The location is in New North Road, Hoxton and was part of the Shoreditch Registration District - nowadays it's within the London Borough of Hackney. The church is now situated in the middle of a traffic island although the street isn't particularly busy - it's quite pleasant with all the large trees around it. Part of the churchyard is used as a small car park for local residents and they fit the cars between the trees!

It's obviously one of the churches that sprung up in the East End because of the burgeoning population in the early-mid 1800s. It was formed from part of the parish of St Leonard, Shoreditch and the church was built in 1825-1826. St Leonard's church is only a few minutes walk away. The population of Shoreditch doubled between 1801 and 1831, and doubled again between 1831 and 1861, hence the need for dividing the parish.

The parish registers are at the London Metropolitan Archives and the dates available are:

Baptisms 1830-1932
Banns - dates unknown
Marriages 1830-1947
Burials 1826-1868 No funerals and there are no gravestones in the churchyard.
Baptisms from 1932 and marriages from 1947 are with the incumbent vicar.

This church is very well used by the local community and there are tables laden with brochures, band instruments, projector screens, drawings, etc. everywhere. The font is completely surrounded by a set of drums. A children's day care centre is in the basement and there are toys stacked all over the foyer and down the stairs. After some of the other locked-up and disused churches I saw that day, this one was a refreshing change. It's nice to see the church as a centre of community activity even though it doesn't quite have the ambience of our ancestors' times! As I have no church history I cannot tell if the ornate painted ceiling is part of the original decoration or a later addition.

Kathleen Andersen
December 1999

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