St Paul's, Covent Garden

In 1630, the 4th Earl of Bedford was given permission to demolish buildings on an area of land he owned north of the Strand, and redevelop it. The result was the Covent Garden Piazza, the first formal square in London. The new buildings were classical in character. At the west end was a church, linked to two identical houses. The south side was left open. Work on the church was completed in 1633, at a cost to the Bedford estate of £4,886, but it was not consecrated until 1638 due to a dispute between the earl and the vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields. It remained a chapel within the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields until January 1646, when Covent Garden was made a separate parish and the church dedicated to St. Paul. In 1789 there was a major restoration of the church, under the direction of the architect Thomas Hardwick. The puritan Thomas Manton ministered from the pulpit of St Paul's until the Great Ejection. On 23 September 1662 Simon Patrick, later Bishop of Ely, was preferred to the rectory of St. Paul's where he served during the plague. The first known victim of the 1665–1666 outbreak of the Plague in England, Margaret Ponteous, was buried in the churchyard on 12 April 1665. ==Architecture==

, before 1677 '' painted in 1737 by Balthazar Nebot The east end, facing the piazza, is now faced in stone, with a massive portico, its boldly-projecting pediment supported by two columns and two piers. There were originally three doorways behind the portico; the middle one, which survives, was built as a false door as the interior wall behind it is occupied by the altar. William Prynne, writing in 1638 said that it was originally intended to have the altar at the west end, but pressure from the church hierarchy led to the imposition of the traditional orientation. The 9th Duke of Bedford's architect. ==Theatrical connections==

St Paul's connection with the theatre began as early as 1663 with the establishment of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and was further assured in 1723 with the opening of Covent Garden Theatre, now the Royal Opera House. On 9 May 1662, Samuel Pepys noted in his diary the first "Italian puppet play" under the portico—the first recorded performance of "Punch and Judy", a fact commemorated by the annual MayFayre service in May. The portico of St Paul's was the setting for the first scene of Shaw's Pygmalion, the play that was later adapted as My Fair Lady. Since 2007 St Paul's has been home to its own in-house professional theatre company, Iris Theatre, originally created to mount a production of T. S. Eliot's Murder in the Cathedral. It gained full charitable status in October 2009. ==Baptisms, burials and memorials==

The artist J. M. W. Turner and dramatist Sir William S. Gilbert (of Gilbert and Sullivan fame) were both baptised at St Paul's. Samuel Butler (1613–1680), of Hudibras fame, was buried at St Paul's, Covent Garden. Aubrey in Brief Lives describes his grave as "being in the north part next to the church at the east end ... 2 yards distant from the pillaster of the dore". His grave was never marked. A monument to him was placed in Westminster Abbey in 1732 by a printer with the surname Barber, and the Lord Mayor of London. memorial plaque in St Paul's, Convent Garden Among others also buried at St Paul's, Covent Garden, are the wood-carver Grinling Gibbons, the painters Thomas Murray, Sir Peter Lely, and Thomas Girtin, Thomas Arne (composer of "Rule Britannia"), and Sir Henry Herbert who as Master of the Revels to James I and Charles I was a censor of the theatre. A memorial tablet in the church commemorates Charles Macklin, the great Shakespearean actor from Ulster. The ashes of Dames Ellen Terry and Edith Evans rest in St Paul's. Memorials in the church are dedicated to many famous entertainment personalities of the 20th century, including Sir Charlie Chaplin, Sir Noël Coward, Dame Gracie Fields, Stanley Holloway, Boris Karloff, Vivien Leigh, Ivor Novello, Richard Greene, Kenneth More, Diana Rigg, and Richard Beckinsale. The Avenue of Stars, which commemorated many notable figures and groups from the entertainment industry, formerly passed outside the church. There is also a memorial plaque to music hall star Bransby Williams which was unveiled by Sir Michael Redgrave. The church is surrounded by an award-winning graveyard garden. The churchyard closed to burials in 1852. ==Notable events==

In the 1980s, the site directly outside the church was where the then Greater London Council, soon to be abolished, liked to showcase bands, as part of its "Street Performers" policy for using public open spaces, and the Council then controlled the Covent Garden Piazza. On Sunday, 1 April 1984, the first samba school in Britain, the London School of Samba (LSS), performed its first ever public concert on this site. Its second concert, on Saturday, 7 April 1984, also took place outside the church. The LSS had been formed on 31 January 1984 and was considered to be the Madrinha, or "godmother", of samba in the United Kingdom. Later in 1984, the LSS was also the first school of samba to parade in the Notting Hill Carnival. John Whitworth, a professor at the Guildhall School of Music, was organist of the church from 1965 to 1971. ==Orchestra==

Covent Garden Sinfonia (known as the Orchestra of St Paul's until June 2017) is a professional chamber orchestra resident at the Actors' Church. In addition to a concert series in Covent Garden, the orchestra gives performances all around the UK and makes regular visits to the Southbank Centre, Cadogan Hall and St John's, Smith Square. Based around a core of principal players, Covent Garden Sinfonia adapts to each project, ranging in size from a small ensemble to a full symphony orchestra of 70 or more. The orchestra's Artistic Director is Ben Palmer and its patron is Sir Roger Norrington. ==Rectors of St Paul's, Covent Garden==

• 1646–1656 Obadiah Sedgwick • 1656–1662 Thomas Manton (ejected in the Great Ejection) • 1662–1689 Simon Patrick (as Dean of Peterborough from 1679, later Bishop of Chichester then Ely) • 1689–1707† Samuel Freeman (as Dean of Peterborough from 1691) • 1708–1730† Robert Lumley Lloyd • 1730–1754† Charles Tough • 1754–1755 James Tattersall • 1755–1758 John Cradock (as Bishop of Kilmore from 1757, later Archbishop of Dublin) • 1758–1784† James Tattersall (2nd term) • 1784–1809† Richard Bullock • 1810–1817† Edward Embry • 1817–1831† Francis Randolph • 1831–1848 George Hull Bowers (as Dean of Manchester from 1847) • 1848–1863† Henry Hutton • 1863–1865† Charles Edward Oakley • 1865–1873 Berdmore Compton • 1873–1899† Samuel Francis Cumberlege • 1899–1918† Edward Henry Mosse (killed in an air raid) • 1918–1923 James Granville Adderley • 1924–1944 Reginald Hart Davies • 1944–1957† Vincent Howson • 1957–1969† Clarence May • 1969–1975 John Hester • 1975–1984 F. John Arrow Smith • 1986–1999 David Elliott • 2000–2005 Mark Oakley • 2006– Simon Grigg † Rector died in post ==Gallery==

File:1690 bedford house.jpg|Map of Covent Garden, from a drawing of c. 1690 File:Statue St Pauls Covent Garden.JPG|Statue of the Conversion of St Paul was sculpted by Bruce Denny and was unveiled by Dame Judi Dench File:St Pauls Covent Garden Pulpit.JPG|The pulpit was the work of Grinling Gibbons File:St Pauls Covent Garden font.JPG|The font File:Ellen Terry Ashes St Pauls.jpg|The ashes of Dame Ellen Terry File:Thomas Arne St Pauls Covent Garden.jpg|Memorial Plaque to composer Thomas Arne File:St Pauls Plaque.JPG|Plaque to the side of St Paul's Lightwell ==See also==