WikiWeb_St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church_1

The Cistercian monastery was constructed during the years 1133–1141.
It was originally named "Monastery of Our Lady, Queen of the Angels", or the "Royal Monastery of Saint Mary" (Spanish: Santa María la Real), but it was renamed to honor Bernard of Clairvaux (in Spanish San Bernardo de Claraval) upon his canonization. Use of the building as a Cistercian monastery lasted for almost 700 years until it was seized and sold off to be used as a granary and a stable during a period of social unrest in the 1830s.‹ref›Joanne Elaine Sowell, The Monastery of Sacramenia and Twelfth-Century Cistercian Architecture in Spain, Florida State University, Doctoral Dissertation, 1985‹/ref›
It was located in an area known as Coto de San Bernardo (St. Bernard land preserve), two miles from Sacramenia in the province of Segovia (Spain). The Monasterio was in a mountain region at 830 m above sea level, on a high plateau near the Sierra de Guadarrama, the region is known for extreme weather.
The area has medieval churches, chapels, monasteries, walls, castles, within the natural landscape of the Duratón River Gorges.
The traditional access to the monastery was an ancient path with the masonry ruins of a watermill. The monastery was constructed with necessary defensive strength among a web of minor fortresses in an area heavily populated by Muslims.
The monastery was founded by Alfonso VII of Castile and León and built in the traditional style of Cistercian Romanesque architecture in Spain. Alfonso VII had introduced the Cistercians monasteries into Spain and after the monastery's completion, he settled in place Cistercian monks who had come from France. Alfonso VII, and afterward his grandson Alfonso VIII of Castile, extended privileges to the monastery several times in order to exempt rights of way tax for people and goods, and grant freedom of movement for their grazing flocks.
The Christian conquests and reconquests were followed by migrations of Muslims for religious reasons that could cause the depopulation of entire areas. Muslims had populated the surviving cities that had been founded during the Roman Empire and Visigothic civilization. The area of Segovia had a large Muslim population which resisted the Christian reconquest several times after attempts at cultural assimilation. The newly founded monasteries served, among other things, as centers of evangelization and colonization. Abundant irrigation systems, canals, ditches, and castles had already been constructed during the Muslim era.
The Muslim people established their cities on the banks of rivers, because their economy was based on agriculture, concentrating on the cultivation of irrigated land. Some areas of the Pyrenees had not been effectively occupied because of the high altitude, but the traffic of people and goods was controlled by establishing fortified steps at the entrance to the valleys.
Because of Muslim occupation, the nobles and Christian clergy had settled mostly in the north of present-day Spain, then small independent Christian kingdoms. There they began to organize churches and monasteries around which the Christian communities soon developed. Religious communities revived trade among other Iberian towns especially in wool and salt, also the cultivation of vines and raising of livestock.
Differences between newly arrived monks and earlier residents of the area caused altercations concerning the passage of merchant mule caravans, the exploitation of salt, water use in the region's villages, dominion over the towns, pastures, and tithes.
Some parts of the monastery were rebuilt after being destroyed by fire in 1641. The abbey remained an active monastic community until 1835. The monastery was closed about 1836-1840 during Isabella II of Spain's rule as a consequence of the Ecclesiastical Confiscations of Mendizábal. The Desamortización caused the exclaustration of the place, brought monastic life to an end and the main church was privatized. Its Romanesque abbey church remains one of the monuments of Sacramenia.


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The historic monastery building is for the most part in the United States, that is, the cloister, the chapter house and the refectory of the monks. The rest of the monastic compound, that is, the church and other facilities such as Cilla (mullion) remain privately owned in Spain, in Sacramenia village, although the grounds can be visited on certain days.  It was declared a Spanish national monument on June 3, 1931.
The monastery's cloister and its outbuildings were illegally purchased and moved by William Randolph Hearst in 1926, despite Spanish government restrictions. In order to be transported to the United States, the structures were carefully dismantled, each piece was numbered and packaged in wooden crates lined with hay. The total shipment comprised 11,000 crates. However, some of the information contained in this labeling process was lost when the shipment was quarantined in the USA because of a break-out of hoof and mouth disease in Segovia. During the quarantine, the crates were opened and the hay filling was burned as a measure to prevent the spread of the disease. During the repackaging, the contents of the crates were not replaced correctly. William Randolph Hearst was ultimately unable to pursue his plan of rebuilding the monastery at San Simeon because of financial difficulties. The dismantled buildings were stored in a warehouse in Brooklyn, New York until they were purchased in 1952 by Raymond Moss and William Edgemon, who eventually reassembled them on the site of a small plant nursery in northern Miami. There the religious buildings became a tourist attraction known as the Ancient Spanish Monastery.
Raymond Moss and William Edgemon took charge of the reconstruction of the historic building in 1964. They added other decorative pieces from different Spanish buildings to the original complex, such as the large round carved-stone coat of arms seen in the cloister. The coat of arms originally belonged to the House of Alburquerque and came from the monastery of San Francisco de Cuellar, also in the province of Segovia. The chapel was erected in the 15th century by Beltrán de la Cueva, 1st Duke of Alburquerque, favorite of Henry IV of Castile and the first Duke of Alburquerque to be earmarked for the family vaults, which were also sold in the 20th century after the secularization of the monastery.
Reassembling the ancient monastic buildings took 19 months and cost almost 1.5 million dollars. Some of the original stones remained unused in the process.


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The property was purchased by Bishop Henry I. Louttit in 1964 for the Episcopal Diocese of South Florida, which was later split into the Dioceses of Central, Southeast and Southwest Florida. Eventually financial difficulties forced the three dioceses to sell the monastery, it was purchased by Colonel Robert Pentland Jr.,  who gave it to the Episcopal parish of St. Bernard de Clairvaux. Three doors from the monastery are now in a private home in Atlanta, Georgia.


Begun in 1905 and consecrated in 1959, it was designed by architect Thomas Rogers Kimball. Ranked among the ten largest cathedrals in the United States when it was completed, the cathedral is 255 ft. long, 158 ft. wide and 222 ft. tall (78 m by 48 m by 68 m).
The architectural style of the building is Spanish Renaissance Revival, rather than the European Gothic architecture popular in the early 20th century. Kimball justified his choice because of the early influence of Spain and Mexico on the region. It was once part of the missionary area subject to the See of Santiago de Cuba.
On March 16, 2007, a painting of The Virgin Immaculata was reported stolen from St. Cecilia. About 7:30 am, church officials noticed the artwork had been cut from its frame. The painting was an 8 foot by 5 foot image, part of a collection donated to the cathedral in 2002. The painting had an estimated value of $100,000.


The organ of the cathedral was built by Pasi Organ Builders and inaugurated in 2003. The instrument has 55 stops, three manuals and pedals. A unique feature of the organ is the option of playing 29 of the stops in either meantone or Wegscheider well-tempered tuning (the remaining stops being well-tempered).


WikiWeb_St. Francis of Assisi Parish Church_1

The first church in General Trias was established by the Franciscans when it was still a visita (sub-parish) of Cavite Viejo (now Kawit). It was transferred to the Jesuit order of Cavite Puerto (now Cavite City) in 1624, eventually becoming a separate parish on September 9, 1753.
The first stone church was erected in 1769 under the leadership of Doña Maria Josepha de Yrizzari Y Ursula, Countess of Lizarraga. It was restored and enlarged in 1834. The Luzon earthquakes of 1880 partially damaged the church. As a result, the facade was replaced in 1881 with further restoration in 1885. The roof tiles were replaced in 1892 with the lighter, corrugated galvanised iron roofing as further protection from earthquakes. It was again refurbished and enlarged in 1893.
Between 1989 and 1991, the church was restored to its former appearance. After completion, it was again consecrated on June 22, 1991, by Most Reverend Felix P. Perez of the Diocese of Imus in which it lies.


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Attached to the church is the convent. It is where the Banda San Francisco de Malabon, a local marching band, practiced the music of the Philippine national anthem Marcha Filipina before performing it during the Philippine Declaration of Independence from Spain on June 12, 1898, in Kawit, Cavite. The convent now houses the Museo de San Francisco de Malabon.


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The St. Francis of Assisi Church was declared a historic structure by the National Historical Institute of the Philippines (now National Historical Commission of the Philippines) with the placing of a marker in 1992.


St. Gertrude New Church (Latvian: Jaunā Svētās Ģertrūdes Evaņģēliski luteriskā baznīca) is a Lutheran church in Riga, the capital of Latvia. It is a parish church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia. The church is situated at the address 119 Brīvības Street.


St. Gertrude Old Church is the ancient parish church of the district (see history at that article). However, by the start of the twentieth century Old St Gertrude's recorded more than 30,000 church members, meeting as three distinct congregations. A German congregation and a Latvian congregation alternated their services between Sunday morning and Sunday afternoons, and a second Latvian congregation worshipped on Sunday evenings. From 1903 to 1906 a second church was built, now known as St. Gertrude New Church, and this became the centre of the Latvian congregations, leaving Old St Gertrude's as the German-speaking church for Riga.


Three Roman Catholic churches have stood on the site since 1718, when the city was founded. The first was a crude wooden structure in the early days of the French colony. As the French were Catholic, their church was prominently located on the town square. Construction of a larger brick and timber church was begun in 1725 and was completed in 1727. Along with numerous other buildings, the church was destroyed in the Great New Orleans Fire (1788) on Good Friday, March 21, 1788. The cornerstone of a new church was laid in 1789 and the building was completed in 1794. In 1793 Saint Louis Church was elevated to cathedral rank as the See of the Diocese of New Orleans, making it one of the oldest cathedrals in the United States. In 1819, a central tower (designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe) with a clock and bell were added. The bell was embossed with the name "Victoire" in commemoration of the Battle of New Orleans victory in 1815.
Enlarging the building to meet the needs of the growing congregation had been pondered since 1834, and J. N. B. de Pouilly was consulted to design plans for a new building. De Pouilly also designed St. Augustine Church in Tremé, the first church building dedicated as a parish church outside the French Quarter. (The Mortuary Chapel on North Rampart had been dedicated in 1827 as a chapel, and St. Vincent de Paul was established in a little frame church in 1838 but not dedicated.) On March 12, 1849, the diocese contracted with John Patrick Kirwan to enlarge and restore the cathedral, using De Pouilly's plans.
These specified that everything be demolished except the lateral walls and the lower portions of the existing towers on the front facade. During the reconstruction, it was determined that the sidewalls would have to be demolished also. During construction in 1850, the central tower collapsed. De Pouilly and Kirwan were replaced. As a consequence of these problems and reconstruction, very little of the Spanish Colonial structure survived.  The present structure dates primarily to 1850. The bell from the 1819 tower was reused in the new building and is still there today. During the renovation, St. Patrick's Church served as the pro-cathedral for the city.


On April 25, 1909, a dynamite bomb was set off in the cathedral, blowing out windows and damaging galleries. The following year a portion of the foundation collapsed, necessitating the building's closure while repairs were made, from Easter 1916 to Easter 1917.


The cathedral was designated as a minor basilica by Pope Paul VI in 1964. Pope John Paul II visited the cathedral in September 1987.


The high winds of Hurricane Katrina displaced two large oak trees in St. Anthony's Garden behind the cathedral, dislodging 30 feet (9.1 m) of the ornamental gate. The nearby marble statue of Jesus Christ was damaged, losing a forefinger and a thumb.
The winds tore a hole in the roof, allowing water to enter the building and severely damage the Holtkamp pipe organ. Shortly after the storm, the organ was sent back to Holtkamp to be rebuilt. An electronic substitute was used until June 2008, when the organ was reinstalled in the Cathedral. Originally installed during the cathedral's extensive renovation in 2004, the organ was donated by longtime choirmaster and organist Elise Cambon.


The cathedral is said to be haunted by Fr. Antonio de Sedella, more commonly known as Père Antoine. He was a priest at the cathedral and his body is buried within the church. He is said to walk the alley named after him next to the cathedral in the early mornings. Accounts of his apparitions by parishioners and tourists claim that he appears during Christmas Midnight Mass near the left side of the altar, holding a candle. The cathedral is also said to be haunted by Père Dagobert, a friar who resided in the church. It is said that his voice can be heard chanting the Kyrie on rainy days.


St. Nicholas Church (St. Nikolai Kirche) is a church in the city of Burg on the German Baltic island of Fehmarn.


The church is on the island of Fehmarn in the Baltic. The island is joined by a bridge to the mainland, and there are plans to link the island by a submerged tunnel to Denmark. There is a bronze font in the church which dates from 1391. It is not certain how it arrived at the church, but the casting carried an inscription which records that the font was given by Korp Benno the Bishop of Arosia. Another significant item of the 14th century is a polyptych which has fourteen panels today but it is believed to have lost further panels.
In addition there is another stone font that was rediscovered when nearby buildings were being built. It has since had a base added, and small restorations have also been made.
The date that the church was started is unknown, but it has been estimated at 1230, making the building the second oldest church on the island. The first construction may have been in 1250. The church was dedicated to Saint Nicholas, who is the patron saint of sea travellers and grain sellers.
The size of the church was increased in 1470 and in 1508 the tower of the church was built.
Amongst the church's artefacts on display is a large chest that was used for storing the parishioners contributions. After each service the collection bag would be emptied into the chest, but it would only be opened once a year. When it was opened then the funds would be distributed to those in need.


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The complex is situated in the Dnieper river valley. The construction started in the XVII century, when Metropolitan Peter Mogila was granted permission to build a church by the king Władysław IV Vasa. Under the rule of Sylvester Kosiv in the Mogilev diocese the first wooden church in the name of St Nicholas was built in 1637. The stone church was erected in 1669-1672 and consecrated by the bishop Teodozjusz Wasilewicz. The church is a three-nave cross-dome basilica with an octahedral light tambour and a large bulbous cupola over the middle part. The dominant architectural feature of the church was a two-tower main facade with a figured pediment decorated with a set of diversiform tiered bays.
In the early XVII century the monastery was attacked by the Swedish and then Russian forces, fires significantly damaged the buildings. In 1719 the last conventuals had to move to the Barkolabsky monastery. In the same time St Nicholas was used as a fratry, it served as a parish up until the 1930s. In 1793 the archbishop Grigorij Konisski initiated construction of a warm winter cathedral that was consecrated by the archbishop Anastazy Bratanowski-Romanenko in 1798.


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In 1915-1917 the Stavka of the Supreme Commander was located in Mogilev and the Emperor Nicholas with family attended services in the St Nicholas cathedral.
In the Soviet era the monastery suffered the same persecution as the rest of Russian Church. The authorities confiscated Vasa Sacra, the iconostasis was destroyed. In 1934 the cathedral was closed, and in 1937 the Mogilev diocese was dismissed (it was reinstalled only in 1989).
In 1937-1941 the monastery was used as a transit prison, then in 1946 it was converted to book storage. During the 1991 reconstruction the specialists discovered multiple human remains. Presumably, they belonged to victims of Stalinist repressions who were kept in the prison during the 1930s.


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This site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on January 30, 2004, in the Cultural category.


WikiWeb_St. Nicholas Russian Orthodox Church_1

Russians did not settle in the Juneau area while this territory was a Russian colony (1784–1867). Nor did the Russian Orthodox Church send missionaries to Juneau when the mining settlement started in 1881. Instead, the Orthodox Church became strongly established here through the efforts of the local Tlingit leaders. In 1890, the Taku leader Anathahash traveled to Sitka to be baptized into the Orthodox faith. More traditional Tlingit gravitated toward the Orthodox Church among Christian offerings, as it had used local languages in worship since about 1800 in Kodiak and 1824 in the Aleutian Islands. The Holy Scriptures and much of the Divine Liturgy (as the Orthodox call the Mass, or Lord's Supper) had been translated into Tlingit by St. Innocent (Veniaminov) during his years as a priest in Sitka (1834–40) and later as Bishop of Alaska (1842–1850).
Anathahash returned from Sitka in 1890 with the Rev. Vladimir Donskoy, the first Russian Orthodox priest to conduct services in the area. During Fr. Vladimir's stay, he instructed and baptized many of the local Tlingit people. That year Alexei Yaakwaan, son of a Tlingit leader, converted to the Orthodox Church and encouraged his father, Yees Gaanaalx, leader of the L'eeneidí (Dog Salmon) people of Auke Bay, to be baptized. Sitka Chief Khlantych told the church that Yees Gaanaalx wanted to convert to Orthodoxy and that Tlingit would follow his example.
On July 26, 1892 Bishop Nicholas (Ziorov) of the Aleutian Islands and Alaska (1891–1898), visited Juneau from San Francisco, where the seat of the church in America had been located since 1872. The bishop was met by the Tlingit leaders wanting to convert. According to oral tradition, he was told that the Tlingit leaders had each been having a common, recurring dream.  In their dream, a short, white-bearded, elderly man encouraged them to become Christian. When these leaders saw an icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, Archbishop of Myra in Lycia, they "recognized" him as being the man in their dreams. Three days later, the Priest-monk Mitrofan baptized both Yees Gaanaalx and his wife, giving them the Christian names of Dimitri and Elizabeth. Following their example, some 700 of approximately 1500 Tlingit in the area also converted to the Orthodox church.
With such a large Native congregation to be served, the Orthodox Missionary Society in Russia sent architectural drawings, interior church furnishings – such as candlestands, a chalice set, censers, banners, a full iconostasis (the icon screen), and festal icons – and two hundred silver rubles to support construction of a church for them. The six large panels on the iconostasis are the original icons received from Russia and hold a unique position as the only known iconostasis where the deacon's doors depict Sts. Cyril and Methodius rather than either the Archangels Michael and Gabriel or the Deacons Stephen & Lawrence.  The newly baptized Tlingit and Serbian gold miners, who were already Orthodox, helped build the traditional structure. It is a high-quality example of the "Russian Colonial" style of architecture. In June 1894, Bishop Nicholas returned to Juneau and consecrated the new church in honor of St. Nicholas.
On June 5, 2016 Bishop David (Mahaffey) at Saint Nicholas Church with Alaska Governor Bill Walker and First Lady Donna Walker opened of a new monument erected in memory of the many Aleuts who lost their lives in internment camps during World War II.


The temple tower is 60 m tall. Sandstone was used as a building material. Inside the tower, there is a winding stairwell with approximately 180 stairs, leading to a belfry and the gallery with the view on the entire town and surrounding. In the belfry, there are two bells, each approximately 60 cm tall.
Presently, the temple goes under minor amendments, however the church services and tours are not disrupted. Tours to the tower are allowed.


The St. Petersburg Pier, officially known as the St. Pete Pier, is a landmark pleasure pier extending into Tampa Bay from downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. Over the years several different structures have been built at the same location.  The most recent structure, the third owned by the city, was a five-story inverted pyramid-shaped building, designed by St. Petersburg architect William B. Harvard, Sr. That Inverted Pyramid Pier was closed in 2013, and the new 26-acre Pier District opened on July 6, 2020. The $92 million dollar project includes five restaurants, a playground, an environmental education center, and numerous artworks including work by Xenobia Bailey, Nathan Mabry, Nick Ervinck, and a large sculpture entitled Bending Arc by Janet Echelman. Its opening was scheduled for May 30, 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida.


Before the construction of a centralized pier in St. Petersburg, Florida, there were several smaller piers that jutted out into the Tampa Bay from 1854 to the creation of the Railroad Pier in 1889. The first of which resulted from an expedition by Lt. C.H. Berryman replying to Florida senator David Levy Yulee to survey land for optimal partitions of railroad lines following the 1850 Florida Swamp Land Act to the region. Though due to the railroad being halted in Cedar Key, Florida the project was soon deserted, however the findings did stimulate active ideas in extending the line to the greater Tampa Bay metropolitan area due to his 1855 report.


The first centralized pier was created in 1889 when the Orange Belt Railway, brought by Peter Demens, constructed the Railroad Pier stretching from around 2,000 to 3,000 feet into the Tampa Bay after being convinced by John C. Williams. Built on 1st Avenue South, the Railroad Pier allowed for steamboats and cargo-freight ships to enter and dock in its 12-feet-deep waters. It was deemed by Demens to be a tourist attraction, later instigating the construction of a bathing pavilion in the two years following its opening. In the same year, Henry W. Hibbs leased part of the pier to open a fishing business which quickly grew the industry of fishing in the area.
During these early years, Demens sold off the railway to Henry B. Plant, who converted the railway into the Sanford and St. Petersburg Railroad. Not wanting to lose business interest in his holdings, Plant and his associates held a monopoly on the pier going as far as to block further dredging of the channel later in 1901. As an alternative to the Railroad Pier, D.F.S. Brantley constructed the Brantley Pier in 1896 at the length of 1,500 feet in 7-foot-deep waters. The Brantley Pier also hosted a bathing pavilion, and was built farther north at 2nd Avenue North. As competition between the piers grew, it helped to facilitate William Straub of the St. Petersburg Times to successfully advocate for the waterfronts to be used for public parks in the early 20th century.
A third pier was built by Edwin H. Tomlinson in 1901 south of the Railroad Pier on 4th Avenue South which was named the Fountain of Youth Pier. The pier featured a cottage at the edge of the pier, and a well that was drilled near the entrance having water that held similar promises of the famed Fountain of Youth.
The Brantley Pier was demolished in 1904 and was soon replaced by the Electric Pier constructed by F.A. Davis in 1905. The Electric Pier had a length of 3,000 feet and was 16 feet in width. The pier was illuminated with light bulbs and featured an electric trolley that could move both passengers and cargo down the length of the pier, rivaling that of the Railroad Pier once again. In 1908, Jesse F. Conrad purchased the pier from Tomlinson and added an arch for the entrance of the pier as well as turning the well into a spa.
The city of St. Petersburg built its first pier, the Municipal Recreation Pier, ten feet north of the Electric Pier in 1913 after a $40,000 bond was authorized by voters. The Municipal Recreation Pier was an effort by the city to boost its tourism, enhance the cities parks, and was used solely for recreational activities. A year later in 1914 the Electric Pier was demolished.
In the aftermath of the 1921 Tampa Bay Hurricane, the Fountain of Youth Pier was destroyed and the spa building at its base collapsed. The rest of the piers were severely damaged as the Railroad Pier  had a water tank and Henry W. Hibbs fishing unit left standing while the Municipal Recreation Pier had only pilings remaining. Soon after the Municipal Recreation Pier was repaired, although engineers had alerted public officials that the pier would need to be replaced thereafter. As a result, Lew B. Brown, a publisher of the Evening Independent, promoted an effort to construct a new pier entitled "The Million Dollar Pier". Brown had organized the community into donating $300,000 dollars towards the pier, with the remaining funds being bonded from the city. Voters in 1925 voted to endorse a $1 million bond towards a new pier structure, and construction of the pier began the same year. In total, the pier would cost $998,729.18 (USD) dollars ($15.4 million in 2021 dollars).


After the demolition, the pier's head was converted into a park that included benches, tables, and shelters. In the ensuing years the city considered many ideas to replace the pier ranging from industrial and commercial uses. In 1969, the city council authorized a pier project slated to be completed for the 1970–1971 tourist season at the cost of $2 million. The project selected was the Inverted Pyramid Pier designed by William B. Harvard Sr., designed to minimize blocking the a view of Tampa Bay. The following year in 1970, the pier project was granted an additional $800,000 dollars to construct the design.
The Inverted Pyramid Pier opened on January 15, 1973 after delays and a budget of around $4 million. Upon its opening, the Marriott Corporation was given a five-year contract in managing the pier. With a tubular steel framework to create large windows for panoramic views of Tampa Bay and a larger top floor and observation deck.
On March 20, 1976, the city dedicated a laser sculpture by Rockne Krebs entitled Starboard Home on the Range, Part VI. The sculpture featured a green laser beam from the pier directed towards downtown St. Petersburg, reflecting to the pier several times with mirrors, finally reflecting out to Tampa Bay. When ongoing technical problems with cooling the laser engine caused repeated dysfunction, the laser sculpture was shut down.
In 1986, the Inverted Pyramid Pier closed for renovations, however after delays and an expanded restoration budget of $12 million the pier reopened on August 27, 1988.
In 2004, the city of St. Petersburg found that the structure of The Pier could no longer be funded as it cost too much in upkeep and a new pier would replace the current inverted pyramid pier in the coming years. In April 2005, Pinellas County created a plan to set aside $50 million for the new plans for the pier. In 2009, an official Pier Task Force was created and set an international design competition which included 29 architectural firms that submitted designs. The Inverted Pyramid Pier officially closed on May 31, 2013.


In a straw-poll vote (5–3) after a two-hour workshop on August 18, 2010, the St. Petersburg City Council accepted Mayor Bill Foster's recommendation to demolish the current pier. A binding vote, 7–1, was taken at an August 26 meeting. On January 20, 2012, the St. Petersburg Pier International Design Competition Jury unanimously selected Michael Maltzan Architecture's "The Lens" as the design for the new pier out of the original 29 architectural firms that submitted designs for the pier. Design proposals by the top three competitors included Bjarke Ingels Group's (BIG) "The Wave" and West 8's "The People's Pier". In September 2012, the city applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit to demolish the pier. Approval would have taken 6 to 12 months.
A campaign to stop the destruction of the existing pier and prevent The Lens design from replacing it resulted in a referendum. One issue with The Lens design was its plans for a visible reef that low visibility in Tampa Bay made unrealistic. On August 27, 2013, city residents voted to cancel the contract with Michael Maltzan Architecture, ending The Lens project.


After The Lens design was turned down by the citizens of St. Petersburg, mayor Rick Kriseman asked for the request for qualification for a design consultant in January 2014. Later a group was established called the Pier Working Group to incorporate elements and activities from the community in order to set the basis for the new pier.
The process of finding a new pier began with sixteen initial teams that submitted a statement of qualification on September 8, 2014 with ideas ranging from renovating to replacing the current pier. From those initial teams, eight were invited by the city of St. Petersburg to the second stage of the selection process. Designs for the new pier concept were due on December 15, 2014 by the selected eight teams. After review from the selection committee of the designs introduced by the teams, the design teams were shortlisted on January 23, 2015 to include seven of the original eight teams, dropping "The Crescent" by ahha! Design Group. Over the course of the next month from January to February, public outreach was collected based on the shortlisting and the teams presented their pier concepts to the public. A public online survey ensued from February to March, which the results from citizens of St. Petersburg favored the "Destination St. Pete Pier" by the St. Pete Design Group followed by "Pier Park" by ASD Architects, Rogers Partners Architects+Urban Designers, & Ken Smith Architect and "Blue Pier" by W Architecture and Landscape Architecture.
A meeting with the pier committee was held on March 20, 2015 to decide the top three rankings for the pier. During this meeting, the committee evaluated the designs of all seven piers viewing each pro's and con's and hearing comments from both the committee and public. In conclusion of the meeting, four of the seven teams were eliminated which excluded the "Blue Pier", "Discover Bay Life Pier", "rePier", and "Prospect Pier". The top three piers were ranked by "ALMA" first, "Destination St. Pete Pier" second, and "Pier Park" third, however the movement to rank the piers in the order given was failed during a vote between the committee. Weeks after the initial meeting, mayor Rick Kriseman commented that the residents just want to see their elected officials build a pier.
During a final hearing on April 23, 2015, the selection committee had two meetings. The first involved a questions and answers for the top three teams and the second included a hearing from the public with final consideration for the top three designs. During the second meeting, the selection committee ranked the piers by several major criteria. During the late night meeting, the committee ranked "Pier Park" as their number one pick followed by the favored "Destination St. Pete Pier" ranked second and "ALMA" by Alfonso Architects ranked third. The St. Petersburg City Council approved of the "Pier Park" plans on May 7, 2015 in a 7 to 1 vote, and approved the contract on June 9, 2015.
On July 9, 2015, the city council approved on a $5.2 million deal to demolish the current pier and to finalize the Pier Park. The demolition of the pier began on August 18, 2015. On November 17, 2015, the St. Petersburg Pier structure was fully demolished. After the demolition of the structure, the approach of the pier was next which was estimated to be fully demolished four months after starting. The entire demolition was expected to be done by February 2016, however it was completed in late 2016 on the account of safety concerns from the decay of the construction materials that were reinforced over the lifetime of the pier's approach and base structure. A redesign on the pier was presented on March 17, 2016 with mixed reactions from officials, though it was viewed positively by the city's council. Due to the redesign, budget cuts were soon imposed on the Pier's concepts.
Pier Park's groundbreaking began on June 28, 2017. On September 25, 2017, Pinellas County granted an expanded budget of $76 million towards the Pier's district. In December 2017, the pier's concrete pilings were around "three quarters of the way done" with the deck "about half done". In April 2018, three artists were announced to create public art for the pier's surrounding and immediate district, including Nick Ervinck, Nathan Mabry, and Xenobia Bailey. In August 2018, it was approved by the cities council to install a Janet Echelman sculpture in the pier's district. Vertical construction on the Pier's structure began in November 2018.
Its original opening was scheduled for May 30, 2020, but was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida. The pier and pier district opened on July 6. The renovated St. Pete Pier features a variety of restaurants. The new addition to the city sits on 26 acres of land.


On June 17, 1922, 18-year-old Dorothy MacLatchie was killed by a "monster fish" while floating next to the Municipal Recreation Pier in St. Petersburg, Florida. While some reports indicate her death was caused by a shark, newspaper accounts indicate her death was caused by a barracuda.
A significant amount of footage was filmed in and around the Pier for the second and third season of the mid-1990s television series seaQuest DSV.
The Pier was shown prominently on the cover of local zombie anthology, Zombie St. Pete. This is a short story collection featuring fictional zombie attacks in the St. Petersburg city. The Pier also held the Zombie St. Pete book release party on February 27, 2010.


St. Thaddeus the Apostle Church of Ddmashen (Armenian: Դդմաշենի Սուրբ Թադևոս եկեղեցի; also St. Tadevos the Apostle Church) is a 7th-century Armenian church located within the village of Ddmashen in the Gegharkunik Province of Armenia. Named after Saint Thaddeus the Apostle, the church is considered by some to be the fourth most important example of its style of architecture after the Cathedral of Talin, Ptghavank, and Aruchavank. Following structural damage caused by an earthquake, the drum was replaced in 1907 by a sixteen-sided one in an architectural style that was different from that of the original. Aside from the aforementioned alteration, there have not been any other major changes to the church. A large cemetery is situated south of the church, consisting mostly of unmarked grave stones.


The church of S. Tadevos has a large cruciform rectangular-plan. A single conical dome rests above a sixteen-sided drum with eight windows that let light into the interior of the structure. There are also niches in the façades between each of the windows that surround the drum. There is a single small window at the apse, while there are ten larger windows light the nave, and a window in each of the prayer rooms or "studies" adjacent to the apse. The exterior and interior of the church are relatively void of any decoration. Molding above the windows is undecorated as well.  Within the interior of the church is a painted wooden altar.


The church St. Thomas (German: Thomaskirche) is a Protestant church in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin. Friedrich Adler designed and built the church between 1865 and 1869. Prior to the construction of the Berliner Dom, it was the largest church in Berlin, and the congregation was one of the largest in Western Christendom.
It is located directly between the Luisenstädtischer Kanal and Mariannenplatz, once a central location.


St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe is a Church of England church located on Queen Victoria Street, London in the City of London, near Blackfriars station.


First mentioned around 1170, St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe was almost certainly founded considerably earlier. During the 13th century the church was a part of Baynard's Castle, an ancient royal residence.  In 1361, Edward III moved his Royal Wardrobe (a storehouse for Royal accoutrements, housing arms and clothing among other personal items of the Crown) from the Tower of London to just north of the church. It was from this association that the church acquired its unique name.
The Wardrobe and the church, however, were both lost in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Of the 51 churches designed by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire, St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe is among the simplest of his designs; it was erected in 1695.
The church was again gutted during the London blitz by German bombing; only the tower and walls survived. It was rebuilt and rededicated in 1961.


As the parish of St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe rejects the ordination of women, it receives alternative episcopal oversight from the Bishop of Fulham (currently Jonathan Baker).


St Andrew's is situated on a terrace overlooking the street, its plain red-brick exterior contrasting with the stone buildings on either side. The interior is aisled, with arcaded bays supported by piers rather than the usual columns. The original interior fittings were mostly destroyed during the war, and many of the church's features were procured from other destroyed Wren churches. The weathervane on the steeple comes from St Michael Bassishaw (which was demolished in 1900). A replacement pulpit came from the church of St Matthew, Friday Street. The font and cover also came from here. The royal arms, of the House of Stuart, came from St Olave Old Jewry (demolished, except for its tower, in 1887). There is a figure of St Andrew, dated around 1600, which stands on the north side of the sanctuary and an unusual figure of Saint Anne who is shown holding the Virgin Mary who in turn holds the Christ child. This statue, which is probably north Italian, dates to around 1500.
William Shakespeare was a member of this parish for about fifteen years while he was working at the Blackfriars Theatre nearby, and later he bought a house within the parish, in Ireland Yard. In his honour, a memorial was erected in the church.
Regular Sunday services are conducted there by the St Gregorios congregation of the Indian Orthodox Church.
The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.


Prior to the King's wardrobe moving to the adjacent area it was known as St Andrew by Castle Baynard- "The Churches of the City of London" Reynolds H.: London, Bodley Head, 1922
"London:the City Churches Pevsner,N/Bradley,S : New Haven, Yale, 1998 ISBN 0-300-09655-0
"The City Churches" Tabor, M. p62:London; The Swarthmore Press Ltd; 1917
"The Old Churches of London" Cobb,G: London, Batsford, 1942
"St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe". Bishop of Fulham. Retrieved 3 July 2022.
Thornbury, Walter. Old & New London, Vol.1, pp.302-3
Jeayes Charters, no.581
"The City of London Churches: monuments of another age" Quantrill, E; Quantrill, M p50: London; Quartet; 1975
Quoted in Thornbury, op.cit
"The City of London Churches" Betjeman,J Andover, Pikin, 1967 ISBN 0-85372-112-2
"The London Encyclopaedia" Hibbert,C;Weinreb,D;Keay,J: London, Pan Macmillan, 1983 (rev 1993,2008) ISBN 978-1-4050-4924-5
Weinreb, Ben, and Hibbert, Christopher (1992). The London Encyclopaedia (reprint ed.). Macmillan. p. 774.
The Visitors Guide to the City of London Churches" Tucker,T: London, Friends of the City Churches, 2006 ISBN 0-9553945-0-3
Church website Retrieved 29 October 2009
Historic England. "Church of St Andrew by the Wardrobe (1079148)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 23 January 2009.


St Andrews Anglican Church is a heritage-listed churchyard at 160 Vulture Street, South Brisbane, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was designed by  Andrea Stombuco and built from 1878 to 1932. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.


St Andrew's Anglican Church at South Brisbane was constructed in several stages: 1878-1883, 1887, and 1931-1932, as funds became progressively available.
The first Anglican church in South Brisbane, St Thomas',  had been built c. 1855 on the corner of Grey and Melbourne Streets. The construction of St Andrew's reflected the growing population of the area and the general move of residential and public buildings up the hill away from the flood-prone area of first settlement. Flamboyant Italian architect Andrea Stombuco was commissioned to design St Andrew's, which was to be a substantial structure in stone. Stombuco, who had designed a number of ecclesiastical buildings for the Catholic Church, including St Joseph's Christian Brothers' College on Gregory Terrace (1875-1876), Rathbawn (a house built for Roman Catholic Bishop of Brisbane, James Quinn) at Nudgee (1875-1878) and St Mary's Roman Catholic Presbytery in Ipswich (1875), envisaged a grand structure for St Andrew's, with a prominent tower and spire.
The foundation stone for St Andrew's was laid on Saturday 30 November 1878 by Queensland Governor Arthur Kennedy. Work commenced in 1878, but was abandoned when the walls had reached a height of only 6 feet (1.8 m). Stombuco's design had proved beyond the financial means of the parish, and work did not resume until 1882. The chancel, transepts and first bay of the nave were completed in the following year by the builder James O'Keeffe. The church was officially opened and dedicated on Wednesday 6 June 1883 by Bishop Matthew Hale assisted by Archdeacon Benjamin Glennie with over 500 people present.
An 1887 extension was designed by architect Hezekiah Watson King Martin, who had recently arrived in Brisbane from London, and was an active member of the St Andrew's congregation.
In 1887, architect John H. Buckeridge designed the rectory for St Andrew’s Church and also extensions to it in 1892. The rectory was later relocated to 112 Airlie Road, Pullenvale and is used as a private home.
The parish hall was built in 1909 to a design by architect William Alfred Caldwell.
The continued growth in the congregation led to the completion of the nave in 1931-1932, under the supervision of architect Lange Leopold Powell. The tower and spire of Stombuco's design were never completed.


St Andrews is a large Gothic-style church, cruciform in shape and made of Brisbane tuff.
In addition to the nave and transepts there is a portico at the front and a chancel at the western end. Both of these wings have a lower roof line than the nave. A small vestry is located to the north of the chancel and the half-built tower is to the south. There is a substantial subfloor beneath the church. The steeply pitched gable roof is of slate.
A notable feature of the building is the large stained glass windows, especially those located at the end of the chancel, portico and transepts.
The timber hall consists of a core surrounded by enclosed verandah wings. The core has a steeply pitched gable roof in corrugated iron and fine timber ceiling supported by timber trusses.


St Andrews Anglican Church was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 having satisfied the following criteria.
The place is important in demonstrating the evolution or pattern of Queensland's history.
St Andrew's Anglican Church is significant historically in demonstrating the expansion of the Anglican Church in Queensland, and the evolution of South Brisbane as a rival to North Brisbane in terms of commerce, municipal development and population increase, in the second half of the 19th century. The construction of St Andrew's illustrates the move away from the river flats after the 1860s flood, and the growing popularity among the middle-class of the higher ridges in South Brisbane and Highgate Hill.
The place demonstrates rare, uncommon or endangered aspects of Queensland's cultural heritage.
The place is important as a rare example of a substantial, stone gothic-style church in Brisbane, with particularly fine stained glass windows, and is a well-known South Brisbane landmark which has contributed to the Brisbane townscape for over a century.
The place is important in demonstrating the principal characteristics of a particular class of cultural places.
The place is important as a rare example of a substantial, stone gothic-style church in Brisbane, with particularly fine stained glass windows, and is a well-known South Brisbane landmark which has contributed to the Brisbane townscape for over a century.
The place is important because of its aesthetic significance.
The place is important as a rare example of a substantial, stone gothic-style church in Brisbane, with particularly fine stained glass windows, and is a well-known South Brisbane landmark which has contributed to the Brisbane townscape for over a century.
The place has a strong or special association with a particular community or cultural group for social, cultural or spiritual reasons.
The place is important as a rare example of a substantial, stone gothic-style church in Brisbane, with particularly fine stained glass windows, and is a well-known South Brisbane landmark which has contributed to the Brisbane townscape for over a century.
The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.
Despite having been constructed in a number of stages between 1878 and 1932, the building reflects much of architect Andrea Stombuco's original vision, and is important in contributing to our understanding of his work.


St Catherine of Siena Church is a parish of the Roman Catholic Church situated on Bristol Street in Birmingham, in the Archdiocese of Birmingham. Founded in 1874, its parish church was demolished and replaced in 1964. It was run by the Missionary Society of St. Columban from 2005 to 2013.


With the Roman Catholic population in Birmingham increasing in the 19th century, a Catholic school was built on Windmill Street in 1869 to provide an education for the new families in the area. Later, a new church had to be built to accommodate their needs. So on 30 April 1874, the foundation stone for a new Gothic revival church, St Catherine of Siena's, was laid in the Horse Fair part of the city by Bishop William Ullathorne of Birmingham. He also presided at the opening ceremony of the church on 28 September 1875. Originally, only the nave and sanctuary was built. By October 1893, the chancel, lady chapel and sacristy were ready and by 1909 the tower was completed. By 1918 the church was free of debt and consecrated in June that year. It was located where the Holloway Circus roundabout is situated on Bristol Street, Birmingham.


On 1 June 1964, the church in Horse Fair was de-consecrated by Archbishop Francis Grimshaw of Birmingham, as the building was bought by the local council under a compulsory purchase order so that it could be demolished and a road system could be made in the area. This was part of the Inner Ring Road project. As well as the church, the surrounding old terraced housing was also demolished and replaced with council flats.
While a new church was being built, Mass was held in the nearby school. On 20 December 1964, the new church was opened. It is a circular domed building, with the altar in the centre of the church, making it compliant with the decrees of the Second Vatican Council. It was built on the corner of Irving Street and is made of brick and concrete. Inside the church, the Stations of the Cross are a memento from the old building.


The church was originally built in about 1100. A new south aisle was added in 1391 and the church was repaired in 1631 at a cost of more than £2,400.
It was severely damaged in the Great Fire of London in 1666.  Rather than being completely rebuilt, the damaged church was patched up between 1668 and 1671. A steeple was added in 1695–1701 to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren.
It was built in a gothic style sympathetic to main body of the church, though with heavy string courses of a kind not used in the Middle Ages. It has a needle spire carried on four flying buttresses in the manner of that of St Nicholas in Newcastle. The restored church  had wooden carvings by Grinling Gibbons and an organ by Father Smith,  which was transferred to the abbey at St Albans  in 1818.
In 1817 it was found that the weight of the nave roof had thrust the walls seven inches out of the perpendicular. It was decided to rebuild the church from the level of the arches, but the state of the structure proved so bad that the whole building was taken down. It was rebuilt to a design in the perpendicular style by  David Laing (then architect to the Board of Customs)  with assistance from William Tite. The foundation stone was laid in November 1817  and the church re-opened for worship in January 1821. Built of Portland stone, with a plaster  lierne nave vault, it was 115 feet  long and 65 feet wide and could accommodate between six and seven hundred people. The cost   of the work was £36,000.  Wren's tower was retained in the new building.
The church was severely damaged in the Blitz of 1941. Wren's tower and steeple survived the bombs' impact. Of the rest of the church only the north and south walls remained. In the re-organisation of the Anglican Church in London following the War it was decided not to rebuild St Dunstan's, and in 1967 the City of London Corporation decided to turn the ruins of the church into a public garden, which opened in 1971. A lawn and trees were planted in the ruins, with  a low fountain  in the middle of the nave. The tower  now houses the All Hallows House Foundation.
The parish is now combined with the Benefice of All Hallows by the Tower and occasional open-air services are held in the church, such as on Palm Sunday prior to a procession to All Hallows by the Tower along St Dunstan's Hill and Great Tower Street. The  ruin was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.


The  St James Walkway is a 66 kilometres (41 mi)-long subalpine tramping (i.e. the New Zealand term for 'hiking') track located in the Lewis Pass area of the South Island of New Zealand. It is administered by the Department of Conservation.


The St James Walkway was the first walking track in New Zealand to be built in a sub-alpine area.


The track starts near Lewis Pass and goes to Boyle Village and the Boyle River Outdoor Education Centre. The track ends are 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) apart via State Highway 7, and the Boyle Village parking area is considered more secure for leaving a vehicle.
At Lewis Pass, the track starts at 863 metres (2,831 ft) above sea level, and descends down to a swing bridge at Cannibal Gorge at 720 metres (2,360 ft). Cannibal Gorge is formed by the right branch of the Maruia River, and the track follows it to Cannibal Gorge Hut and continues to Ada Hut at Ada Pass at 1,008 metres (3,307 ft). From there, the track follows the Ada River to the historic Christopher Cullers Hut, and the Christopher Hut. The Ada River flows into the Waiau River, where the St James Walkway descends to 740 metres (2,430 ft), passing near the Ada homestead. The track then descends along the Henry River to Anne Hut and Anne Saddle at 1,136 metres (3,727 ft). From here, the track follows the Boyle River and reaches Rokeby Hut, Boyle Flat Hut, and eventually its terminus at Boyle Village at 600 metres (2,000 ft) above sea level.
Five of the huts are serviced, i.e. firewood or coal is provided, and 14 to 20 bunks are available: Cannibal Gorge,  Ada Pass, Christopher,  Anne and Boyle Flat huts. Christopher Cullers and Rokeby huts are basic huts with four and three bunks, respectively.
Part of St James Walkway passes through the former St James Station. More than half of the track is part of Te Araroa, which joins between Christopher and Anne Huts at the Waiau River.


St John the Baptist Church is in Liverpool Road North, Burscough, Lancashire, England.  It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Ormskirk, the archdeaconry of Warrington, and the diocese of Liverpool.  Its benefice has been united with those of St Andrew, Burscough Bridge, St Cyprian, Burscough Bridge, and Oaks, Burscough Bridge.  The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building.  It was a Commissioners' church, having received a grant towards its construction from the Church Building Commission.


St John's is constructed in ashlar sandstone, with a slate roof.  Its architectural style is Gothic Revival.  The plan consists of a five-bay nave, and a chancel with a vestry to the south.  The west front is gabled, and is divided into three bays by four polygonal buttresses that rise to octagonal embattled turrets.  On the apex of the gable is a bellcote with louvred bell openings over which are gablets.  It has an ogival top surmounted by a crocketed pinnacle.  In the centre bay is an arched doorway, above which is a blind three-light window.  In each lateral bay is a blind two-light window.  The bays along the sides of the church are divided by buttresses, and each contains a two-light window.  On the corners of the chancel are turrets, its side windows have two lights, and the east window has five lights.


Church services are held weekly on a Sunday at 9am, 11am and 7pm. There is also a midweek service at 10.30am each Tuesday.


The church was originally built in the twelfth century and dedicated to St Lawrence; the weathervane of the present church is in the form of his instrument of  martyrdom, the gridiron. The church is near the former medieval Jewish ghetto, which was centred on the street named Old Jewry. From 1280 it was an advowson held by Balliol College, Oxford.
It is thought that the unusual alignment of the church may be because it was built on the site of the London Roman Amphitheatre, which was rediscovered as recently as 1988. Its remains can now be visited beneath the Guildhall Art Gallery.
Sir Thomas More preached in the old church on this site.


In 1618 the church was repaired, and all the windows filled with stained glass paid for by individual donors.
The medieval church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London   and rebuilt by Christopher Wren between 1670 and 1687. The parish was united with that of St Mary Magdalen, Milk Street, which was not rebuilt. The church is entirely faced in stone, with a grand east front, on which four attached Corinthian columns, raised on a basement, support a pediment placed against a high attic. George Godwin, writing in 1839, described the details of this facade as displaying " a purity of feeling almost Grecian", while pointing out that Wren's pediment acts only as a superficial adornment to the wall, rather than, as in Classical architecture, forming an extension of the roof.
Inside, Wren's church has an aisle on the north side only, divided from the nave by Corinthian columns, carrying an entablature that continues around the walls of the main body of the church, where it is supported on pilasters. The ceiling is divided into sunken panels, ornamented with wreaths and branches. The church is 81 feet long and 68 feet wide.


The church suffered extensive damage during the Blitz on 29 December 1940,  and after the war the City of London Corporation agreed to restore it as Balliol College had no funds to do so. It was restored in 1957 by the architect Cecil Brown to Wren's original design. It is no longer a parish church, but a guild church, the advowson transferred to the City as its official church.
The church was described by Sir John Betjeman as "very municipal, very splendid." It was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.
The church was the burial place of John Tillotson, the Archbishop of Canterbury from 1691 to 1694; and of merchant Francis Levett, as well as the site of the wedding of his niece Ann Levett, daughter of William Levett, Dean of Bristol and former Principal of Magdalen Hall, Oxford.
The church is used by the New Zealand Society UK, who celebrate Waitangi Day here in February each year.
Catherine Ennis was the organist here until her death on 24 December 2020.


Bradley, Simon & Pevsner, Nikolaus. London: the City Churches.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002 ISBN 0-300-09655-0
Hibbert, C.; Weinreb, D.; Keay, J. The London Encyclopaedia. London: Pan Macmillan, 1983 (rev 1993, 2008) ISBN 978-1-4050-4924-5
Tucker, T. The Visitors Guide to the City of London Churches. London: Friends of the City Churches, 2006 ISBN 0-9553945-0-3
"St Lawrence Jewry". London Taxi Tour. Archived from the original on 12 May 2008. Retrieved 11 April 2009.
Godwin, George; John Britton (1839). The Churches of London: A History and Description of the Ecclesiastical Edifices of the Metropolis. London: C. Tilt. Retrieved 8 October 2011.
"The City Churches" Tabor, M. p76:London; The Swarthmore Press Ltd; 1917
Bradley, Simon; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1998). London: the City Churches. The Buildings of England. London: Penguin Books. pp. 995–6. ISBN 0-14-071100-7.
"The City of London Churches: monuments of another age" Quantrill, E; Quantrill, M p64: London; Quartet; 1975
Elmes, James (1831). A Topographical Dictionary of London and its Environs. London: Whittaker, Treacher and Arnot. p. 303. Retrieved 24 September 2011.
Cobb, G. "The Old Churches of London". London: Batsford, 1942
Betjeman, J. "The City of London Churches". Andover: Pikin, 1967 ISBN 0-85372-112-2
Historic England. "Details from listed building database (1064673)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 23 January 2009.
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Elmes, James (1831). A Topographical Dictionary of London and its Environs. London: Whittaker, Treacher and Arnot. p. 263.
Publications of the Harleian Society; Vol. XXVI, London, 1887
"St Lawrence Jewry February 2016 Newsletter" (PDF). Company of Distillers. February 2016. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 February 2016. Retrieved 9 February 2016.
Catherine Ennis HonRCO (1955-20); Royal College of Organists; access date = 2021-01-16
Catherine Ennis; Rhinegold
"Palmer, Stephen (PLMR555W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
"Parkens, Samuel (PRKS567S)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
"Vines, Richard (VNS619R)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
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"Ward, Seth (WRT632S)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
"Wilkins, John (WLKS639J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
"Whichcote, Benjamin (WHCT626B)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
"Mapletoft, John (MPLT648J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
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The church is sited on Old Street, north of the City of London. It was built to relieve the City church of St Giles-without-Cripplegate, Cripplegate, under the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, an attempt to meet the religious needs of London's burgeoning 18th-century population. The ancient parish of St Giles lay partly within the City and partly outside its boundaries in Middlesex: under the Commissioners' scheme these two parts were to be separated, with the Middlesex portion (historically the Manor of Finsbury) becoming a new parish of St Luke's. Construction began in 1727 and was completed in 1733, when the church was consecrated on 18 October (St Luke's day), and the parish detached from that of St Giles.
The architects were the joint salaried surveyors to the Commission, John James and Nicholas Hawksmoor. James is thought to have been responsible for the body of the church, and Hawksmoor for the west tower, the flanking staircase wings, and the obelisk spire (a most unusual feature for an Anglican church). The spire was topped by an unusual weather vane depicting the head of a dragon with a fiery comet-like tail: this was misinterpreted locally as a louse, and by the mid-20th century had gained the church the nickname "lousy St Luke's".
The church stood on often waterlogged ground, near the (historically) notoriously marshy Moorfields area, and from an early date (but particularly from the beginning of the 20th century) suffered from problems of subsidence. The effects of the subsidence remain visible in the distorted shapes of the windows on the north side of the building.


Burials in the small churchyard included:
Mark Catesby (1683–1749), naturalist. His grave is lost.
William Caslon the elder (1692/1693–1766), type founder, his son William Caslon II (1720–1778) and other members of the family. They are commemorated by a listed chest tomb.
George Dance the Elder (1695–1768), architect, and at one time a member of the vestry. His grave is lost.
In preparation for the conversion of the church into a music centre, the crypt was cleared of burials in the year 2000. A total of 1053 burials were archaeologically recorded, removed, and reburied at Brookwood Cemetery, Surrey. A television documentary, "Changing Tombs" (2001), recorded the process.


In 1959, in response to structural problems at the church resulting from subsidence, and to a declining inner-city population, the Diocese of London closed St Luke's and the parish was re-absorbed into that of St Giles-without-Cripplegate. The following year the font and organ case were moved to St Giles' church, the reredos and altar rails to St Andrew Holborn, and the roof was removed for safety reasons. The crypt was bricked up in 1964. The empty shell of St Luke's became a dramatic ruin for some 40 years, overgrown with trees, despite being a Grade I listed building.
After several controversial proposals to redevelop offices inside the retained walls, it was converted by the St Luke Centre Management Company Ltd for the London Symphony Orchestra as a concert hall, rehearsal and recording space, and educational resource. The conversion was designed by Axel Burrough at London architects Levitt Bernstein, who installed a heavy concrete slab roof which keeps out traffic noise from the nearby road. Though this is similar in profile to the former eighteenth-century roof, its great weight is supported on tall steel columns inside the hall described by the designer as "tree-like". The interior acoustic can be varied for different events, from full orchestra to soloists, by the use of absorbent surfaces that unroll like blinds across the ceiling and down the walls, whilst the seating and staging are also highly flexible. Work was completed in 2002, and the centre was brought into use early in 2003.


The venue regularly hosts open rehearsals by the London Symphony Orchestra in advance of concerts at the nearby Barbican Hall, and has pioneered genre-busting events such as the Eclectica series, which combines classical, jazz, experimental and electronic sound-worlds.
Junior Trinity, the junior department of Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance have also performed at LSO St Luke's as part of their seasonal concerts with their Symphony Orchestra, Wind Orchestra, Sinfonia, Big Band, and other notable groups.
During 2006 the BBC used the venue to record concerts by Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon for broadcast.
Sir Elton John also recorded a concert to publicise his album The Captain & the Kid.
In 2007 MTV used the venue to record a concert from Editors, for broadcast in the same year.
Patti Smith, Philip Glass and Lenny Kaye performed a tribute to Allen Ginsberg in 2007.
Van Morrison recorded a concert at St Luke's on BBC Four Sessions on 25 April 2008 featuring songs from his 2008 album, Keep It Simple.
In September 2008, Duffy played there for BBC Sessions; the concert was televised on 12 October 2008.


A church of this dedication is first recorded on this site in 1290, serving lay workers at Bermondsey Abbey. The design of that building is not known, but in 1680 the church was demolished and rebuilt, retaining the fifteenth century late medieval tower with a gothic window and arches.  This rebuilding was completed in about 1690, and was followed by the addition of a north gallery in 1705 and a south gallery in 1794.  The south gallery retains its complete original boxed pews but those in the north gallery have had their gates removed.
Further alterations were made under the supervision of the architect George Porter in 1830. He remodelled the tower and west end in an unacademic Gothic style and restored the medieval west window.  The changes also involved removing the portico and school which extended into Bermondsey Street.  The interior was redecorated in the Gothic Revival style in 1852 and is described in a document which can be dated to 1865–1879 by reference to the then rector.   In 1883 the chancel was lengthened and a new stained glass window was installed, as well as other "beautification".  Surviving the Blitz, the west end interior was damaged by fire in 1971.  The church was first rendered externally in 1829, and was most recently re-rendered in 1994.  A detailed description is given in the volume of the Victoria County History covering the area, published in 1912.  The church is now the oldest building in the locality, and the medieval arches are still visible inside the tower behind the organ (not normally accessible to the public).
The original organ was installed in 1751 and replaced by J.W. Walker in 1851; three years later, that company re-used the earlier instrument at the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Heytesbury, Wiltshire.
Visible in the church are two fine carved stone capitals of medieval date, which were discovered locally in the early 20th century and passed to the church for safe-keeping.  They are almost certainly parts of the structure of Bermondsey Abbey.  The church also owns an item of medieval silver plate, called the Bermondsey Mazer, which is held in the care of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and is said to be the only surviving silver from the Abbey.
The Parish Clerks has three qualifying clerks from the three merged parishes, but none have been appointed by the incumbent for many years. It is the guild church of the Bermondsey Tanners Company.
The churchyard was closed for burials in 1854, in common with other London churchyards, being overcrowded and a thus health hazard.  It contains a number of listed monuments, mostly tombs, notably that of the ancestors of Charles Rolls, aviation pioneer and co-founder of Rolls-Royce. It is now in the care of Southwark Council, title having been passed to the Vestry of Bermondsey in 1882.  All the older church registers are held by the London Metropolitan Archives.
An inventory of the church ornaments and vestments was made in 1553, including "a painted cloth to hang before the Rood in Lent." A record was made of items sold during the Reformation, including "an old cope of red silk with roses of silver and gilt", the painting of Biblical verses in the church, and the renewal of the timber porch.


St Mary Woolnoth is an Anglican church in the City of London, located on the corner of Lombard Street and King William Street near Bank junction. The present building is one of the Queen Anne Churches, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. The parish church continues to be actively used for services, with Holy Communion every Tuesday. St Mary Woolnoth lies in the ward of Langbourn.


Roman remains were found under the site during the rebuilding by Hawksmoor, and there is speculation that there was a large Roman building in the immediate vicinity. (see https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1064620).  This has led some to believe that the site has been used for worship for at least 2,000 years. This is based on the guess that the Roman remains were of a religious nature, and 'under the remains of an Anglo-Saxon wooden structure'. However, its name is first recorded in 1191 as Wilnotmaricherche. It is believed that the name "Woolnoth" refers to a benefactor, possibly one Wulnoth de Walebrok who is known to have lived in the area earlier in the 12th century, or perhaps Wulfnoth Cild, a South Saxon nobleman and grandfather of King Harold Godwinson. Its full (and unusual) dedication is to Saint Mary of the Nativity.
The present building is at least the third church on the site. The Norman church survived until 1445, when it was rebuilt, with a spire added in 1485. It was badly damaged in 1666 in the Great Fire of London but was repaired by Sir Christopher Wren. Two new bells (the treble and the tenor) were cast in 1670, and in 1672 the middle bell was cast. The patched-up structure proved unsafe, however, and had to be demolished in 1711.


The church was rebuilt by the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches. Work began in 1716 and the new church was reopened for worship on Easter Day 1727. It was commissioned from Nicholas Hawksmoor, who had responded with one of his most distinctive and original designs. He benefited greatly from having an unusually open area in which to work. The old church had been hemmed in by shops and houses, like many other City churches, but these were demolished at the same time as the church. Hawksmoor was thus able to fully exploit the unobstructed front of the site. St Mary Woolnoth is Hawksmoor's only City of London church.
The resultant church was something of an architectural statement on Hawksmoor's part. Its unusually imposing façade, in English Baroque style, is dominated by two flat-topped turrets supported by columns of the Corinthian order, which are used throughout the church. The west side of the façade, facing Lombard Street, has distinctive recesses bearing an inset forward-curving pediment resting on skewed columns.
The interior of the church is surprisingly spacious, despite its relatively small size. The layout is typical Hawksmoor, forming a "cube within a cube" – a square enclosed by three rows of four columns which is itself enclosed by a wider square. It is dominated by a baroque baldaquin, modelled on that of Bernini in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.


The church underwent major changes in the late 19th century and the turn of the 20th century; it was proposed for demolition on several occasions but was saved each time. Its galleries were removed by William Butterfield in 1876, who thought they were unsafe, and a number of other significant (and not entirely successful) changes were made at the same time.
Between 1897 and 1900 the City & South London Railway (C&SLR) built Bank Underground station beneath the church. The C&SLR were given permission to demolish it, but public outcry forced them to reconsider: the company undertook to use only the subsoil instead. The crypt was sold to the railway and the bones were removed for reburial at Ilford. The walls and internal columns of the church were then supported on steel girders while the lift shafts and staircase shaft for Bank station were built directly beneath the church floor. At this time, the bells were also rehung with new fittings. No cracks formed in the plasterwork, and no settlement of the structure occurred; the company later claimed that the edifice of the church was considerably stronger than before.


St Mary Woolnoth was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950, and in 1952 became a guild church.


St Mary Woolnoth is the active parish church for the combined parish of St Edmund the King and Martyr, and St Mary Woolnoth Lombard Street with St Nicholas Acons, All Hallows Lombard Street, St Benet Gracechurch, St Leonard Eastcheap, St Dionis Backchurch and St Mary Woolchurch Haw – usually shortened to "St Edmund & St Mary Woolnoth" (the only two aforementioned churches to have survived). It is part of the Church of England's Diocese of London.
It is currently used by London's German-speaking Swiss community, and is also the official church in London of the government of British Columbia, Canada.
The 2013 boundary changes to the City's wards kept the church within Langbourn, despite the surrounding buildings being transferred to Candlewick and Walbrook wards, because of the church's strong connections with the ward.


Sir Martin Bowes, Lord Mayor (1545-46) and Mint Master, was married and buried here, and his children and grandchildren baptized.
Thomas Kyd, Elizabethan dramatist, was baptised here; his father Francis was also a churchwarden.
Josias Shute was rector here from 1611.
Ralph Robinson was presbyterian minister here in the 1640s.
William Owtram was rector here.
Thomas Busby the composer was organist here from 1798.
John Newton, evangelical, anti-slavery campaigner and hymnist, was incumbent here from 1780 to 1807.
William Wilberforce, anti-slavery campaigner, worshipped here.
Edward Lloyd, founder of Lloyd's of London, is memorialised here.
William Josiah Irons the theologian was rector here from 1872.
Sir William Phips was buried here.18 February 1694/5
Anne (Marbury) Hutchinson, noted American colonial woman, married William Hutchinson here in 1612.
Thomas Ritchie, born 23 March 1809, a founder of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, was baptised here.


T. S. Eliot refers to this church in a famous passage of his 1922 poem The Waste Land, Part 1, 'The Burial of the Dead':
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying, "Stetson!

You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
In his notes to the poem Eliot remarks that the "dead sound on the final stroke of nine" was "A phenomenon which I have often noticed."
St Mary Woolnoth is an important historical site in Peter Ackroyd's 1985 novel Hawksmoor where it is the scene of one of a series of murders all taking place at churches redesigned by Nicholas Hawksmoor, who is given the fictional name Nicholas Dyer.


Pre-Great Fire London had seven churches dedicated to the Archangel Michael, all but one (St Michael le Querne) of which were rebuilt after the Great Fire. The earliest record of St Michael's is as St Michael of Paternosterchierch and is dated 1219. The suffix comes from its location on Paternoster Lane, (now College Hill), which, in turn was named after the sellers of paternosters – or rosaries – based there. The suffix Royal is first recorded in the next century and refers to another nearby street, now vanished, called Le Ryole, which was a corruption of La Reole, a town in Bordeaux. This street was so named due to the presence of numerous wine merchants.
A local resident in the early 15th century was Richard Whittington, four times Lord Mayor of London. One of his earlier philanthropic acts, made in 1409, was to pay for the rebuilding and extension of St Michael Paternoster Royal after a vacant plot of land was acquired in Le Ryole. He later founded the College of St Spirit and St Mary within the church, so that St Michael's became a collegiate church, i.e. it was administered by a college of priests, in this case five, instead of a rector. It was commonly known as Whittington's College, or Whittington College. (The college was relocated from College Hill to Highgate Hill c. 1820s, and removed again in 1966 to Felbridge, West Sussex.)
Adjacent to the church, Whittington also founded an almshouse. The college was dissolved by Edward VI in 1548; but was re-established in a new entity a few years later under Queen Mary. The title seems in any case to have persisted for the church, giving the names of College Street, and College Hill. The almshouse moved to Highgate in 1808 and later to its present location in East Grinstead in 1966.
Sir Richard was buried in St Michael's in 1423 on the south side of the altar near his wife, Alice. John Stow records that Whittington's body was dug up by the then Rector Thomas Mountain, during the reign of Edward VI, in the belief that he had been buried with treasure. He was not, so Mountain took his leaden shroud. The grave was dug up again during the reign of Mary I and his body re-covered in lead. An attempt to find his grave in 1949 did uncover a mummified cat, but no Lord Mayor's body.
Other worthies buried in the pre-Fire church were William Oldhall (d. 1459) Speaker of the House of Commons, the Lord Mayors John Yonge (d. 1466) and William Bayley (d. 1524), Peter Blundell (d. 1601) founder of Blundell's School, (mentioned in Blackmore's novel Lorna Doone) and the Cavalier poet John Cleveland (d. 1658).
After the church's destruction in the Fire, the parish was united with that of St Martin Vintry, also destroyed but not rebuilt. Construction of a new church began in 1685 (one of the last of the 51 churches to be rebuilt) and stopped in 1688 owing to the financial uncertainty associated with the Glorious Revolution. Building began again the next year, supervised and built by Wren's master mason Edward Strong the Elder. It was finished in 1694. Its steeple was built between 1713 and 1717. The cost of the rebuilding totalled £8,937.
A monument to another Lord Mayor, Sir Samuel Pennant, sculpted by Michael Rysbrack, survives from 1750. Pennant died from jail fever caught from prisoners in the court dock.
St Michael's underwent a number of renovations in the 19th century, by James Elmes in 1820, William Butterfield in 1866 and Ewan Christian in 1894. Their work was lost on 23 July 1944 when the church was hit by a V1 flying bomb, leaving only its walls and tower.
Services continued in the remaining shell until 1955. A proposal by the diocese to demolish the walls and preserve the tower only was successfully opposed by the City of London Corporation, and the church restored by Elidir Davies between 1966 and 1968. It is the latest City church to be restored.
St Michael's was reopened by the Duke of Edinburgh on 19 December 1968 as the Headquarters of the Mission to Seamen (now Mission to Seafarers), an Anglican organisation which supports chaplains in ports around the world. It is also supported by City Livery Companies.
St Michael Paternoster Royal is a chapel within the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London and since 2018 the office of the Bishop of London has been based there.


St Michael's is rectangular in plan, with only the west front on College Hill being slightly out of true. Before the Second World War the south front was hemmed in by buildings. Following bomb damage, these buildings were cleared and Whittington Garden laid out on their site, so that St Michael's main façade is now on the south, along Upper Thames Street. The south front is faced with Portland stone and has six round-headed windows with cherub keystones. The less prominent north and east fronts are of brick. The roof is balustraded.
The entrance is through the tower in the southwest corner. This has a round-headed window at the lowest level, then a circular window, then a square-headed belfry window. At the top is a pierced parapet with square urns on the corners. The stone spire was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and is similar to those of St Stephen Walbrook, St James Garlickhythe and, to a lesser extent, the west towers of St Paul's Cathedral. It is an open octagon formed by eight Ionic columns, each with its own entablature and topped by an urn. Above this is another, smaller, octagon with another eight columns with urns. Above the second octagon is a tiny dome surmounted by a pennant vane. The height of the tower and steeple is 128 ft.
St Michael Paternoster Royal was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.


St Michael's interior is partitioned, reflecting the church's dual purpose. The west of the building, roughly corresponding with the plan to the original 13th-century church, accommodates a hall, vestibule and the offices of the Mission to Seafarers.
The chapel is housed in the larger, eastern, part of the church. The east wall includes three stained glass windows designed by John Hayward in 1968. The main window depicts St Michael trampling a red-winged Satan. The windows on either side show the Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus and Adam and Eve with St Gabriel and the serpent. On the south wall, another stained glass window depicts Dick Whittington with his cat.
The reredos is original, with four Corinthian columns and two flaming urns. Before it are seventeenth-century Baroque statues of Moses and Aaron, moved here from All-Hallows-the-Great on that church's demolition in 1894: the statues’ hands were blown off in the war and have been replaced; Moses previously held a pointer, indicating the Decalogue, while Aaron held a censer – he now raises his hands in a blessing.
Also from All-Hallows-the-Great is the elaborate chandelier, marked "Birmingham 1644". The organ case is a replica of the 1749 organ case taken from All-Hallows-the-Great but destroyed in the War. It houses a Noel Mander organ, as well as, in front of the organ gallery, a rare contemporary representation of King William III's arms.
The pulpit, communion rails and lectern date from the seventeenth century, but the rest of the woodwork was installed in the 1960s.


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St Michael and All Angels Church is a parish church in Marden, Kent. It was begun circa 1200 and is a Grade I listed building.


WikiWeb_St Michael and All Angels Church_1

The church was begun around 1200 and was altered or extended in the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th centuries and was restored in 1868 and 1909. The church is constructed variously of coursed and random sandstone, rag-stone and puddingstone and has plain tiled and lead roofs.
The nave is adjoined by aisles on the north and south sides, the one to the south continuing across the south face of the west tower. The chancel has chapels on the north and south side. The tower was built in the 13th or early 14th century and comprises three stone-built stages with a fourth stage, containing the belfry added later in white painted weatherboarding with a pyramidal roof. Louvred openings occupy the centre of each side of the belfry. Small rectangular or pointed lancet windows pierce the stonework on each external face of the lower stages, except the south face which abuts the south aisle. A square stair turret with window slits adjoins the north-west corner of the tower.
Both aisles are early 14th century. The south aisle has a rag-stone plinth, but the north aisle is plinthless. The south aisle has two buttresses with three large three-lighted 14th-century style arched windows; two to the west of the porch and one to the east. The western bay, attached to the south side of the tower was reconstructed in the 19th or early 20th century. The north aisle has a diagonal buttress on the north-west corner and two on the north side positioned between the three three-lighted windows. Two are original 14th-century and the third is 19th-century in the same style with traceried decoration. The west end of the north aisle contains a 19th-century two-lighted window. The west end of the south aisle is blank apart from a small blocked lancet window.
The early 14th century south porch occupies the secondmost eastern bay of the south aisle. Diagonal buttresses project from the outer corners. The inner and outer doorways are pointed arches and an octagonal stair turret to the parvis chamber is positioned in the angle at the north-west corner between the porch and the south aisle.
The chancel was built about 1200 and restored in 1868. It has no plinths or buttresses. The eastern end of the north and south walls each contain a single pointed arch window. The 19th century east window is three-lighted. The south chapel is 14th century as was partly rebuilt after a fire in 1554. The two-light window in the south wall and the three-light window in the east wall are both 19th century. The north chapel is 15th century with two two-light windows on the north side and a three-light window in the east end. All date from the 15th century with cinquefoil heads and tracery.
Internally, the nave is separated from the aisles with 14th-century arcades of three bays of pointed arches: octagonal columns in the south arcade and alternating circular and octagonal columns in the north arcade. The chancel arch is circa 1200 and the tower arch is 13th or early 14th century. The chapels are divided from the chancel with two bay arcades of pointed arches, each contemporary with the age of the adjacent chapel.  The roofs of the chancel, nave and the chapels are of crown post construction with the ridge of the roofs of the chancel and chapels being lower than the nave. The aisle roofs are lean-tos.
The font is octagonal and carved with initials and date "EM 1662". The octagonal wooden font cover with a central finial has hinged panels on four sides. Doorways to the parvis stairs and rood loft stairs are in the south wall of the south aisle and the south wall of the north aisle respectively. The three chancel windows contain stained glass by Patrick Reyntiens installed in 1962. The church contains memorials to Edward Cole (d. 1757) and George Maplesden (d. 1688).
The church is set in a large churchyard dotted with headstones. Close to the south aisle are Grade II listed stocks capable of holding two people.


St Nicholas Church is a Church of England parish church in Worth, a village in Crawley, England, which at one time had the largest geographical parish in England.


St Nicholas Church is in the seaside town of Fleetwood, Lancashire, England, situated on the Fylde coast. It is an active Anglican church in the Diocese of Blackburn. It was constructed between 1960 and 1962, and designed by Laurence King.


The church is the third in the town bearing the name of St Nicholas, and the second built on the present site. The first, on Wyre Street, was destroyed in the floods of 1927, and the second was demolished in the late 1950s to make way for the current building. Part of it survived until 2007 as the scout hut. The church was designed by Laurence King (1907-1981), a prominent Lancashire ecclesiastical architect, who also designed the tower of Blackburn Cathedral. The foundation stone was laid by Nicholas Meynell in October 1960 and the site was hallowed by Charles Claxton, Bishop of Blackburn. Although never fully completed, the church was dedicated by Anthony Hoskyns-Abrahall, Bishop of Lancaster, in April 1962. The building was not consecrated until 1987 when the church became the parish church of the new parish of St Nicholas, Fleetwood.


St Nicholas stands on a triangular plot of land at the intersection of Poulton Road, Highbury Avenue and Broadway. Whilst modern in appearance, it is traditional in form, comprising a central tower, nave, chancel, north and south porches, and ancillary rooms. King's design was intended to resemble the upturned keel of a ship, reflecting the seafaring aspects both of the town and of St Nicholas himself.
The external construction of the church is largely of light brown brick. There is no stone or concrete used anywhere. The other prominent external feature is the series of steeply-pitched copper roofs, whose green patina contrasts with the orange-brown brickwork. The large square central tower is composed of two, tall tapering brick slabs on the east and west faces, and flat recessed plain-glass windows on the north and south faces. The nave and chancel roofs are very steeply pitched, but the nave roof is considerably higher, extending over the aisles. Each of the roofs has three sharply pitched dormers on each side, those on the chancel being smaller than those on the nave. The overall effect is intended to be reminiscent of the sails of a ship.
While the exterior is sharply angular, the interior is dominated by pointed arches. Construction is of the same light-brown brick as the exterior, although contrasted with pale pointing. Centrally placed on the west wall is the organ (1961). The instrument is a 2 manual and pedal pipe organ, probably the last to be built by the firm of J J Binns.  It is a 5 rank extension organ, with 4 ranks totally enclosed in a swell box and the 5th rank, a diapason, on display to the side and above the console. ,  The high altar, under the tower, is raised on a two-step plinth. Beyond the high altar, in the chancel, is the Lady Chapel, with an abstract stained glass window; the only stained glass in the church. Laurence King designed the three large painted wood carvings prominent in the interior: a Madonna and a St Nicholas on either side of the chancel arch and a Crucifix in the chancel.


Open Churches Trust. Fleetwood, St Nicholas
Lancashire Churches. Fleetwood, St Nicholas
St Nicholas Parish Church Official website


St Nicholas Church is one of the oldest churches in the country and has been a place of Christian worship and devotion for well over 1000 years. It is known that the church is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and parts of it have been dated to between AD 950 and 1050, in particular the chancel arch and apse. It was built in what, at the time, was a forest. The reason for building a church here is unknown, but it is surmised that the area would have had good hunting grounds and royal or noble visitors to the grounds would need a place to pray in comfort. As it was a large church isolated in the forest, it is unlikely it was just for local needs. After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, William the Conqueror gave the church to his son-in-law William de Warenne, whose coat of arms is still visible in the stained glass windows of the church. In the 14th century, the church was passed from the de Warrenne family to the Fitzalan family, who lost it in 1415 to Nevills, Earl of Abergavenny.


Records of bell-ringing here go back to 1684, and bell-ringing still remains part of the weekly routine.
The current tower, with its broached and shingled spire, was added in 1871 by Anthony Salvin to replace an earlier building which rested on tree trunks.  A note from 1684 reveals that the church had 3 bells but an additional one was then added.  The bells were re-cast in 1844 to form a peal of 6 and then again, by Gillett and Johnston of Croydon, in 1928. Since 1928, only routine maintenance was needed until 1997, when major work on the bells was carried out. Pulleys, wheels and clappers were removed and taken to the foundry for refurbishment, they were then refitted and the bells rehung. The bells are still hung in the oak frame dating from the 1844 installation, which sits on the belfry floor 1.5 m (5 ft)above the ringers’ heads but this was strengthened in 1997.  The largest bell, the tenor, is 91 cm (3 ft) in diameter and weighs 489 kg (9cwt 2qrts and 14 lbs). Its note is A, the whole ring being harmonically tuned in the key of A. The total weight of bells in the tower is over 36cwt.


In 1986 workmen were treating roof timbers of the church for protection against vermin when a fire broke out. The fire brigade quickly put out the blaze, saving the main building, but the roof timbers were severely damaged. This rendered the building unstable, however, which resulted in much scaffolding being put up, which in turn required pews and flooring to be removed. The roof was redesigned and the walls were strengthened. New floors and pews were fitted. The new pews, unlike the pre-restoration ones, are easier to move, giving the church more flexibility. The old pews were considered impossible to re-install in the church. The restoration cost about £510,000 and was complete by 1988. It was during the extensive renovation work that archaeologists were able to confirm the dating of the church's original construction.


Worth Church is still in use as a parish church today, - and is thought to be the oldest church in continuous use in the country. It has at least two services each Sunday (usually 8am and 10am) and a midweek Eucharist on Thursdays at 10.30am. It has a band of bellringers and a church choir.
The churchyard includes the grave of Robert Whitehead, inventor of the modern torpedo. In a plot bordered with blue railings, his epitaph reads "His fame was known by all nations hereabouts". Also in the churchyard are the Commonwealth war graves of four British Army soldiers and a Royal Navy officer of World War I and a British Army officer and an Indian Army officer of World War II.


In the late Norman period South Newington's church had a nave of two bays, plus a north aisle and a chancel. Features that survive form this period include a pair of Norman arches between the nave and north aisle. At the end of the 13th century the church was enlarged in a Decorated Gothic style. The nave was extended with an extra bay in each direction, absorbing the Norman chancel. A new chancel further east, a south aisle and a west tower were all added in the same period. In the second half of the 15th century a clerestory and ornate south porch were added.
The tower had a clock by 1560. The present clock was formerly at St Mary's Church, Banbury, was made by Joseph Hemmins of Banbury in 1741 and was moved to St Peter ad Vincula in 1895. The tower had several bells by the 16th century. It now has a ring of five bells hung for change ringing. The oldest of the bells, the second, was cast in 1656 by Richard Keene of Woodstock. The treble was cast in 1733 by Henry III Bagley of Chacombe. The third, fourth and fifth were cast in 1861 by George Mears of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
The church has been listed Grade I on the National Heritage List for England since December 1955.


Around 1330–40 a set of wall paintings were painted in the north aisle. The medium is oil on plaster, which Sherwood and Pevsner state is unusual for mediaeval wall paintings. Prof. Ernest Tristram described the paintings as "of a nature seldom found in a parish church" and Sherwood and Pevsner considered them to be "the finest group of medieval wall paintings in [Oxfordshire]". Another author commented:
"The north aisle paintings at South Newington are indeed outstanding for their draughtsmanship, wide range and skilful blending of colours, and also for the medium, which is oil; nothing in this part of the country can compare with them for excellence. The unknown artist must have been in the front rank of his profession."
The paintings in the north aisle include a damaged but very fine depiction of the murder of St Thomas Becket. Next to it is a painting of a rare subject, the execution of Thomas Plantagenet, Earl of Lancaster. The east end of the north aisle forms a Lady Chapel whose wall paintings include an Annunciation and an exquisite Virgin and Child. Next to the Virgin and Child is a painting of St James receiving a gift, and beside the east window of the Lady Chapel is one of St Margaret the Virgin slaying a dragon. The inclusion of a Margaret and two Thomases in the paintings, and the Giffard coat of arms in the Annunciation and St James paintings suggests that they were commissioned by Thomas Giffard, lord of one of the manors of South Newington, and his wife Margaret Mortayne. Over the chancel arch there are fragments of a Doom painting from the same period, but very little of it has survived.
Late in the 15th or early in the 16th century, after the clerestory was built, a Passion Cycle was painted in the nave above the arches to the north aisle. Its artistry is not of the same standard as the paintings in the north aisle, but it is of interest and some of its pictures show scenes not seen in passion cycles elsewhere. All the paintings in St Peter ad Vincula had been hidden under whitewash for several centuries. Those in the north aisle and over the chancel arch were uncovered in 1893, and the Passion cycle in the nave was uncovered in 1931.


St Peter ad Vincula was granted to the Benedictine abbey at Eynsham in the 1160s, and remained one of its possessions until the abbey was suppressed in the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. In 1565 the advowson was passed to Exeter College, Oxford, which retained it until 1979. St Peter ad Vincula is now part of a single Church of England benefice with the parishes of Bloxham and Milcombe.


Beeson, C.F.C. (1989) [1962].  Simcock, A.V. (ed.). Clockmaking in Oxfordshire 1400–1850 (3rd ed.). Oxford: Museum of the History of Science. p. 20. ISBN 0-903364-06-9.
Crossley, Alan, ed. (1983). "Parishes: South Newington". A History of the County of Oxford. Victoria County History. Vol. 11: Wootton Hundred (northern part). pp. 143–159.
Long, E.T. (1972). "Medieval Wall Paintings in Oxfordshire Churches". Oxoniensia. Oxfordshire Architectural and Historical Society. XXXVII: 86–90.
Sherwood, Jennifer; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1974). Oxfordshire. The Buildings of England. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 771–773. ISBN 0-14-071045-0.
Tristram, Ernest (1954). English Medieval Wall Painting: The 14th Century. London: Oxford University Press for The Pilgrim Trust.
Walker, George Graham (1975). Churches of the Banbury Area. Kineton: Roundwood Press. pp. 37–39. ISBN 0-900093-52-8.
A Guide to St Peter ad Vincula South Newington. St Peter ad Vincula Parish Church.