The Gate of Heaven: St Pauls, Bow Common

St Paul's Bow Common. Image from RIBApix.

Voted Britain's best modern church by the National Churches Trust in 2013, St Paul's Church in Bow Common, Tower Hamlets is one of the most famous and architecturally significant post war churches in the country. It was officially opened on April 20th 1960, replacing a Victorian church destroyed in the Blitz, designed by the partnership of Robert Maguire and Keith Murray. They also helped found the New Churches Research Group alongside others such as Peter Hammond, which promoted the reform of both Anglican and Catholic church design, away from the traditional ecclesiastical plan, towards integrating congregations further into religious services, and making the services more relevant to modern life. St Paul’s would become a flag bearing design for this reform. 

Maguire had worked for church architect Laurene King from the age of 16, and then attended the Architectural Association to complete his design studies. After graduating and working for the Architects Journal for 4 years, Maguire formed his partnership with Murray, designing a number of modernist churches in Britain, as well as student housing at the University of Surrey and at Trinity College, Oxford. Murray trained at the Central School of Art in London as a silversmith, and helped create Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher’s cope for the 1953 coronation.

The font with the interior of the church beyond. Image from RIBApix.

Although St Paul's was Maguire and Murray's design, its existence was largely thanks to Father Gresham Kirby, who had been appointed to the church in 1951, when it was still a bombed ruin. He had seen a freestanding altar designed by Murray at St Katherine’s Chapel in nearby Limehouse and knew that it would fit with his vision of the new church. The eminent church architect N.F. Cachemaille-Day had already been lined up to design a new church for St. Pauls by the Diocese, but Father Kirby had Murray talk to the rebuilding committee and he was given the commision. Murray and Maguire presented plans and models to the Diocese in October 1955, with construction finally beginning in December 1958. The delay in starting the new church was mainly due to lack of funds, which meant the ruins of the previous church needed to be cleared before the new one could be started.

The ciborium above the altar. Image from RIBApix.

The church as designed by Murray and Maguire is square in plan, with a raised altar placed in the centre of the building underneath a glazed lantern style cupola. Apart from the cupola, the only windows in the church are clerestory windows, producing a dramatic interior atmosphere full of light and shadows. The congregation is arranged on all four sides around the altar, and the font, an industrial stone vat, is situated in the entrance porch. Like the font, the other fixtures and fittings are in a tough, industrial style. The ciborium above the altar is made from black steel and the light fittings in a similar style. 

The entrance to the church with Ralph Beyer's carving. Image from Conway.

The interior also has mosaics by Charles Lutyens, (great nephew of Edwin), added after the building was completed. The artwork represents the “Heavenly Host”,  with twelve angels represented using a palette of 700 colours in individual mosaic tesserae. The structure of the building is formed from a concrete frame with purple Uxbridge brick infill, and an eye-catching zig zagging concrete slab roof. The entrance has a prominent inscription above the porch “TRULY THIS IS NONE OTHER BUT THE HOUSE OF GOD - THIS IS THE GATE OF HEAVEN'' carved by artist Ralph Beyer. Beyer, who also worked on Basil Spence’s Coventry Cathedral, handcrafted each letter and imprinted them in wet cement. ​

St Joseph the Worker, Northolt (1970). Image from RIBApix.

The building was rapturously received by the architectural press and beyond. Critic Ian Nairn included in his 1966 book “Nairn's London”, calling it “burningly honest but not aggressive” and “completely fresh” and “truly original”.  Nikolvaus Pevsner in his London East book praised it but also noted that Canon Basil Clarke, priest and architectural historian, commented that it “looks like a rather seedy stable yard”. Maguire and Murray went on to design a number of churches, including St Matthew's Perry Beeches, Birmingham (1963), Church of the Resurrection at West Malling Abbey (1966) and St Joseph the Worker, Northolt (1970). 

The duo also completed the vicarage for the church, which was not ready at the time of opening, and in 1971 designed an associated primary school behind, which like the church, took an innovative approach to planning, with a combination of open plan and classroom areas using a structure adapted from an agricultural shed design. Inevitably it was nicknamed “the pig sty”. St Paul’s was listed in March 1988 and is now at Grade II*. The church underwent essential repairs between 2015-16 with support from the Heritage Fund.