London - Trafalgar Square St Martin-in-the-Fields fountains - Dixon postcard 60

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  London - A fountain in Trafalgar Square with St. Martin-in-the-Fields
• Publisher:  J Arthur Dixon (Lon 426)
• Postally used:  no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s):  n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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St Martin-in-the-Fields is an Anglican church at the north-east corner of Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, London. Its patron is Saint Martin of Tours.

Excavations at the site in 2006 led to the discovery of a grave dated about 410.^[1] The site is outside the city limits of Roman London (as was the usual Roman practice for burials) but is particularly interesting for being so far outside, and this is leading to a reappraisal of Westminster's importance at that time. The burial is thought by some to mark a Christian centre of that time (possibly reusing the site or building of a pagan temple).

..

By the reign of James I the church was becoming inadequate for the congregation, due to the great increase in population in the area. In 1606 the king granted an acre of ground on the west side of St. Martin's Lane for a new churchyard, and the church was enlarged. Later in the seventeenth century, galleries were added, and the creation of the new parishes of St Anne, Soho, and St James, Piccadilly, and the opening of a chapel in Oxenden Street relieved some of the pressure on space.^[2]

A survey of 1710 found that the walls and roof were in a state of decay. In 1720, an act was passed for the rebuilding of the church allowing for a sum of up to £22,000, to be raised by a rate on the parishioners. A temporary church was erected partly on the churchyard and partly on ground in Lancaster Court. Advertisements were placed in the newspapers that bodies and monuments of those buried in the church or churchyard could be taken away for reinterment by relatives.^[2]

The rebuilding commissioners selected James Gibbs to design the new church. His first suggestion was for a church with a circular nave and a domed ceiling;^[3] this was considered too expensive, and Gibbs then produced a simpler rectilinear plan, which was accepted. The foundation stone was laid on 19 March 1722, and the last stone of the spire was placed in position in December 1724. The total cost was £33,661 including the architect's fees.^[2]

The west front of the St Martin’s has a portico with a pediment supported by a giant order of Corinthian columns, six wide. The order is continued around the church by pilasters. In designing the church, Gibbs was influenced by the works of Christopher Wren, but departed from Wren’s practice in his integration of the tower into the church. Rather than considering it as an adjunct to the main body of the building, he constructed it within its west wall, so that it rises above the roof, immediately behind the portico,^[3] an arrangement previously used by John James at St George, Hanover Square (1712–24), though James’ steeple was much less ambitious.^[4] The spire of St Martin’s rises 192 feet above the level of the church floor.^[2]

The church is rectangular in plan, with the five-bay nave divided from the aisles by arcades of Corinthian columns. There are galleries over both aisles and at the west end. The nave ceiling is a flattened barrel vault, divided into panels by ribs. The panels are decorated with cherubs, clouds, shells, and scroll work, by Giuseppe Artari and Bagutti.^[2]

Until the creation of Trafalgar Square in the 1820s, Gibbs’s church was crowded in by other buildings. J.P. Malcolm, writing in 1807, said that the its west front “would have a grand effect if the execrable watch-house and sheds before it were removed” and described the sides of the church as “lost in courts, where houses approach them almost to contact“.^[5]

The design was criticised widely at the time, but subsequently became extremely famous, being copied particularly widely in the United States.^[6] In India, St Andrews Church, Egmore, Madras (now Chennai) is a copy of this church.

Various 18th-century notables were soon buried in the new church, including the émigré sculptor Roubiliac (who had settled in this area of London) and the furniture-maker Thomas Chippendale (whose workshop was in the same street as the church, St Martin's Lane^[7]), along with Jack Sheppard in the now lost adjoining churchyard.

The church also had its own almhouses and pension-charity, which was established on 21 September 1886. Its 19 trustees administered almshouses for women, providing them with a weekly stipend. The almshouses were built in 1818 on part of the parish burial ground in Camden Town and St Pancras and replaced ones built in 1683.^[8]

The church has a close relationship with the Royal Family, whose parish church it is,^[9] as well as with 10 Downing Street and the Admiralty.^[10]

type=printed postcards

theme=topographical: british

sub-theme=england

county/ country=london

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=unposted