectacular, where by looking up and spinning round, one can recreate “Woman, behold thy son, son behold thy mother“. All of Starmer’s paintings are a bizarre stylistic oddity: still with Victorian Arts and Crafts ambition and ornamental motifs, but infused with a proto-cinematic realism akin to Tissot’s Gospel Illustrations, yet still with the broad heroic gestures of history painting, with a whiff of the Art Deco. It’s a marvel it ever got finished."

The Architect and his Wife: Saturday 12 May 2012

Lutyens the Church Architect

Gavin Stamp, architectural historian, writer and broadcaster gave the Michael Rowley memorial talk this afternoon on Lutyens as a Church Architect. Professor Vesna Goldsworthy of the Centre for Suburban Studies at Kingston University responded and chaired the discussion.

New Views of the Church

The official opening of the new Henrietta Barnett School buildings on Monday evening provided an opportunity to record some of the first new views of the church for many decades.

Saturday 21 May 2011 : Gavin Stamp on Lutyens

Click on image to enlarge.

Centenary Invitation

All welcome - no need to RSVP

How to pronounce 'centenary'.

Walter Percival Starmer: war artist

Walter Starmer, seen here at work on the memorial to Michael Rennie, was born in 1877 in Teignmouth, Devon, the son of the Reverend Henry Starmer, a Congregationalist Minister. He trained at Norwich and Birmingham Schools of Art, and seems to have begun his career as a book illustrator with Gertrude M. Faulding's Old Man's Beard and Other Tales (1909).

In the First World War he served as a war artist recording in particular the work of the YMCA with the forces. Thirty water-colours are now in the collection of the Imperial War Museum, several of which were reproduced in Sir Arthur Yapp's The Romance of the Red Triangle [the emblem of the YMCA]. After the War he illustrated two volumes of Yapp's Piers Plowman school history series.

Y.M.C.A. IN A RUINED PARISH HALL IN FLANDERS, JUNE, 1916

Y.M.C.A. MARQUEE IN THE SHELL-SWEPT SOMME AREA

A REFUGE FOR THE REFUGEES

Y.M.C.A. HUTS UNDER SHELL-FIRE

Starmer met the first vicar of St Jude's, Basil Bourchier, in Arras in 1918 when the latter was serving as a chaplain to the forces. In 1920 he was commissioned to paint the Lady Chapel as a memorial to those who had died in the war, and then, in a series of further commissions, he went on to decorate the rest of the church.

As well as the Rennie memorial of 1942, Starmer recorded the Second World War with a drawing of St Jude's filled with furniture from local houses which had been damaged through enemy action.

The Calvary

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The magnificent crucifix on the east end of the church was unveiled on 12 April 1924 by the Marquess of Aberdeen and blessed by the Bishop of Southern Rhodesia. The occasion also marked the completion of Lutyens's 1909 plan for the church which had had only a 'temporary' east wall since the consecration in 1911. From 1916 until 1923 the smaller crucifix now in the 'Calvary Cupboard' in the south west porch had occupied more than one position there as a war memorial (see these copyright images).

The crucifix, which appears to have formed part of Lutyen's's original scheme for the church, is in the style of Velasquez. The first vicar, Basil Bourchier, wrote "I have never seen a figure which, carved out of the solid stone, is so full of life. The veins in the Saviour' s wrists are perfectly wonderful. We owe a great debt to the sculptor, who, regardless of wind, cold and weather, has been constant to his task practically every day for nearly nine months".

The cost was met by Miss Flora Spalding, a childhood friend of the vicar's mother, and was given in memory of her brother and sister, Harry and Louisa. Both ladies were Scottish, hence the invitation to Lord Aberdeen, quondam Governor-General of Canada and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whose son, Lord Dudley Gordon, was a sydesman (sic) at St Jude's.

Miss Spalding died in 1930 bequeathing £100 to St Jude's for the upkeep and preservation of the Calvary "which sum has been invested [and] the income will be used as directed. All members of St Jude's will be filled with gratitude at this act of generosity." (St Jude's Parish Paper January 1931)

UCL Visit 2011

Students from Professor Adrian Forty's class at University College paid their annual visit to St Jude's this morning.

The Vicarage over there is also a Lutyens building (photo by Adrian Forty)

Tom O'Brien kept an eye on things while enjoying the sunshine.

The West Window

The High Altar

A painting of the high altar by Karel Verschaeren (1881-1928) in 1915 or early 1916 before the installation of the sanctuary gates and the murals of Walter Starmer, and before the organ was moved from the west end (1934).

The sanctuary lamp was given by the first vicar in February 1912 replacing the earlier lamp (consecrated by the Bishop of London in May 1911) which is now in the Lady Chapel. It is of silver-gilt and (he said) "was fashioned more than 350 years ago, and both in style and size . . . is admirably adapted for our Byzantine building". If this date is correct, it is the oldest item in the possession of the church.

The sanctuary chairs (together with a bishop's chair) were given in September 1912. The large brass candlesticks were given in March 1918 (probably by the same donor). These all remain to this day, unlike the hanging illuminated cross. This was originally in St Olave's, Hanbury Street and was brought to St Jude's in May 1913 after that church had been demolished.

The ambo - or "Lectern in keeping with the Byzantine character of the building" - was designed by H. A. Welch and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1914. It was dedicated by the Bishop of Winchester in April of that year in memory of the Rt Hon. Alfred Lyttelton.

This picture (from a postcard) shows the High altar and choir stalls in their original form. The altar is against the original flat east wall. Behind and above it is a fabric baldachino. The altar has a very high rear-table on which stands short candlesticks and a very high cross (not a crucifix) mounted on a twisted wood pillar (this is now the paschal candle holder). The choir stalls are of a simple design and are positioned further back into the space later occupied by the organ. There are no altar rails and the congregational chairs extend much further east.

Below, two paintings of the high altar in February 1960 by J. P. Offley who was sacristan at St Jude's for many years.

The credence table (to the right) was designed by Lutyens, and was an anonymous gift to the church. It was dedicated by the Bishop of Willesden on 30 May 1912 together with the choir stalls.

The stalls (shown in the first picture) (and later the repositioned organ) actually subvert the 'Byzantine' layout of the church by artificially creating a 'chancel' where there is none. In theory the congregational space comes right up to the sanctuary steps, but has now been pushed (too far) back beyond the 'crossing', presumably because of the pressure to make the church conform to Anglican expectations (see plan).

The brass sanctuary gates were unveiled in July 1916 by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, as a memorial to Mrs Cockroft (the probable donor of all the other items mentioned here). These were also designed by H. A. Welch.

'

The celebrant in this painting is presumably Father William Mansfield Masters (Vicar 1955-1962). He is assisted by a deacon and sub-deacon. The altar frontal and vestments are all still in use (and were indeed used on the day of posting, being All Saints' Sunday).

The high altar from the History of S. Jude-on-the-Hill (1923). Starmer's murals are complete in the Lady Chapel, but his paint brush has yet to reach the sanctuary. All items (and several more) present and correct. The large, brass alms-dish on the credence table was the gift of Mr A. S. Maynard of Montreal, and was dedicated in February 1912. Between 1916 and 1923 the long green curtains behind the altar have been removed, but not yet replaced with the shorter blue ones (themselves removed in about 1998). The altar still has a high back panel.

In recent weeks we have been using the high altar, rather than the new free standing altar. This is in order to accustom the servers (and the Vicar) to celebrating in the 'traditional' manner for the centenary of the consecration next year.