Back in London: St Vedast, Foster Lane

 

    From St Martin to St Vedast Foster¹ Lane, not the most famous of the City Churches - it is not even in 'Oranges and Lemons' - but without a doubt it is the best of post-war restorations in the City, the work of Stephen Dykes Bower (1903-1994).  A example of what, with a mind, could be achieved in those straightened Post-War years.  It is the only City Church where I have worshipped.

     St Vedast², though in origin Medieval, is a Wren church, but built some years after the Great Fire when the Medieval church (patched up post-Fire) finally gave up the ghost.  Other names have been associated with rebuilding; in particular, Nicholas Hawksmoor who, as Sir John Summerson put it, 'we may suspect had a hand in the interpretation' 0f the spire.  Kerry Downes in his biography of Hawksmoor for Thames & Hudson says nothing.  Anyway Wren's church has a nave and s aisle, separated by an arcade of Doric columns.  There is no chancel as such. 

     The church is quite hemmed in by buildings - there is no churchyard. The only two walls to the street are the w on Foster Lane (ashlar) and to the s. This s wall is very interesting - the furthest section w is the base of the tower and is ashlared, the next section is of brick, the rest of rubble stone.  No doubt this wall wasn't meant to be seen; I wonder if it is in fact Medieval? Of the other two walls, n and e, both are plastered. To the n of the church is a small and charming 17th century vestry hall and, on Foster Lane, the formidable looking rectory³ designed by Dykes Bower.  Dykes Bower linked these two buildings with a two storey classical cloister built against the n wall of the church.  The ground floor is open, the glazed upper floor designed as a library.  The resultant courtyard is the most charming of spaces.  A real hidden treasure.

    The interior is a faithful reconstruction of the original architecture. Of the furnishings, Dykes Bower skilfully mixed old and new: the organ loft was rebuilt; the altarpiece, pulpit and font cover garnered from other City churches that had been bombed or previously demolished - there was no attempt, for instance, to recreate the original altarpiece; a new marble floor, and new stained glass designed by Brian Thomas (who had worked with Dykes Bower at St Paul's) were installed and, finally, the nave was re-seated collegiate style that is with banks of stalls facing each other across the nave rather than orientated toward the altar. The s aisle was made into a side chapel. The result is excellent.  The space coherent and lucid.

     Looking round that morning I came across an intriguing Baroque sculpture high up on the w wall of the s aisle. It depicts the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove surrounded the shekinah, the Uncreated Light of God, and cherubs.  It's really rather fine. Turns out it is a tympanum and was made to fit into the head of the middle window of the e end, making it a rather more sophisticated version of the dove on the St Martin Ludgate altarpiece in my previous post. The current altarpiece here at St Vedast, which was originally from the demolished St Christopher-le-Stocks, also contains a depiction of the Shekinah (with the Tetragram) in its pediment to signify that the altar is the resting place of the divine, just as the tympanum signifies the descent of the Holy Spirit on the unconsecrated elements, the bread and wine, in the Eucharist to make them the Body and Blood of Christ.

     The poet Robert Herrick was baptised in St Vedast's on 24th August 1591

 

1 Foster, in this case, is a corruption of 'Vedast'

2 St Vedast was a Gallo-Roman or Frankish saint.  His is a very rare dedication in England with only one other dedicated to him.

3 On the site of the Fountain public house, destroyed in the same air raid that wrecked the church.