Parish Church of St. Dunstan and All Saints

Parish Church of St. Dunstan and All Saints
Stepney, London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Province of Canterbury

Church Poster

"St Dunstan's, Stepney is an Anglican Church which stands on a site that has been used for Christian worship for over a thousand years. It is located in Stepney High Street, in Stepney, London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Bell Tower

"In about AD 952 the Bishop of London — who is also Lord of the Manor of Stepney — replaced the existing wooden structure with a stone church dedicated to All the Saints. In 1029, when Dunstan was canonised, the church was rededicated to St Dunstan and All Saints, a dedication it has retained.

"Up until the early fourteenth century the church served the whole of Middlesexeast of the City of London. Then new churches were built at Whitechapel and Bow. The existing building is the third on the site and was built of Kentish ragstone mainly in the fifteenth century (although the chancel dates from 200 years earlier). A porch and octagonal parish room were added in 1872.

"The church was restored extensively in 1899, at a cost of £5,600. The vestries and some of the main building were destroyed by fire on 12 October 1901, including the organ which had carvings by Grinling Gibbons. The restoration cost £7,084,^[1] and the church was re-opened in June 1902 by the Bishop of Stepney (at that time Cosmo Gordon Lang.

Church Bell Tower

"The ring of ten bells, the heaviest weighing 28¾ hundredweight, which hang in the belfry, were cast at the local Whitechapel Bell Foundry and are tuned to C#. The seven oldest bells were cast by Thomas Mears and Son, Whitechapel, in 1806. The bells were re-hung in 1899.^[1] Three were recast in 1952 when repairs were made to the tower.^[3] The bells are mentioned in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons: "When will that be, say the bells of Stepney."

Parish Church of St. Dunstan and All Saints

"A fine triple Sedilia is found in the chancel.The rood is late Anglo Saxon. Of note amongst the plate is a cup and patten dated 1559 and a beadles's staff and vergers wand of 1752.

"The church is surrounded by a churchyard of nearly seven acres (28,000 m²). In 1658 William Greenhill was appointed vicar whilst retaining his position as a preacher at Stepney Meeting House. He held this post for about seven years, till he was ejected immediately after the Restoration in 1660.

"Shortly after this, the churchyard was enlarged to cope with the massive number of deaths during the Great Plague of London. In one eighteen-month period 6,583 died, with 154 being buried in one day in September 1665.

"The church has a long, traditional link with the sea and many sailors were buried here. It was once known as the 'Church of the High Seas'. The graveyard is also where Roger Crab, the 17th-century hermit who lived on a diet solely of herbs, roots, leaves, grass and water, is buried." (Link 1.)

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Photos: Taken in 2018 by RW with his iPhone while travelling in

                 London from his home in Switzerland.

Link 1" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Dunstan%27s,_Stepney

Link 1" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Dunstan%27s,_Stepney

                                                                    Prayer

God, be with persecuted Christians throughout the world. Amen (SW.)

Our Lady and St. Catherine of Siena

179 Bow Rd. E3, London, England

Our Lady and St. Catherine of Siena 
Catholic Church
London, England

"The Church of Our Lady and St Catherine of Siena is a Roman Catholic church dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Catherine of Siena at 179 Bow Road, E3 in Bow, east London. Designed by Gilbert Blount, it opened in 1870. Formerly the parish was run by a community of Dominican nuns, but it is now run by the Archdiocese of Westminster. "(Link 1.)

Our Lady and St. Catherine of Siena

A Gothic Revival  Church built for the Dominican Sisters by Gilbert Blount. The church suffered war damage and the nave was reconstructed in facsimile. Several  original early features survived: the high altar,  reredos designed by Blount, and the East window designed by Hardman. (Link 2.)

In 1866 the sisters were sent to Bow to teach and they built the church.  The foundation stone was laid in 1869 and the church opened in 1870.  In 1882 south transept was added as well as the Sacred Heart Chapel at the north end of the sanctuary. (Link 2.)

The nuns departed in 1923.  In 1943 the nave was damaged by a bomb and a facsimile built. (Link 2.)

Rose Window

"Rhe gabled west front is framed by angle buttresses with a shorter stepped buttress in the centre. The narthex is lit by a row of six lancet windows with hood moulds. Above is a large wheel window with female heads in small roundels on either side, flanked by canopied niches with statues of saints. (On Blount’s drawings and in older postcards in the parish archive the niches are empty. The statues probably date from the post-war restoration.) In the apex of the gable, below the gable cross, is a vesica-shaped relief of Our Lady. The west front of the northwest porch has a niche with a statue of Our Lady above the main door.

"The west window has a stained glass panel in the central multifoil depicting the Sacred Heart (c.1950s)" Small rose windows are set in some of the doors. (Link 2.)

:

Saint Catherine of Siena
St. Catherine of Siena, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo
Virgin; Doctor of Church
Born	March 25, 1347 Siena, Republic of Siena
Died	April 29, 1380 (aged 33) Rome, Papal States
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church; Anglican Communion; Lutheranism
Canonized	29 June 1461 by Pope Pius II
Major shrine	Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome and Shrine of Saint Catherine (it), Siena
Feast	April 29; April 30 (Roman Calendar, 1628–1969)
Attributes	Dominican tertiaries' habit, lily, book, crucifix, heart, crown of thorns, stigmata, ring, dove, rose, skull, miniature church, miniature ship bearing Papal coat of arms
Patronage	against fire; bodily ills; diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA; Europe; illness; Italy; miscarriages; people ridiculed for their piety; sexual temptation; sick people; sickness; nurses

"Saint Catherine of Siena TOSD (March 25, 1347 – April 29, 1380) was a saint. She was born in Sienna and died in Rome. She promoted peace in Italy and is one of the two patron saints of Italy; the other being Saint Francis of Assisi.

"She was born Katerina de Benincasa in western Italy, the 25th of 25 children. She was born at the time of the Black Death, or Bubonic Plague. Although it probably killed many she knew, she herself did not contract the disease and survived the epidemic. She had a twin sister, who died several months later. Her family was part of the lower classes and she did not become literate until 1378.

"At the age of six, Catherine had a vision of Jesus Christ. She continued to receive many visions throughout her life. At age 12, Catherine cut off her hair and was obligated to serve her family, living in small quarters in the basement. At the age of 16, she entered the Third Order of Saint Dominic and later became a Dominican nun.

"She wrote a book called Dialogue, which taught that if you love your neighbors it is loving God. She also devoted her life to improving the Catholic church, helping the ill, poor, and spiritually underprivileged. Catherine persuaded the pope to return from Avignon, France and back into Rome. She also tried to start a new Crusade to the holy land, Jerusalem. She died of “holy anorexia”, as she ate very little in the name of God. She became a saint in 1461, and was later made a Doctor of the Church in 1970 by Pope Paul VI and a patron of Europe in 1999." (Link 3.)

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Photos: Taken by Richard Wilson   with an I phone in March 2018
                while visiting London.
Link1:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_of_Our_Lady_and_St_Catherine_of_Siena,_Bow
Link 2: http://taking-stock.org.uk/Home/Dioceses/Archdiocese-of-Westminster/Bow-Our-Lady-and-St-Catherine-of-Siena
Link 3  : https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_of_Siena

St. Patrick's Catholic Church

St. Patrick's  Catholic Church
London, England

Front Entrance

"St Patrick's Church is a very large Roman Catholic parish church in Soho Square, London, that features extensive catacombs (that spread deep under the Square and further afield). St Pat's (as it is informally known) was consecrated as a chapel in a building behind Carlisle House on 29 September 1792, one of the very first Catholic buildings allowed in Great Britain after the Reformation.

Sanctuary

"The present church building was built between 1891 and 1893, to designs by John Kelly of Leeds,^[1] and replaced the earlier and smaller chapel built by Father Arthur O'Leary in the 1790s. The church has an unusual longish shape due to plot constrictions given at that time. The building is constructed out of bricks with a bell-tower. It is Grade II* listed.^[2] The main entrance has a Roman-style porch with Corinthian columns. Above the entrance is an inscription: VT CHRISTIANI ITA ET ROMANI SITIS ("Ut christiani ita et romani sitis", i.e. “Be ye Christians as those of the Roman Church”). It is a quotation taken from the writings of St. Patrick.^[3]

Sanctuary Detail

"The building was closed for renovation and refurbishment between 28 February 2010 and 31 May 2011.^[4] During the renovations, services were held in the nearby Chapel of St Barnabas, at The House of St Barnabas." (Link 1.)

Interior Painting

Photos: Taken by Lena Barko  in November 2017  while living and working in

                 London ,England.  Thank you.

Link 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Patrick%27s_Church,_Soho_Squa 

                                                                            Prayer

God, be with persecuted Christians throughout the world. Amen (SW.)