The famous name their favourite London church

It was good to see Mayor of London Boris Johnson telling the Evening Standard that St Magnus the Martyr Church in Lower Thames Street was his favourite church.

He also names St Bride’s, St Martin -in-the-Fields, Croydon Minster and the “four sisters of St Luke West Norwood, St Matthew’s Brixton, St Mark’s Kennington and St John Waterloo Road, with their strikingly shared architecture”.

Now the full list of famous people’s church choice has been issued by the National Churches Trust.

Joanna Lumley and Giles Coren both nominate St Bride’s.

Joanna says: “The tiny graceful spire, like a precious sea-shell, rises among the clustering modern and Victorian buildings like a dream vision. This spire was the inspiration (exactly the right word) for tiered wedding cakes the world over.”

Giles says: “I got married at St Bride’s for a number of reasons: because it is beautiful, because it has the best choir in London, because it is the parish church of the journalistic trade that I ply, and because Sir Christopher Wren didn’t build synagogues.”

Alex Polizzi highlights Farm Street Church which three generations of her Forte family have known.

Shelter charity chief executive Campbell Robb rightly names St Martin-in-the-Fields since his charity evolved out of the work on behalf of homeless people then being carried on at St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1966.

Lord West, admiral and former minister, says: “I would nominate St Anne’s Limehouse. The church is a classic Hawksmoor chuch which has been lovingly restored over the past 10 years with still more to do. The flagstaff on the church tower is a designated river mark for navigation on the Thames and has been entitled to fly a White Ensign since the late 18th century.”

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