Lead edit
St Mary the Virgin (also known as St Mary's) is a Church of England parish church in the Diocese of London dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Located on Elsworthy Road in Primrose Hill, the church is noted for its music tradition. Much of the material in The English Hymnal was used for the first time at St Mary's, when the liturgist and social reformer Percy Dearmer was its vicar and the composer Martin Shaw its organist.
History edit
St Mary's began its life in 1865 when a Church of England home and school for destitute boys moved from Euston Road to new premises in Primrose Hill. The Chaplain of the home, Charles James Fuller, held Sunday services at the school, which local people began to attend as well. Part of the parish of St. Saviour's Church was then assigned to St Mary's and from 1867 the services were held in an "iron church" on nearby Ainger Road. Eton College donated land for the building of a permament church which opened for worship on July 2, 1872. However, the Bishop of London, John Jackson, refused to consecrate the new church on grounds of the ritualism practiced by the esssentially Anglo-Catholic congregation. Jackson suspended the church's practice of a sung liturgy, and had many of the ornaments removed. In 1885, John Jackson's successor, Frederick Temple, consecrated the church and allowed the congregation to restore ritualism. Charles James Fuller became its first vicar.
St Mary's in the 21st century edit
Robert Atwell had served as the vicar of St Mary's from 1998 until his appointment as Bishop of Stockport in 2008. His successor, Marjorie Brown, became the first female vicar of of the church its 120-year history.[1] The chuch continues its Anglo-Catholic liturgical tradition as well as its focus on music with a permanent choir and the Martin and Geoffrey Shaw Organ Scholarship. A community outreach programme, St Mary's Centre, was established in 2003. The centre achieved full charitable status in 2007 and includes the Eirini Project for young people at risk of anti-social behaviour and social exclusion. St. Mary's organizes the Primrose Hill Summer Lectures is also a venue for the Primrose Hill Celebrity Concerts,
Architecture edit
William P. Manning George Frederick Bodley
Vicars edit
- Charles James Fuller (1885–1889)[2]
- Albert Spencer (1889–1901)
- Percy Dearmer (1901–1915)
- Arthur Stuart Duncan Jones (1916–1928)
- Hubert Harcourt (1928–1933)
- Anthony Hardcastle (1934–1951)
- George Timms (1952–1965)
- Howard Charles Hollis (1965–1976)
- Richard Buck (1976–1984)
- John Ovenden (1984–1998)
- Robert Atwell (1998–2008)
- Marjorie Brown (2009– )
References edit
- ^ Pigott (2010).
- ^ Chronology sourced from St Mary the Virgin, Primrose Hill: Liturgy. Accessed 3 March 2011.
Sources edit
- Beeson, Trevor (2006). The Canons: Cathedral Close Encounters. London: SCM Press. ISBN 0334040418
- Bumpus, Thomas Francis (1908). London Churches Ancient & Modern (Second Series: Classical and Modern). London: T. Werner Laurie, p. 349
- Carrier, Dan (2010). "Historian Niall Ferguson to speak at Primrose Hill lectures". Camden New Journal, June 3, 2010. Accessed 3 March 2011.
- Elrington, C. R. et al. (1989). "Hampstead: Churches". A History of the County of Middlesex, Vol 9: Hampstead, Paddington, pp. 145-152. Accessed 3 March 2011.
- Hibbert, Christopher; Keay, Julia; and Weinreb, Ben (2008). "St. Mary, Primrose Hill". The London Encyclopaedia 3rd Edition. London: Pan Macmillan, p. 789. ISBN 1405049243
- Persse, Michael Collins (2008). "Musical stairway to heaven". The Age, June 2, 2008. Accessed 3 March 2011.
- Pigott, Robert (2010). "Queen opens Church general synod amid signs of change". BBC News, November 23, 2010. Accessed 3 March 2011.
- Rivington's (1868) "St. Mary's, Primrose Hill". The Church Builder, Advertisements p. 4.
- Studwell, William Emmett and Jones, Dorothy E. (1998). Publishing Glad Tidings: Essays on Christmas Music. Routledge. ISBN 0789003988
- Temperley, Nicholas (1983). The Music of the English Parish Church, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521274575
- Walford, Edward (1878). "Primrose Hill and Chalk Farm". Old and New London, Vol. 5, pp. 287-300. Accessed 3 March 2011.
- Wright, John (1908). Some Notable Altars in the Church of England and the American Episcopal Church. New York: The Macmillan Company, pp. 114-115
External links edit
St. Mary The Virgin, St. Mary The Virgin, Primrose Hill Rd. Local residents came to svces. held by Chas. Jas. Fuller, chaplain of boys' home moved 1865 from Euston Rd. (St. Pancras) to corner Regent's Pk. Rd. and King Henry's Rd. Part of St. Saviour's assigned as mission dist. and iron ch. opened in Ainger Rd. 1867; Eton Coll. gave site for larger ch. Patron 7 trustees inc. provost of Eton and V. of Hampstead. Despite enthusiastic crowds, consecration of perm. ch. refused by John Jackson, bp. of Lond., on grounds of ritualism. Members of guilds carried out all functions of ch. life by 1876. Protests 1877 led bp. to suppress sung celebrations and most ornaments, but ritualism restored after consecration by Jackson's successor 1885. Attendance 1886: 148 a.m.; 133 evg.; 1903: 407 a.m.; 241 p.m. Resistance to Anglo-Cathm. led to emphasis on minutiae in 1930s. Liturgical movement brought more moderate approach under G. B. Timms, V. 1952-65. Par. libr. in N. porch, specializing in religious educ., 1955. United with St. Paul's, Avenue Rd. (q.v.), 1956-7. Bldg. of dark red brick in early French Gothic style, seating c. 750, by Wm. Manning, member of congregation, 1870-2: apsidal chancel with N. and S. vestries, incomplete tower, aisled nave with S. chapel, N. transept, N. porch. Nave and chancel opened 1872; S. aisle with chapel, sacristry, and choir vestry 1892, smaller than Manning's design because part of site had been sold. Interplay of light and shade in interior to increase apparent size. (fn. 14) Reredos by Bodley & Garner 1895; restored 1974. (fn. 15) Massive rood cross at chancel arch 1914. Percy Dearmer, V. 1901-15, later professor of ecclesiastical art at King's Coll., Lond., and canon of Westm., made St. Mary's well known for music and liturgical reforms: whitewashed interior as foil for ornaments and for ceremonial in wholly English tradition. (fn. 16)
From: 'Hampstead: Churches', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 9: Hampstead, Paddington (1989), pp. 145-152. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22650&strquery=Primrose Hill st. mary Date accessed: 23 February 2011.
The boys are lodged in separate houses, holding about twenty-five boys in each, in ordinary bed-rooms; each boy is provided with his own bed, each room under the charge of a monitor, and each house under the direct control of the master or matron living in it, who endeavour to become the true parents of these poor lads, to guide them no less by affection than by firm discipline, to establish a happy "family" feeling, and to attract their once ragged and disorderly pupils by the force of kindly teaching and good example. The late Lady Truro, daughter of the Duke of Sussex, in 1866 left a bequest to the institution, by which the committee of management have been enabled to extend the "home," by adding to it another house; and a chapel was likewise built for their accommodation, by a generous donor, in 1864. This chapel has since germinated, through the generosity of the provost and fellows of Eton College, into a handsome new church—St. Mary's, at the north-eastern corner of Primrose Hill. The institution itself is called not a school but a "home," and in every sense of the word it is a home. "I call a home," once said Mr. "Tom" Hughes, when pleading for this very institution, "a place in which you will find sympathy. It must be a place in which the great bond of love which binds all the world together comes out and is recognised. This is the very first condition. . . . The second condition which I understand as essential to a home is that you shall have there order and discipline. . . . The third law of the world is that it is a world of work; 'he that will not work, neither shall he eat.' . . . There is one other condition, as I understand the matter, without which there can be no true and righteous home, and that condition is economy. In God's natural world there is no waste whatever, and it is His world in which we are. We are under His laws, and ought to study His methods of administering them."
From: 'Primrose Hill and Chalk Farm', Old and New London: Volume 5 (1878), pp. 287-300. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=45237 Date accessed: 23 February 2011.
http://www.camdennewjournal.com/news/2010/jun/historian-niall-ferguson-speak-primrose-hill-lectures CONTROVERSIAL historian Niall Ferguson, whose defence of Britain’s colonial past has made him the subject of criticism from fellow academics, is one of the star names set to appear in the pulpit at St Mary’s Church in Primrose Hill this summer.
Ferguson, who specialises in economic history, will deliver a lecture on July 7 entitled “On Money” as part of the Primrose Hill Lectures.
He is currently a professor at Harvard University and has been asked by the new government to overhaul how history is taught in schools.
The annual lecture series kicks off on Wednesday with a talk by Guardian columnist and author Lionel Shriver discussing family. She is followed by Tariq Ali on Islam, Times columnist and former William Ellis school pupil David Aaronovitch speaking about politics, and book editor Diana Athill on the subject of
http://www.smvph.org.uk/music/recordings.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11817520
Marjorie Brown - the first female vicar of St Mary's in Primrose Hill in its 120-year history - has had virtually the opposite experience.
http://www.archive.org/stream/londonchurchesan02bumpiala#page/n413/mode/2up/search/Manning
http://www.archive.org/stream/somenotablealtar00wrig#page/114/mode/2up/search/Primrose