THE largest church in the City of London, St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, Holborn, has been awarded a grant of £158,758 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund to develop a “full and comprehensive plan of restoration and renewal”.
This week, the Rector, the Revd Nick Mottershead, spoke about the PCC’s ambitious plans to restore the building and its environs, while expanding on its numerous outreach programmes to groups including city workers, musicians, homeless people, service people, and schoolchildren.
While funders often sought plans that served “discrete audiences”, the church preferred to explore mutuality, he said, and “encourage openness to everybody”.
The Grade I listed church, which dates back to 1137 and to the mid-15th century in its current form, is known as the National Musicians’ Church and is home to both the Musicians’ Memorial Chapel and Royal Fusiliers Memorial Chapel. Recent research indicated that Sir Christopher Wren led its rebuilding after the Great Fire of London. The church’s 12 bells are those recounted in the nursery rhyme “Oranges and Lemons” as “The bells of Old Bailey”.
The church’s Resounding Future campaign, launched in 2023 with backers including Sir John Rutter, aims to raise at least £5 million. Over the past five years, the church has already raised £1.5 million to fund urgent ceiling works, stop leaks, restore a Steinway piano, and establish the Sir Henry Wood End of Proms service (Sir Henry is buried in the Musicians’ Memorial Chapel).
While the new grant will enable the creation of a detailed plan for future works, existing goals include the restoration of the 17th century organ, launch of a national centre for organ education, and installation of a stained glass window to commemorate the Korean War in the Royal Fusiliers Memorial Chapel.
In 2017, a vote by the PCC to stop hiring the church to outside organisations provoked outcry from musicians (News, 18 August 2017). Since his arrival in 2021, Fr Mottershead has worked to build relationships with musicians. Dedicated morning prayer for the profession is offered on Tuesdays, and a music-and-spirituality talk is given by a guest speaker once a month.
Other outreach activities include a hygiene bank, community choir, and the weekly event, Musicali-Tea, which features a musical performance and a talk by a city guide.
Fr Mottershead, a self-supporting minister who works as CFO at a financial-technology company, spoke this week of a commitment to celebrating the arts as crucial to the well-being of the city — including the crafts involved in church restoration, “which, if we are not careful, we will lose”.
On arrival, he was conscious that the building represented a “huge challenge”. The benefice includes the ruins of Christ Church Greyfriars, severely damaged during the Blitz, and those of St Leonard, Foster Lane, largely destroyed in the Great Fire. Also included is Postman’s Park, one of the largest open spaces in the City of London and home to a memorial, also in need of restoration, to the painter and sculptor George Frederic Watts (1817-1904).
Since 2021, the numbers coming through the church’s doors have grown from 4300 a year to 28,500.
His advice to other clergy responsible for such projects was: “Recognise you are not alone and reach out. Recognise that none of us have all of the skills. God has put each of us in these places for a reason — because he has gifts that he wants us to use for his purpose.”