7 December 2024

In 2017 I posted a pic of the ex-St Saviours CofE Mission Church, designed by Leonard Terry and built in 1874 to minister to the poor in industrial #collingwood at the south end of Oxford Street (which became a Russian Orthodox Church in 1958) – without noticing it had been turned into a giant house.

It was designed by architect IIana Kister as her own house presumably just after it was sold in 2012. It had a brown brick hall thing next door, and also nice big arches on that side, and old streetview shows they were just bricked up, so there was probably meant to be an aisle there but never built. Similar with the apse end, you can even see the blocks ready for the part never built (though there was a brick apse there, might have been 1900s or added by the Russians, now removed).

Anyway, all those arches infilled now with big sheets of glass, it just looks like something is missing, though much more light than most church conversions. The whole thing is a bit too extravagant, and all that glass and sweeping curve just not my taste. She sold up in 2017, pic 2 is my photo, rest from real estate sites.

Update : the original design sketch was brought to my attention, last pic, so yes it was meant to have a single side aisle, with entrance from a courtyard, very unusual. Hard to believe the Russians demolished all that, but they might have, or it was never built..

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