Sacred London

Places of religious significance. Worth a visit for the architecture, the art or the history.

Tell us what we can do better, or what you’re trying to discover.

Chelsea Old Church

Bombed flat in 1941 and rebuilt as a copy of itself, around a chapel Thomas More built in 1528 that survived.

ChristianityMedieval

A landmine took the church in April 1941 and left very little. What stands on Cheyne Walk now was rebuilt afterwards as a facsimile of what had been there, which is an unfashionable thing to do and was the right call here, because of what came through.

The south chapel did. It is probably early sixteenth century, with seventeenth-century and later work in it, and it was built by Thomas More - the only part of the church he would still recognise, and the reason people come. With it survived a large number of the early monuments, salvaged out of the wreck and reset, and several small panels of sixteenth-century stained glass.

So the building is a reconstruction holding originals, which is the reverse of the usual arrangement and worth knowing before you go in and start dating things by eye.

Where
64 Cheyne Walk, SW3 5LT
Nearest station
Imperial Wharf · 15 min walk

Open to visitors 14:00-16:00 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and otherwise by appointment with the parish office.

More in Sacred London

NearbyOther Categories

See more nearby listings

Submit a correction for this listing.

Data is compiled from public sources including OpenStreetMap, under the ODbL. Hours change often, so check before making a journey.

Which area are you in?