Country United Kingdom Website www.stgholborn.org Diocese Diocese of London Designated as world heritage site 24 October 1951 London borough London Borough of Camden | Denomination Anglican Heritage designation Grade II* Phone +44 20 7404 4407 Architect Samuel Sanders Teulon | |
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Address Queen Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1N 3AH, UK Similar St George's - Bloomsbury, St Andrew Holborn, St George the Martyr Southwark, St Pancras New Church, Church of Christ the King - Blo Profiles | ||
St George the Martyr Holborn is an Anglican church located at the south end of Queen Square, Holborn, in the London Borough of Camden. It is dedicated to Saint George, and was originally so-called to distinguish it from the later nearby church of St. George's Bloomsbury, with which it shared a burial ground (now St George's Gardens). While the historical name remains its formal designation, it is today known simply as St George's Holborn.
History
The church was built in 1703–06 by Arthur Tooley, as a chapel of ease to St Andrew, Holborn. Tooley was paid £3,500 to build the chapel and two houses by a group of fifteen trustees including Sir Streynsham Master. It was later bought by the Commission for Building Fifty New Churches and became a parish church in 1723, receiving the dedication to St George, in honour of Streynsham Master's governorship of Fort St George in India.
The antiquary William Stukeley was the rector from 1747 to his death there in 1765.
The church was remodelled in the early nineteenth century by J.B. Papworth, who added a bell-tower and two frontages to what had previously been a plain brick building, and once again in 1867–69 by S. S.Teulon, who almost entirely changed the exterior, removed the galleries and added the present columns and roof.
It was at this church that Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath married on Bloomsday in 1956. The church was designated a Grade II* listed building on 24 October 1951.