Works of Percy Bacon & Brothers

Map of Pear Tree Street showing St Paul's Church and the corner of Central Street.
Map image reproduced with permission from National Library of Scotland under Creative Commons License CC-BY (NLS).

Map of Pear Tree Street showing St Paul's Church and the corner of Central Street.
Map image reproduced with permission from National Library of Scotland under
Creative Commons License CC-BY (NLS).

Posted 16 December 2024.

The birth of a church in the new parish of St Paul, Clerkenwell seems to have been somewhat tortuous. In the mid-19th century, a makeshift school and church had been established in Compton Passage, but by 1859 the need for a new permanent church was apparent, and the incumbent, the Rev. Robert Maguire, secured land on Allen Street (now Dallington Street) for the purpose from the Charterhouse Estate. Designs were draw up by W. P. Griffith for a church with tower and an adjoining school. These were not executed, however, and a subsequent designs by London Architect, Thomas R. Smith were commissioned (see image below). The school was completed in 1861, but the church was never built.¹ A map of the area around Allen Street notes St Paul’s School amidst industrial buildings including iron and brass foundries, a timber yard, and tannery, leading John Hollinghead in 1861 to describe the district as, "Dull, badly built, badly-ventilated, overcrowded". OS map of 1871 with St Paul's School in Allen Street highlighted (now Dallington Street). Map image reproduced with permission from National Library of Scotland under Creative Commons License CC-BY (NLS). ²

1860 Design for a new church and adjoining school building in Allen Street by Thomas R. Smith. In the event, only the school was built. Image from The Builder 4th Jan 1862, p7.

1860 Design for a new church and adjoining school building in Allen Street by Thomas R. Smith. In the event, only the school was built.

In the event, St Paul’s church was to be built to designs by Ewan Christian in Pear Tree Street, at the junction with Central Street in the district of Finsbury. In 1871 the area bounded by Central Street on the east, Goswell Street to the west, Pear Tree Street to the south, and Seward Street to the north, was largely industrial, mostly taken up by the Chartered Gas Company Works. OS map of 1871 showing the area north of Pear Tree Street taken up with heavy industry.
Map image reproduced with permission from National Library of Scotland under Creative Commons License CC-BY (NLS). Some of the funds required to raise the new church were appropriated from the sale of St Mildred’s in the Poultry which was closed to services in December 1871, and demolished the following year. St Mildred’s had been built after the Great Fire of London, but eventually succumbed to the reduction of the parish’s population as the City of London grew into the financial capitol of the world. The sale of St Mildred’s, under the 1860 Union of Benefices Act, is reported to have raised £50,200,^{3 4} of which £9,000 was given for the erection of St Paul's.⁵

Land was purchased from the Chartered Gas Company, and the foundation stone laid by the Earl of Shaftesbury on 27th June 1874, the new church finally being consecrated in 1875.⁶ By 1894, much of the industrial infrastructure surrounding the new church had given way to housing (see 1894 map above), including the Bartholomew Buildings (demolished 1974).

The Builder article of 4th July 1874 describes St Paul's as, ".. [being] erected from the designs of Mr. Ewan Christian, of Whitehall-place, and will seat about 550 people. The architecture will be of the thirteenth century. It will be a structure of Kentish-rag, with a small tower for the bells, and facing Central street. The audience will be seated on chairs. The pulpit, font, communion-table, chairs, bells, and one or two silvered vessels, are from St. Mildred’s, Poultry. The pulpit is quite an historical one, and is carved. There will be three entrances to the church, — one facing Central, street, another under the tower, and the third in Pear Tree-street. It is proposed to raise about 2,000l. more to complete the building, and also l,200l to be invested by the churchwardens to help to keep up the 100l. per annum which will be required to carry on the services. A sum of 750l is being partly provided by the Bishop of London’s Fund to erect a mission-house somewhere in or near Old-street." ⁷ The mission house mentioned was eventually built in Goswell Road.

St Paul’s was largely destroyed by enemy bombs in 1940, and services moved to St Luke's. It finally closed in 1953 when it was demolished.⁸ An aerial photograph taken in 1947. Aerial photograph of the area around St Paul's (arrowed) taken in 1947.
Image courtesy of Britain from Above, under these terms. Image Ref EAW011076. shows the burned-out shell of St Paul's.

The 1898 work by Percy Bacon and Brothers were described in an article in the 7^th January 1899 edition of The Builder:⁹

"DECORATION OF ST. PAUL’s, GOSWELL-ROAD, E.C.—This church, built by the late Ewan Christian, was on the 20th ult. reopened after cleaning and decorating. Over the altar has been painted a large picture of the Lord’s Supper. The west end over the font is enriched by paintings of Our Lord, and adoring angels on either side. Between the spandrels on the north and south side are paintings of the Four Evangelists, and dividing the chancel from the nave are life-size figures of Saints Peter and Barnabas under canopies. The walls of the whole interior have been diapered, and the roof of the chancel has been diapered with gold. The whole work was carried out by Messrs. Percy Bacon & Bros., under the supervision of Mr. Romaine Walker."

A photograph of St Paul's can be found at https://andrewpink.org/king-square/.

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1. Survey of London: Volume 46, South and East Clerkenwell. Originally published by London County Council, London, 2008. Great Sutton Street Area. See also report on the acquisition of land in Allen Street in The Builder, 20 July 1861, p503.
2. John Hollingshead, Ragged London in 1861, 1861, p. 29.
3. The Lady’s Own Paper, 9th December 1871, p383. See also Wikipedia entry for St Mildred’s, Poultry.
4. Illustrated London News, 22 November 1884, p495.
5. Besant, Sir Walter, London in the Nineteenth Century, 1909, p249. Chapter 4 is entitled, "Plunder of the City Churches". Sir Walter Besant describes the loss of City churches in stridant tones, as being at, "The hand of the Destroyer".
6. The Illustrated London News, Vol 65, 4th July 1874, p3.
7. The Builder, 4th July 1874
8. The London Metropolitan Archive.
9. The Builder, 07 January 1899, p23..