St Marylebone Parish Church
St Marylebone Parish Church
We worked as structural and civil engineers as part of a multi-disciplinary team for a £8.5million Heritage Fund-supported project at the Grade I listed St Marylebone Church in London - a building that dates from 1813 to a design by Thomas Hardwick.
Alongside its integral role as a place of worship for local residents, the parish church also houses a number of community services including analytical psychotherapy, and a GP surgery (NHS), which is located in a 1980s basement extension.
Our work - undertaken alongside Caroe Architecture - improved accessibility and addressed a number of repairs to the external fabric, including overhauling the existing servicing strategy. Our interventions included a feature spiral staircase and lift that improved access into the crypt, where the works involved breaking out sections of the existing brick vaulting and inserting a new structure to re-support the retained vaults. Through the opening up of existing walls, we created larger spaces and better circulation within the crypt, alongside a major overhaul of the building services. New ramps were also inserted outside and within the crypt to allow all members of the community to access the building.
Additionally, a significant programme of repairs to the structure and the external fabric was undertaken, including structural enhancements to the original timber roof trusses, repairs to defective stonework, cleaning and conservation of the decorative elements of the portico, and the repair and replacement of embedded metalwork within the external walls and clocktower. The main roof covering was also entirely replaced, with the existing metal standing seam roof removed and Welsh slates reinstated, as per the original 1813 design. Internally, urgent repairs were carried out to the 1883 fibrous plaster ceiling above the nave, which is one of the largest of its kind in the world: it has a unique construction, including remaining sections of the original 1813 lath and plaster ceiling.
The project won two awards at the 2023 National Churches Trust Awards: Church of the Year and the Open for Visitors Award. The judges unanimously awarded the top prize of Church of the Year, with Sir Philip Rutnam, who chairs the trust, explaining that the church “epitomises everything that a successful, sustainable, and open church should be. This is a church that is working so hard to look after and further develop their building, harnesses the skill and enthusiasm of volunteers, creates a wonderful warm welcome, and does simply amazing work with the local community, many of whom are struggling. It provides worship, vital services, and is a place that is rooted in its location; available to all. They have an excellent music programme, an arts space, and such a breadth of activities . . . for local people and . . . visitors. There is a lot here that we can all learn from.”
Client: St Marylebone Parish Church
Architect: Caroe Architecture