London's 100 Best Churches

Next Sunday 24 March is Palm Sunday when there will be many palm street processions before the main morning service.
This list will be added to as information comes in.

All Hallows Tower Hill
Gather at St Dunstan-in-the-East, Idol Lane, at 11am to process to Tower Hill for the Eucharist.

St James, Spanish Place
The Blessing of Palms is at 10.15am in the courtyard behind Durrants Hotel.

Southwark Cathedral
The procession starts in Borough Market at 11am.

St Paul’s Cathedral
At 11am a donkey will lead the procession from Paternoster Square through Temple Bar to the cathedral.

St Bartholomew the Great, Smithfield
Meet at the Church of St Bartholomew the Less, just inside St Bartholomew’s Hospital gatehouse. The procession will set off for the priory church at about 11.15am. The Solemn Eucharist should start about 11.30am.

St John’s Waterloo

The procession starts at Christ Church, Blackfriars Road at 10am and reaches St John’s by 10.30am.

St Cuthbert’s Philbeach Gardens in Earls Court will welcome its new parish priest on Wednesday.

Wednesday 20 March is St Cuthbert’s Day when the Bishop of London will license Paul Bagott as Priest-In-Charge.

The Pontifical High Mass is at 7pm and will be followed by refreshments in the Philbeach Hall.

The patronal festival in the beautiful church can be expected to mark the start of a period of renewal in a parish which is about to see great change as the famous exhibition centre is replaced by housing.

New Bishop of Fulham Jonathan Baker will be licensed as Guild Vicar of St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street, during Solemn Evensong on Wednesday 17 April at 6.30pm.

This year’s Tyburn Walk will be on Sunday 23 June.

The prayer walk starts from St Sepulchre’s opposite the Old Bailey at 1.30pm. The route is west along Oxford Street following the route taken by Christian martyrs to the Tyburn Gallows at Marble Arch.

There are stops at various churches such as St Giles-in-the-Fields and St Patrick’s Soho Square before ending at the Tyburn Convent.

The annual silent procession was first called the Tyburn Walk when organised by the Guild of Ransom but now it is officially known as the Martyrs’ Walk.

A new carving of the Glorified Christ has been placed above the George Street door of St James’s Spanish Place.

It will be unveiled and blessed after the 6pm Mass on Shrove Tuesday.

There is a preview on the sculptor’s website.

Fr John Salter was at St Magnus last week to launch his biography of the church’s famous rector.

Henry Fynes-Clinton was rector from 1921 to 1959. It was a successful church which pioneered lunchtime services.

But his most important work was probably outside the parish and often outside the country where he promoted Christian unity. Fr Salter suggests that Fr Fynes-Clinton paved the way for today’s Anglican-Roman Catholic relations.

The book is a wonderful history of the rival views of unity as well as having plenty of good stories. Much of the book is the result of new research.

It is good to see Fr Spencer Jones recognised as a pivotal figure in the unity story.

The Anglican Papalist: A personal of Henry Joy Fynes-Clinton by A T John Salter (£20) is available from the Anglo-Catholic History Society.

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St Alban’s Holborn will be marking the 150th anniversary of its consecration on Thursday 21 February.

The preacher at the 7pm Solemn Mass will be the Bishop of Chichester Martin Warner.

The church’s architect was William Butterfield who used St Kunibert’s in Cologne as the model for the tower and roof.

Both churches were bombed in the Second World War.

The remodelled St Alban’s opened in 1961. Adrian Scott provided a much simpler interior  with a huge Hans Feibusch mural as the backdrop for fine liturgy.

It remains a parish church with a school and an inspiration to many visitors.

BBC News has coverage of this year’s Clown Service at Holy Trinity Dalston.

Initial work on St Paul’s Church in Covent Garden was completed in 1633 so the Actors’ Church will be marking the 380th anniversary this year.

The Bishop of London will preside at preach at the 11am Sunday Eucharist on 3 March when the church celebrates the anniversary of its foundation.

The church was not consecrated until 1638 because of a dispute so another celebration can be held in 2018. But as at the 250th anniversary, when Alan Jay Lerner was patron of an appeal, there is again an urgent call for funds. Major subsidence has been found in the churchyard.

Bishop of Manicaland Julius Makoni is due to talk about ‘Zimbabwe’s Prospects: Politics, foreign investment and the role of the Church’ at St Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside on Wednesday 23 January at 6.05pm.

The Bishop will be speaking in the heart of the City where he was a banker. Before ordination at Southwark Cathedral he worked for the World Bank, Deutsche Bank and HSBC.

The Bishop of Woolwich will be in the chair.

Admission to the JustShare lecture is free.