St Ethelburga’s: A Church And A Bedouin Tent

On Bishopsgate, in the City of London, you will find London’s smallest church, St Ethelburga’s.

Towered over today by the Gherkin, not only is it London’s smallest church, it can also be considered both London’s luckiest and unluckiest church.

Today it is not an active church in the traditional sense but carries out a different function. In the back garden you will also find something very surprising: a Bedouin tent.

Possible Saxon Origins

The full name of the church is St Ethelburga the Virgin and the first recording we have for a church here is in 1250. It is however thought to possible have Saxon origins. St Ethelburga was the 7th century Abbess of Barking Abbey. Her father was Ethelbert, the first Christian King of Kent and her brother was Erkenwald. Erkenwald was the Bishop of London, founder of Barking Abbey and All Hallows by the Tower.

In 664, as relayed in the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the plague arrived at Barking Abbey. The men’s precinct was hit first, as the women, led by Ethelburga, looked on in horror.

She is said to have continued caring for the sick during the outbreak and this led to herself and her nuns also succumbing to the pestilence in around the year 675. 

A Lucky Church

The church was rebuilt in 1450 and the bell tower added in 1775. You will notice by those dates that St Ethelburga’s has survived its first catastrophe: the Great Fire of London, situated just outside the reach of the flames.

It was also at the church on April 19th 1607 that a sailor and ship’s captain named Henry Hudson attended communion with his crew before setting sail to North America to try and find the North West passage to the East Indies.

Hudson was unsuccessful in this endeavour but did come across what is now known as Hudson Bay and Hudson River. 

Two shops were built across the front of the church in the 17th century and were then demolished in the 1930s, revealing the church front once again. 

It also remarkably managed to survive significant damage during the Blitz. The area around it was devastated and two bombs landed either side, but St Ethelburga’s emerged from the war largely unscathed. 

A Place For All

St Ethelburga’s has long had an ethos of welcome, tolerance and forgiveness. John Medows Rodwell was the rector of St Ethelburga’s for a whopping 57 years from 1843-1900. He advocated for making the church a place welcoming to people of all faiths. He said ‘‘would not free and open churches, open every day and all day, throughout this great city, be a step in the right direction, a boon to us all, but especially to the poor?’.

From 1900-1941 the Rector was a man called Reverend Geikie-Cobb. He advocated for women’s rights and independence. He also made St Ethelburga’s one of the first churches where divorced people could remarry, very controversial at the time. 

St Ethelburga’s Luck Runs Out

Unfortunately St Ethelburga’s luck ran out in 1993. 

At 10.27am on the 24th April 1993 a truck parked, just seven metres away from the church on Bishopsgate, exploded. A 1 tonne bomb had been planted inside it by the IRA. 

A photographer called Edward Henty was killed,  who had, despite the warnings that had been sent out, rushed to the scene. The blast created a 15 foot wide crater and the Natwest Tower and Liverpool Street Station were very badly damaged. St Ethelburga’s was almost entirely destroyed. 

The Rebuilding

Despite some saying it should not be rebuilt, a community group called the Friends of St Ethelburga’s formed, founded by parish clerk, Paul Sutherland, advocated for its reconstruction. They had backing from the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, who also pushed for the church to serve a slightly different function after the rebuild. 

Money was raised and the church rebuilt, salvaging as many materials as possible from the wreckage.

When finished in 2002, it reopened as the home of the charity, St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace. The charity aims to build relationships across barriers of culture, religion and conflict. Conflict coaching sessions take place here for example and they work with faith leaders.

They ‘equip people from all backgrounds to become peace-builders in their own communities and lives’.

The Bedouin Tent

But why is there a Bedouin tent in the back garden?

In 2006, in response to 9/11, a Bedouin tent was constructed to the rear of the church.

The tent was designed by Keith Critchlow and architect Jon Allen, and is based on the principles of sacred geometry.

The idea is that the combination of Eastern and Western architectural styles highlights the need to build community across cultural and/or religious divides.

The design eliminates hierarchy and instead fosters togetherness and oneness. A lovely touch is that each window displays the word ‘peace’ in different languages. 

The charity runs various events in both the tent and nave and both spaces can also be hired out, the money going back into the maintenance of the structures. 

What To Spot

To go inside the building, you can either attend one of their events or, do as I did, and just send them an email. The lady who I met, said they are always willing to show people around who are interested in the history.

You can see how the surviving architecture of the original 15th century church has been incorporated into the rebuilding.

The font, dating from 1686, survived the blast.

It has an Ancient Greek palindrome that translates to ‘Cleanse the sin, not the face only.’

It also worth taking a closer look at the stained glass window depicting St Ethelburga.

The window dates from 2002 and was designed by Helen Whittaker. It depicts St Ethelburga in her Benedictine wimple and holding her staff of office. The cloak is made from shards of Victorian stained glass, salvaged from the rubble of the church.

The Mola tapestry, pictured below, made of reverse applique on silk, dates from 2005 and is called ‘Peoples of the World’.

It features 40 faces from different countries/cultures and was created by a Japanese artist called Fumiko Nakayama.

There are also many surviving gravestones scattered around the nave and garden.

I think it is wonderful that the architecture of the church has been restored and can still be enjoyed by Londoners today through their events.

Although they do not have religious services here, it still acts as a place of connection and where human values and community are nurtured. You can read about the charity’s guiding principles here.

Thank you for reading, more of London’s hidden history below!