St. Mary le Strand

St. Mary-le-Strand, the church of, is situated in the middle of the Strand, opposite the south end of Drury-lane, and nearly opposite Somerset-house.

The original church belonging to this parish is mentioned so early as 1222, when it was called St. Mary, and the Innocents of the Strand. It then stood in a spacious church-yard, on the south side of the Strand, where the eastern wing of Somerset-house is now built; but was taken down, as is mentioned in the preceding article, and that of St. John the Baptist, in the savoy, (see those articles,) by order of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, to make way for his palace, named after him, Somerset-house. The parishioners used the chapel of St. John aforesaid, till the act of parliament passed for erecting the fifty new churches, when the first stone of this building was laid on the 25th Feb. 1714, and was finished and consecrated on the 1st Jan. 1723, when instead of its ancient name, it was called St. Mary-le-Strand. This church was the first of the fifty new churches, and was erected from the designs of James Gibbs, architect, to the church of St. Martin in the Fields.

The church is a rectory, in the diocese of London, in the county and archdeaconry of Middlesex, and in the patronage of the Lord Chancellor. The present rector is the Rev. J.E. Gambier, Rector of Langley, who was instituted in 1813.

Mary (St.) Le Strand, or the New Church in the Strand, built by James Gibbs, architect of the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fieids. In the early part of the 13th century a church of St. Mary and the Innocents of the Strand was in existence; it stood on the south side of the Strand, and was pulled down in 1544 by the Protector Somerset to make room and furnish materials for his palace. [See Somerset House.] The first stone of the present church was laid February 25, 1714; it was finished September 7, 1717; consecrated January 1, 1723–1724. This was the first finished of the fifty new churches. Near here stood the old Maypole.

Amid that area wide they took their stand.
Where the tall Maypole once overlooked the Strand,
But now (so Anne and Piety ordain),
A church collects the saints of Drury Lane.
Pope, The Dunciad.

The new church in the Strand, called St. Mary-le-Strand, was the first building I was employed in after my arrival from Italy, which being situated in a very public place, the Commissioners for building the fifty churches, of which this is one, spared no cost to beautify it. It consists of two orders, in the upper of which the lights are placed; the wall of the lower, being solid to keep out noises from the street, is adorned with niches. There was at first no steeple designed for this church, only a small campanile or turret; a bell was to have been over the west end of it; but at the distance of eighty feet from the west front there was a column 250 feet high, intended to be elected in honour of Queen Anne, on the top of which her statue was to be placed. My design for this column was approved by the Commissioners, and a great quantity of stone was brought to the place for laying the foundation of it, but the thoughts of erecting that monument being laid aside upon the Queen's death, I was ordered to erect a steeple instead of the campanile first proposed. The building being then advanced twenty feet above ground, and therefore admitting of no alteration from east to west, I was obliged to spread it from north to south, which makes the plan oblong which should otherwise have been square.—Gibbs in his Book of Architecture, fol. 1728, which illustrates this edifice.

In the interior is a tablet to James Bindley (d. September 1818), the great book collector. It was the first monument erected in the church. James Cradock (d. 1826), the friend of Johnson and Goldsmith, lies in the vaults. The exterior having been found to be in a dangerous state, a considerable renovation of the stonework has been (1889) carried out An attempt was made to obtain the demolition of the church for the purpose of widening the Strand, but fortunately it has not been successful. The living is in the gift of the Lord Chancellor.