Former Holy Trinity Church

Have you ever noticed the old church standing on a traffic island? It might look a bit out of place, right in the middle of Marylebone Road. This is the Former Holy Trinity Church, a Grade I listed building, designed by John Soane in 1828. It was built after Napoleon’s defeat as one of the “Waterloo churches” – built with money raised to celebrate the victory. The building has a distinctive entrance with four large Ionic columns. It also features a lantern steeple, similar to the one on St Pancras New Church, just a short distance away. Despite the grand architecture, the church has been used for lots of different things over the years. In the 1930s, it was used as a book warehouse for Penguin Books. Can you imagine books being delivered via a children’s slide? Penguin then moved out and an Anglican missionary organisation called SPCK moved in. They were the church’s tenants until 2006, when they moved on, leaving the church to be transformed into the world’s first wedding department store, The Wedding Gallery. However, the history of the former church is much more than that. The first burial in the vault of the church was in 1829. The church might have been deconsecrated but it’s still a wonderful example of British architecture. You can almost imagine what it must have been like to hear William Cadman, the church’s rector from 1859 to 1891, preach from the external pulpit. They say he had a sonorous voice and was a gifted preacher, loved by his congregation.