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The interior of St Mark's, Hamilton Terrace, London NW8 is spacious, without aisles but with a capacious gallery on three sides, supported on iron columns: it was built to house a congregation of about 1,400-1,450 people (Clarke, "St Mark's Hamilton Terrace" and "New Church of St Mark," which gives the lower figure).

Left: Looking east to the chancel. Right: Looking west, showing the gallery.

The fittings are "mostly late Victorian," and the "elaborate decoration of the chancel arch dates from 1886" (Cherry and Pevsner 602). Particularly noteworthy are the "[r]ich chancel furnishings: painted roof above the sanctuary, marble floor and panelling, Caen stone REREDOS with paintings by Armitage" — also the mosaic memorial panels from about 1900 onwards, and a war memorial with painted panels by Sigismund Goetze (Cherry and Pevsner 602).

Looking into the highly decorated chancel.

Left: Closer view of the pulpit. Right: Detail of the chancel.

According to R. S. Kovach of the Salviati Architectural Mosaic Database, "The Venice and Murano Mosaic Company made the six mosaic panels for the pulpit around 1879. They depict the Four Evangelists flanking Sts. Peter and Paul." This was a typical use of mosaic work at the time: "Throughout the 1860s and 1870s glass mosaic was largely employed for the decoration of small items such as reredoses and altar fronts.... large-scale schemes of mosaic decoration would only have been an option for the best-endowed projects" (Sladen 82).

Left to right: (a) The font. (b) The war memorial with painted panels by Goetze. (c) Memorial to Norman Shanks Kerr, who died in 1899.

The font was described in the Illustrated London News of the time as being "very elegant ... of octagonal form and enriched with tracery and carved work" — and as the gift of the two original architects (16). The war memorial, of course, was a much later addition. Goetze's parents worshipped in this church, and he was christened here. However, the memorial had originally been housed in nearby St Stephen the Martyr, Avenue Road, which was damaged during the war, and then demolished. As for Dr Kerr, whose memorial was one of several mosaiic panels gracing the walls, he is described under the representation of the Good Samaritan as "an ardent social reformer." In fact, he founded and was President of the Society for the Study and Care of Inebriates. "He had been a Medical Officer of Health, in St Marylebone, and thought alcoholism was a disease, not a sign of moral failing," says Bridget Clarke.

While there was no scheme here as such — as there would be, for example, at he dazzling St George's in Jesmond, or in some late Victorian churches modelled on specifically Byzantine principles — mosaic work did appeal to this well-to-do congregation. A series of individual memorial panels were installed in the later nineteenth-century. In his very detailed discussion of the mosaics here, Bob Speel notes the "emphasis on texture" in this one, its "depth and perspective," and the "solidity and character to these figures."

Left: Memorial "To the Ever Precious Memory of Rev. Charles Erskine B.D., Curate of This Parish 1894-1905, Died at St Moritz 18 Dec 1905 Age 37." Right: Closer view of the supplicating angel on the left.

Here is further evidence of the social standing of the church's congregation. Of this memorial Clarke writes, "A popular curate, he [Rev. Erskine] suffered from tuberculosis and was sent at the parishioners expense to seek an Alpine cure and they equipped him with a quilted suit that enabled him to sit out in the snow."

Links to Related Material

Bibliography

"Church of St Mark, Hamilton Terrace, London NW8." Historic England. Web. 3 March 2023.

Cherry, Bridget, and Nikolaus Pevsner. London 3: North West. Buildings of England series. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002.

Clarke, Bridget. "Sigismund Goetze 1866 - 1939." St John's Wood Memories. Web. 3 February 2023.

_____. "St. Mark's Hamilton Terrace." St John's Wood Memories. Web. 3 February 2023.

"New Church of St Mark, Hamilton-Terrace, St John's Wood." Illustrated London News. Vol. XI. 3 July 1847: 16. Google Books. Free to read. Web. 3 February 2023.

Sladen, Teresa. "Byzantium in the Chancel: Surface Decoration and the Church Interior." In Churches 1870-1914, the Victorian Society's journal, Studies in Victorian Architecture & Design. Vol. III. 2011. 81-99.

Speel, Bob. "St Mark's Hamilton Terrace" — A Church with Mosaics. London Church Monuments. Web. 3 February 2023.


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Created 3 February 2023