5CHRIST CHURCH SPITALFIELDS ARCHITECTURE: NICHOLAS HAWKSMOOR AND LONDON'S GREAT BAROQUE CHURCH

Christ Church Spitalfields is the masterpiece among Nicholas Hawksmoor's London churches and one of the most extraordinary buildings in the city. Designed from 1714 and completed in 1729, it rises above the old Huguenot weaving district on the eastern edge of the City of London, its great portico and towering spire dominating the streets around it as completely today as they did three hundred years ago. To stand in front of it is to understand at once why Hawksmoor has acquired the reputation he has: this is a building of overwhelming mass and presence, theatrical, strange, and unforgettable.

It was built under the Act for Building Fifty New Churches of 1711, a scheme to serve the fast-growing parishes outside the medieval City. Spitalfields, packed with silk weavers and dissenters, was exactly the kind of place the Act had in mind. What it received was not a modest parish church but a monument — a building that asserts the authority of the established Church in stone, and that turns the ordinary language of classical architecture into something closer to the temples of antiquity.

Christ Church is Grade I listed and, after a long campaign of restoration, is once again in full use as a working church and one of the finest concert and event spaces in London.

  • Written by Gavin Paisley, director & model-maker at Chisel & Mouse based in West Sussex, England.
  • Last updated: 10-Jun-26

Photograph by John Salmon, licensed under CC A-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

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What is Christ Church Spitalfields?

Christ Church is an Anglican parish church on Commercial Street, at the corner of Fournier Street, in Spitalfields, just east of the City of London. It was one of the churches commissioned under the 1711 Act, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor — then one of the two surveyors to the commission — and built between 1714 and 1729.

The parish it served was a remarkable one. Spitalfields in the early eighteenth century was the centre of the London silk industry, home to thousands of Huguenot weavers who had fled religious persecution in France, alongside a large population of dissenters of every kind. The new church was intended, in part, as a statement: a visible assertion of the Church of England's authority in a district full of religious nonconformity. Hawksmoor gave that statement architectural force on a scale rarely seen in a parish church.

Facts panel

Anglican parish church, Spitalfields. Designed from 1714, completed 1729.

  • Architect: Nicholas Hawksmoor
  • Commission: Commissioners for Building Fifty New Churches
  • Designed: from 1714
  • Completed: 1729
  • Consecrated: 1729
  • Address: Commercial Street, Spitalfields, London E1 6LY, England
  • Height: approximately 62 metres (to the top of the spire)
  • Materials: Portland stone
  • Architectural style: English Baroque
  • Original use: Anglican parish church
  • Current use: Working church; concert, exhibition, and event venue
  • Designation: Grade I listed

Architect: Nicholas Hawksmoor

Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661–1736) trained under Sir Christopher Wren, working at his side on St Paul's Cathedral, Greenwich, Hampton Court, and Kensington Palace before emerging, with the Fifty New Churches commission, as a principal designer in his own right. Christ Church is the supreme example of what he did when finally given his head.

His churches draw on sources far older and stranger than the Continental Baroque of his contemporaries — on the temples of ancient Rome, on Egypt, and on the towers of English medieval churches — and fuse them into something wholly his own: massive, austere, and theatrical. For Hawksmoor's full biography, his other London churches, his work at Greenwich and Oxford, and his remarkable modern afterlife, see our Nicholas Hawksmoor architect guide.

Architectural character: the portico, the tower, and the spire

The genius of Christ Church lies in the way Hawksmoor composes a single vertical drama out of three distinct elements stacked one above the other.

At the base is the portico — a great projecting porch facing west onto Commercial Street, with four massive Tuscan columns carrying a semicircular arch. It is unlike a conventional classical portico: blunt, heavy, and powerful rather than elegant, it reads almost as a triumphal arch set against the church. Above it, the motif of the arch is repeated in the Venetian (or Serlian) window of the tower — a tall central arched opening flanked by lower square-headed ones — so that the eye is carried upward by a rhyming sequence of arched forms.

The tower then rises to the spire: not a thin Gothic needle but a broad, stepped, broach spire of stone, its faces gathered into a tall pinnacle that recalls a medieval steeple translated into Hawksmoor's monumental classical language. The whole composition, some 62 metres high, was designed to be seen from a distance and to dominate its surroundings — and it still does, closing the view up and down the surrounding streets with a force that the surrounding buildings cannot diminish.

The interior is a broad, galleried preaching box of great dignity, lit by tall windows and ordered by giant columns — spacious, severe, and acoustically magnificent, which is why it now serves so well as a concert hall.

Photograph by George Rex, licensed under CC AS-A 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

Materials and construction

Christ Church is built of Portland stone, the fine pale limestone that Wren had used for St Paul's and that gives so many of London's great Baroque buildings their luminous grey-white surfaces. Hawksmoor handled it with a sculptor's sense of mass — broad unbroken planes, deep shadow, and heavy projecting elements that catch the light and cast strong shadows across the facade through the day.

The budget tells its own story about the building's ambition. Hawksmoor was allocated around £7,000 for the church; the final cost ran to roughly £40,000, nearly six times the estimate. The overrun reflects both the difficulty of the deep foundations the site required and the sheer scale of what Hawksmoor was determined to build.

History: from masterpiece to near-demolition and back

For its first century and a half the church served its parish, but as the silk industry declined and the population of Spitalfields changed, the building's fortunes fell with the neighbourhood's. By the twentieth century it was in serious disrepair. In 1957 the parish was dissolved and the church closed; for a period it was used only for storage, and there were proposals to demolish it altogether — a fate that would have destroyed one of the greatest buildings in London.

It was saved by a campaign of admirers. The Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields, formed in 1976, fought for decades to rescue and restore the building. The restoration was painstaking and expensive, returning the church as closely as possible to Hawksmoor's intentions, and was completed in 2004. Today Christ Church is once again a working church and one of the most admired event and concert venues in London — a complete reversal of its mid-century neglect.

Cultural significance

Christ Church Spitalfields occupies a special place in the modern fascination with Hawksmoor. It was the building that, more than any other, drew writers and artists to his work — its mass, its strangeness, and its brooding presence over a district with a long and complicated history made it the natural centre of the literary mythology that grew up around the architect in the later twentieth century. Whatever one makes of that mythology, it has helped fix the church in the public imagination as something more than a beautiful building: a presence, charged with the history of the city around it.

For Chisel & Mouse, based in Sussex but London-obsessed, Christ Church has always been one of the buildings that most says "London" — which is why it became one of our most ambitious models.

The model-maker's lens

  • Focus — the full west front: portico, tower, and broach spire, captured as a single soaring composition. This is the elevation that defines the building, and modelling it whole lets the rhyming arched forms read exactly as Hawksmoor intended.
  • Detail — the depth of the portico and the play of the Venetian window motif against the mass of the tower; at model scale, the strong projections cast the same shifting shadows that animate the real building.
  • How it reads at small scale — exceptionally well; the building's power comes from its proportion and mass rather than fine ornament, which is exactly what translates to plaster.
  • How to display — freestanding beneath its glass dome, where the verticality of the spire can be appreciated from every side; strong directional light brings out the depth of the portico.

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Visiting Christ Church Spitalfields

Christ Church is an active church and is open to visitors, with regular services, concerts, and events. It stands on Commercial Street, London E1 6LY, directly opposite Spitalfields Market and a short walk from Liverpool Street station. Fournier Street, alongside the church, preserves one of the finest streets of early Georgian Huguenot weavers' houses in London. Current opening times and event listings are available from the church's own website.

Frequently asked questions about Christ Church Spitalfields

Who designed Christ Church Spitalfields?

Christ Church Spitalfields was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661–1736), the great architect of the English Baroque and a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. It was one of six London churches Hawksmoor designed alone under the Act for Building Fifty New Churches.

When was Christ Church Spitalfields built?

It was designed from 1714 and completed in 1729. The deep foundations the site required and the sheer ambition of the design meant the church took fifteen years to build and ran far over its original budget.

Where is Christ Church Spitalfields?

The church stands on Commercial Street, Spitalfields, London E1 6LY, at the corner of Fournier Street, just east of the City of London and opposite Spitalfields Market.

How tall is Christ Church Spitalfields?

The church rises to approximately 62 metres at the top of its spire, making it a landmark visible across the surrounding streets and a dominant presence in the area.

What style is Christ Church Spitalfields?

It is a masterpiece of the English Baroque, though Hawksmoor's handling is highly original — drawing on ancient Roman, Egyptian, and English medieval sources to create a building of exceptional mass and monumentality.

Why was Christ Church Spitalfields nearly demolished?

By the mid-twentieth century the church had fallen into serious disrepair and was closed in 1957, with proposals to demolish it. It was saved by the Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields, formed in 1976, and a major restoration was completed in 2004.

Can you visit Christ Church Spitalfields?

Yes. It is a working Anglican church that welcomes visitors and hosts a celebrated programme of concerts and events. It is open at advertised times and a short walk from Liverpool Street station.

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