St Pancras New Church

I was curious to learn that London’s St Pancras New Church was conceived the very same year as Salem Chapel. In 1816, a group of Yorkshire and Lancashire weavers and shopkeepers determined to found a new chapel, while many miles south, a grander group of church goers agreed and resolved to build themselves a new parish church. Apart from the year, there are few things the two constructions had in common:

St Pancras New Church (SPN) had its first stone laid by the Duke of York and was designed by Inwood and Inwood, the famous architects; Salem Chapel’s (SC) construction and design were never recorded.

SPN was built in the style of a Greek temple, then fashionable, with pillars, ionic capitols and carved caryatids; SC is plain and functional.

SPN cost £76,679, making it the most expensive church to be built in London since the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral in the 1670s; SC cost a mere £500.

The doors of SPN are gigantic and protected by a study portico with fluted pillars; SC’s doors are too narrow and have no external porches, the Victorians adding small wooden ones to the internal side around 1880.

SPN was designed to accommodate 2,500 people; SC feels squeezed at 90.

Architecture aside, the message preached is rather different too. Although there is little online explanation of the beliefs of SPN, it declares itself to represent ‘Liberal Anglican Christianity in central London’. The good folk of SC are known for their theological conservatism and dogged adherence to scripture, in season and out.

The Duke of York’s foundation stone had written upon it (in Greek, naturally):

May the light of the blessed Gospel thus ever illuminate the dark temples of the Heathen

One may judge for oneself which of the two buildings best executes that ambition.