Christ Church, Spitalfields

Christ Church
51°31′8.73″N 00°04′27.05″W / 51.5190917°N 0.0741806°W / 51.5190917; -0.0741806
Location	London, E1
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Low Church Evangelical
Website	www.ccspits.org
History
Status	Parish church
Consecrated	July 1729[1]
Architecture
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade I listed
Architect(s)	Nicholas Hawksmoor
Style	English Baroque
Specifications
Number of spires	1
Spire height	202 feet (62 m)
Administration
Province	Canterbury
Diocese	London
Archdeaconry	Hackney[2]
Clergy
Rector	Darren Wolf[3]
Laity
Organist(s)	Gerard Brooks[4]

Parish: Spittlefields, Stepney Act 1727
Act of Parliament
Parliament of Great Britain
Long title	An Act for making the Hamlet of Spittle-fields in the Parish of Saint Dunstan Stebunheath, alias Stepney, in the County of Middlesex, a distinct Parish, and for providing a Maintenance for the Minister of such new Parish.
Citation	2 Geo. 2. c. 10
Text of statute as originally enacted

Christ Church Spitalfields is an Anglican church built between 1714 and 1729 to a design by Nicholas Hawksmoor. On Commercial Street in the East End and in today's Central London it is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, on its western border facing the City of London, it was one of the first of the so-called "Commissioners' Churches" built for the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, which had been established by an act of parliament in 1711.

The purpose of the commission was to acquire sites and build fifty new churches to serve London's new settlements. This parish was carved out of the circa 1 square mile (2.6 km²) medieval Stepney parish for an area then dominated by Huguenots (French Protestants and other 'dissenters' who owed no allegiance to the Church of England and thus to the King) as a show of Anglican authority. Some Huguenots used it for baptisms, marriages and burials but not for everyday worship, preferring their own chapels (their chapels were severely plain compared with the bombastic English Baroque style of Christ Church) though increasingly they assimilated into English life and Anglican worship – which was in the eighteenth century relatively plain.

The Commissioners for the new churches including Christopher Wren, Thomas Archer and John Vanbrugh appointed two surveyors, one of whom was Nicholas Hawksmoor. Only twelve of the planned fifty churches were built, of which six were designed by Hawksmoor.