1677–1799 The parish was dedicated to
Saint Anne because Compton had been tutor to Princess
Anne before she became Queen. Construction commenced in 1677 on a plot in what was then the countryside of Soho Fields, with
William Talman and/or
Christopher Wren as architects. The church was designed as an long and wide
basilican church, with a high west end tower. In 1699 a tuition-free parish school was founded for boys and in 1704 it started to admit girls. The church received an organ in 1699 from the
Dowager-Queen's
Chapel in
St James's Palace and from 1700 the church's first organist was
William Croft (composer of the "St Anne" tune to
O God, Our Help in Ages Past). That organ (which was by
Father Bernard Smith) was removed in 1798 and installed in
St Michael Paternoster Royal. The church's tower was only completed in 1718, with the addition of a timber spire by local carpenter John Meard.
Edmund Andros was buried in the church's churchyard in 1714 as was the actress
Hester Davenport in 1717, while in 1724/5 the church saw the marriage of
Edward Harley, 3rd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, and in 1743
Prince William Henry (younger brother of
George III) was baptised here. The actress and dancer
Arabella Menage was baptised here in 1782.
1800–1939 The tower, however, became unstable by 1800 and, after 41 meetings of a "Tower Rebuilding Committee" came no closer to solving the problem, the architect
Samuel Pepys Cockerell was commissioned to design a replacement. The original tower was demolished (though the 1 ton clock bell, cast in 1691 and still in use, was retained) and the new tower's brickwork was completed by 1801, its bell chamber's
Portland stonework by March 1803, and its copper
cupola by May 1803. The new tower's ground floor room became the parish's
vestry room, and later (in the 20th century) a robing room for the clergy, and in the deep brick chamber beneath it are interred the ashes of the novelist
Dorothy L Sayers, who was a longtime Churchwarden of the parish and member of the St Anne's Society. 19th-century burials in the churchyard included
David Williams (1816) and
William Hazlitt (1830). Also placed in the crypt was the body of
Thomas Pitt, 2nd Baron Camelford in 1804. The church's choir and music, famous since its consecration, continued with Sir
Joseph Barnby (later Precentor of Eton), who served as its organist from 1871 to 1888 and introduced the first UK performance of
Bach's "
Saint John Passion", and with royal command performances (in 1886 for
Queen Victoria at
Windsor, singing
Louis Spohr's "Last Judgement"; and later, at
Buckingham Palace, for
Queen Alexandra). The first religious service with music broadcast by radio came from this church in the 1920s.
1939–present The whole church was left burned out on the night of 24 September 1940 during
the Blitz, apart from the tower, which was left derelict. St Thomas's Regent Street (now demolished) and the adjoining St Anne's House in the "Upper Room" (now known as the "Allen Room") were used for worship from then on. Though
Jacques Groag in 1945 proposed keeping the ruins as a war memorial, it was by 1949 assumed that the church would not be rebuilt, so in 1953 the remains of the east wall (the only significant parts left standing) were demolished, the site deconsecrated and prepared for sale, and the parish amalgamated with those of the churches of
St Thomas's Church, Regent Street and
St Peter's Church, Great Windmill Street (creating the Parish of St Anne with St Thomas and St Peter, centred on St Thomas's). The tower was used as a chapel for a time in the 1950s, partly restored in 1979 by
the Soho Society, and fully restored in the 1990–91 rebuilding of the whole church – the tower is now a Grade II* listed building. That reconstruction had been the result of
London County Council's policy to keep Soho as a residential area, was facilitated by a new
local act of Parliament, the '''''' (c. v), allowing the site to be cleared and began in earnest with a foundation stone laid by
Princess Anne on 12 March 1990. The new complex was completed in time for an opening and rededication on St Anne's Day, 26 July 1991. The new church and its associated complex is not
per se a reconstruction of the old and can be varied from a large to a small space. It is set within a community centre and is a community focus such as for grief surrounding the 1999
Admiral Duncan pub bombing. Despite the lack of a building at that time, from 1941 to 1958 the St Anne Society under Father
Patrick McLaughlin encouraged links between the literary world and the Church of England, with members such as Fr
Gilbert Shaw,
J. C. Winnington-Ingram,
Charles Williams,
Agatha Christie,
T. S. Eliot, Fr
Max Petitpierre, Dom
Gregory Dix,
Arnold Bennett,
C. S. Lewis,
Dorothy Sayers, and the churchwarden
Rose Macaulay. ==Rectors of St Anne's Church, Soho==