Name: St. Anne’s Church, Soho
Denomination: Anglican
Address: 55 Dean Street. Soho. W1D 6AF
Telephone: 020 7437 8039
Web Site: http://www.stannes-soho.org.uk/
Email: Click Here
Please visit the website for times of services and details of other events.
We are part of the Diocese of London in the Church of England, and our full name is the Parish of St. Anne with St. Thomas and St. Peter, Soho. In many ways we are a typical Church of England parish. Our main weekly service is Holy Communion at 11am on Sundays where we use modern language Common Worship. We try to be a place of quiet and welcome and to make our services welcoming, straightforward and reflective.
Once a month, we try particularly hard to make the service more accessible to children. We have a small, modern, wheelchair-accessible church building which was rededicated in 1991 after our original church building was destroyed by a bomb in the Second World War.
The 1803 tower still stands and you can see it from our gardens in Wardour Street. We have a modern community hall, a panelled first floor room (the Allen Room) and a room in our tower which are available for hire.
The entrance to the church is at 55 Dean Street, a few metres from Shaftesbury Avenue.
You are very welcome to be with us whenever you can and reflect in prayer at a quiet oasis in Soho.
Our existing congregation is a great mix of people, from Soho and beyond. We have that great mix of ages, degrees of mobility, backgrounds, sexualities, “churchmanship”, interests and theology that makes the Church strong… How could we be anything else in Soho?
Soho community
St. Anne’s, Soho, is in the centre of one of the world’s liveliest urban communities and a mass of cultural difference. It is home to hostels for the homeless, the media industry, an amazing restaurant, bar and club scene, prostitution, the gay and lesbian community, several churches, a school for 149 children, 24-hour culture… and at one time, Karl Marx. We cannot afford to forget, either, that Soho is home for 5,000 residents.
St. Anne’s supports our communities in all sorts of ways. Primarily, of course, by being a parish church, providing a quiet, reflective space where we can accept and welcome each other, worship and be together.
We also have rooms and a hall for hire, and host community events. All enquiries to the parish office.
History
1686: Worship has been offered to God on this site since the original Church was consecrated by Bishop Henry Compton in 1686. The architects were either Christopher Wren or his assistant Mr William Talman, or possibly both. It was a church of basilican plan, about eighty-foot long and sixty-four feet wide.
In the eighteenth century, Frederick, Prince of Wales, had his pew here. The dedication was to Princess Anne of Denmark who married Frederick, Prince of Wales. In 1699 St Anne’s founded its Parish School for boys, whose education was free, and in 1704 the School opened its doors to girls. From the time of its consecration St Anne’s was well known for its ‘Singing boys’ and the quality of its music. The first organ was a gift from the Dowager Queen’s Chapel in Marlborough House. The first organist was Dr William Croft who wrote, while here, the tune ‘St Anne’, sung to ‘O God our Help in Ages Past’. Sir Joseph Barnby, organist 1871-1888, and later Precentor of Eton, introduced the first performance of the Bach ‘St John Passion’. In 1886 the choir was summoned to Windsor Castle to sing Spohr’s ‘Last Judgement’ before Queen Victoria. Later on it sang at Buckingham Palace for Queen Alexandra.
In the 1920’s, St Anne’s presented the first religious service with music broadcast on the wireless. By the nineteenth century, the Church became noted for its commitment to social reform under a succession of remarkable, not to say eccentric, Rectors.
1940: On the evening of 24 September 1940, the Church received a direct hit from a bomb during the height of the London Blitz. The body of the Church was burnt out and parish life was broken up, taking many years to re-build. Worship continued at St Thomas’s Regent Street, and various other places.
Between 1941 and 1958, St Anne’s played a special role in promoting a link between the Church and the literary world. The powerfully intellectual St Anne Society flourished under Father Patrick McLaughlin, and included such names as J C Winnington-Ingram, Fr Gilbert Shaw, T S Elliot, Agatha Christie, Fr Max Petitpierre, Arnold Bennett, Dom Gregory Dix, C S Lewis and two notable Churchwardens: Rose Macaulay and Dorothy L Sayers. Burials include William Hazlitt, Theodore, King of Corsica and Dorothy L Sayers.
Centrepoint, the large charity which works with homeless young people was started in December 1969 in the basement of St Anne’s House by Rev Ken Leech, a priest on the staff of St Anne’s Church.
1990: After a long struggle involving St Anne’s Parochial Church Council, the Diocese, the Soho Society and the Soho Housing Association, the foundation stone of the new St Anne’s was laid by HRH the Princess Royal on 12 March. The Church was rededicated and the site opened for use on St Anne’s Day, 26 July 1991. The small church contains a Crucifix, designed and made by Thomas Duttenhoefer of Darmstadf, Germany. It reflects the theme of hope and resurrection.
Today: St Anne’s has a special place in the life of the Church in central London. It remains a community Church, committed to meeting the spiritual and pastoral needs of the local community. While our worship is in the Liberal Catholic tradition of the Church of England, people find a temporary or long-term home here from a vast variety of social and religious backgrounds.
Visitors will find a small, friendly place where they can quickly feel at home.