St Mary Stoke Newington N16

“What is that spire?”

It’s just visible, on the horizon between office blocks. Some work with the binoculars and the map established that it must be St Mary Stoke Newington, some 3 to 4 miles away to the North.

I went up there to make sure, and to have a closer look at this building which was visible at so great a distance.

I sketched the church from Clissold Park.

Stoke Newington is another world, even though just 4 miles from the City. My sketching location was a few yards from the gate of the park. A succession of people entered the gate and walked along the path: old and young, solitary and in groups, noisy, meditative and with or without dogs. Each person or group carefully opened the gate, then turned round and closed it again behind them. At one point, a very elderly person approached the gate in a wheelchair. Someone who had just passed through noticed them, returned to the gate, and with a respectful flourish, opened both gates wide, to allow the passage of the wheelchair, and then carefully closed the gates again afterwards. It was all very civilised, and restored my faith in the human race.

If you wish to visit this church bear in mind that the overground lines are rather complicated in this area. The one to get is the one which goes north from Liverpool Street. The one from Shoreditch, although going in broadly the same direction, takes another route entirely and you end up in Dalston, which is also an interesting place, but different. I walked from there to Hackney Downs to find the right railway line, and discovered more as-yet-unexplored areas of London.

St Mary Stoke Newington New Church was built in 1854-8, to the design of Sir George Gilbert Scott. His other works include the Midland Hotel at St Pancras, the Albert Memorial, Westminster Abbey, the Martyr’s Memorial in Oxford and St John’s College Chapel Cambridge, to name but four. So the people of Stoke Newington got a rock-star architect in 1854. This was because Stoke Newington had a hugely popular preacher, the Reverend Thomas Jackson, with people coming across London to hear him preach. The cost of the new church was raised by voluntary contributions¹ from this large congregation.

The spire was added by Sir George’s son John Oldrid Scott, in 1890.

Across the road is the much smaller “old church” which this “new church” replaced. The old church is still there, looking like a country village church.

Now I know what that spire is, on the horizon, I think I should make another visit, to sketch the old church.

Note 1: The information about Thomas Jackson and the cost of building the New Church is from the St Mary website https://www.stmaryn16.org/history.html, downloaded 24 October 2023. For even more detail see also British History Online here: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/middx/vol8/pp204-211