St Leonard Shoreditch, and its sculptural interest

A grand East End church by the important architect George Dance the Elder. It dates from 1736-40, thus a little earlier than Dance's City church of St Botolph Aldgate. The writer on churches, Bumpas, found it 'Externally an uninteresting pile of brick, redeemed, however, by its Doric portico and its steeple'. The portico is indeed noble, and features on 19th Century woodcuts of the church. The steeple is tall, rising in stages of decreasing diameter, first square in cross section, then round, with many pillars, all this increasing the sense of height. Inside, the church lives up to the lofty and grand exterior, though it is rather crumbling. The monuments consist of a series of about 25 panels, not particularly significant from a sculptural point of view, bar one, but forming a nice sequence from the mid-17th Century through to the mid-20th Century, with examples fairly well spaced through the period.

St Leonard's Church, and the tall steeple.

17th Century monuments

Thomas Austen, d.1658, and John Austen, d.1659, brothers, both of the honourable house of Lincolns Inn. A black panel with veined pale marble surround, consisting of receding pilasters, shelf above and below, that above supporting a curved broken pediment, giving room for a small shield of arms, surmounted by a knight's helm, with unusually large and floridly painted plumes swirling down to left and right, and a small bird on top, all against a barely exposed cartouche. Below, apron with fluted brackets and two further small shields. A satisfyingly solid monument.

Austen monument, 1650s, and Francis Clerke, d.1690.
Francis Clerke, d.1690 (if that is what the Latin inscription indicates), and others through to 1715, with Latin inscription. The inscription as if on a hanging, with large knots at the top, and the drop folds on the sides in place of pilasters, little tassels; blank shield above with acanthus border, looking to be part of a larger surround. Sensitively observed drapery.

18th Century monuments

The macabre monument of Elizabeth Benson, d.1710, by Francis Bird.

Elizabeth Benson, d.1710, the most interesting monument in the church, and thus placed up in the gallery where it is hardest to see. Latin inscription on a shroud, with drapes hanging left and right, tied to an oak tree (tree of life?) which is being ripped apart by two grinning skeletons, carefully rendered in marble in a virtuoso display of carving. The sculptor was the eminent Francis Bird (1667-1731).
Elizabeth Crosley, d.1760, and husband Nahum Crosley, d.1774, offspring, and others including a friend, Capt. James Alexander, through to 1790. Inscription on a coloured marble backing, with shelves, coat of arms, and crossed fronds below.

Crosley and Newsom monuments, mid-18th Century, showing use of coloured marbles.
Joseph Newsom, d.1770, son Thomas, d.1831, and latter's wife Mary, d.1816. Joseph Newsom was a Justice of the Peace for Middlesex and Essex. A roundel in a square tablet, with receding shaped sides, also above on entablature, with shelf above, apron and two plain brackets below; the whole in streaky faun and beige marble.
Susanna Draper, d.1775, and Martha Draper, d.1777. with an inscription beginning with a homily mentioning looking at monuments: 'Life's little Stage is a small Eminence/Inch high above the Grave, that Home of Man/ Where dwells the Multitude. We gaze around/We read their Monuments, we sigh, and while/We sigh, we sink, and are what we deplor'd'. Plain panel which has lost whatever surround it once had, but nicely cut text.
William Champion, d.1799, and wife Ann, d.1823. Pale marble, as a tomb end with shelf and summit pot, fluted, on dark, shaped backing.

19th Century monuments

Elizabeth Burroughs, d.1800, and husband Thomas Burroughs, d.1816, and others to 1828. Pale marble panel with fluted pilasters, shelf, and pediment with carved wreath, all on rectangular black backing.

Samuel Nixon's monument to John Marshall, d.1840.
John Marshall, d.1840, and wife Elizabeth, d.1833, and son John, d.1842. The elder Marshall was from Tottenham, Commandant of the Royal Shoreditch Volunteers. White marble panel with smallish curly side pieces in place of pilasters, shelf above and below, and on top, shield with rampant griffin, crossed flags and other minor decoration to form a pedimental shape with no roof. All on a black backing. The monument is of interest as a minor work by the sculptor Samuel Nixon.

19th Century monuments styled as tomb-chest ends: Plimley and Troughton.
Revd Henry Plimley, d.1841, vicar, and also Chancellor of the Diocese of Chichester. As a chest tomb end, with feet and shelf and a pediment bearing a wreath and ribbons, on a black backing.
Charles James Troughton, d.1857, who went to Australia and was fatally wrecked off Sydney. White marble chest tomb end, with wreath and ribbon as for Revd. Plimley, and Alpha Omega. Feet with stylised four petalled flowers. Signed CUSWORT[H].
John George Appold, d.1865, FRS and member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, with a short eulogy. Pale panel with raised rim shaped to make room for two dark roundels with tiny emblems, on an orangey marble backing - unusual for this date - with a black border. By Allen, Paul Street, Finsbury.

J. G. Appold, d.1865, by Allen of Finsbury.
Edwin Isaacs, d.1886, churchwarden, gilded inscription on black polished panel, with quarter-circles at the corners.

20th Century monuments

Charles John Day and James Shy, 1904. Beaten metal panel to City of London Imperial Volunteers (Tower Hamlets volunteer regiment) in the South African campaign . With fluted pilasters, City coat of arms, wreath etc.

City of London Imperial Volunteers, Boer War, 1904.
Brass panels to Henry James Tabor, d.1918, Elizabeth Mary Pierpoint, d.1927, and Sarah Ann Waterfield, d.1915.
William Alfred Warren, d.1917, organist and choirmaster, brass with red and black letters.

William Warren, d.1917: typical late 19th/early 20th Century brass monument with red and black lettering.
Henry George Stoneley, d.1928, churchwarden, with red and black lettering and detailing. Trefoil headed. As for Warren.
William Henry Sharpe Sharpe, d.1948. Stone panel with truncated corners, and shield with acanthus leaves on top, and motto 'Knowledge is power'.
Elizabeth Betty Guest, welfare officer of Shoreditch chest clinic, d.1962, plain brass panel.

There is also a WW1 memorial, an austere panel with serpentine or serpentine-like border.

We may also note the font, cleanly cut, in streaky marble, with a carved cover, and which I would think is contemporary with the church. The clock has an elegant gilt surround with flourishes, bunches of grapes, corn, garlands and an eagle , presumably in wood (see top of page for both of these). To one side is a large bell and its mechanism, most interesting. And a wheeled stocks. Above, some notes from the Society of Royal Cumberland Youths' bellringing activities, and a small memorial to their losses in WW1.

St Leonard's bell mechanism, and ornate clock.

At the altar end, two niches high up hold statues of two females, painted, rather Catholic and not obviously British in origin, and below these niches are paintings of St Leonard, and perhaps Moses, both in arches, accompanied by a pair of angels, with other figures in the lower foreground, in an illustrative manner presumably from the 1900s, somewhat of the Maurice Greiffenhagen school - see pictures at top of page.

With many thanks to the Revd Paul Turp, Vicar of St Leonard's Shoreditch, for permission to show pictures of the monuments inside; the Church website is http://www.shoreditchchurch.org.uk/#!building/cr2d.

Outside St Leonards Shoreditch

Outside St Leonard's Shoreditch, a few interesting Victorian buildings survive in a range opposite. The principal one of these is Wells and Company Commercial Iron Works, a symmetrical structure with two principle halls, indicated by the double storey arches at the front, with upper roms with five Gothic windows apiece, surmounted by low pitched roofs. To left and right are stubby towers with further Gothic-topped windows. The Company name stretches across the front, in mosaic, alas with only the typography and a couple of small stylised flowers as ornament (if you like mosaics, see this page). Above the Gothic windows, which have polished granite shafts, the spandrels have nice tilework, geometric shapes of red and purple and black in an opus sectile style, giving a sense of richness to the surface. The side towers bear six further ornamental tilework panels, showing six pointed stars in circles.

The adjacent building up to an around the corner is a vaguely Queen Anneish block, enriched by a number of corbels under the balconies showing heads among ornamental scrolls and leaves; similar things are at the pillar tops. Heavily painted, they are of no great pretention but at least some variety. Carrying on round the corner, and walking under the overpass, leads us immediately to Shoreditch Town Hall.

Details of Wells and Co factory, corbel from corner block.