St George's, Bloomsbury

, Gin Lane, with the church tower (centre)]] The Commissioners for the Fifty New Churches realised that, due to rapid development in the Bloomsbury area during the latter part of the 17th and early part of the 18th centuries, the area (then part of the parish of St Giles in the Fields) needed to be split off and obtain a parish church of its own. They appointed Nicholas Hawksmoor, a pupil and former assistant of Sir Christopher Wren, to design and build this church, which he then did between 1716 and 1731. This was the sixth and last of his London churches. St George's was consecrated on 28 January 1730 by Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London. Its construction-—which cost £31,000--was completed…

The land on which the church is built ("Ploughyard") was bought for £1,000 from Lady Russell, widow of the Whig rebel William Russell, Lord Russell who had been executed in 1683. This was a substantial sum and its expenditure on a narrow and rectangular plot of land on a north–south axis, hemmed in by buildings on all sides, seemed to fly in the face of the commissioners' 1711 stipulation that "no site ought to be pitched upon for the erecting [of] a new church where the same will not admit the church to be placed East and West". Perhaps the orientation of the site was deemed a surmountable obstacle, especially since the site met the needs of the commissioners in that it was situated…

The main service is held at 10:30am on Sunday morning. The church is open to visitors on request. St George's runs educational workshops and lectures for schools, families and adults. It also hosts events and classes for the local community events (flower festivals, dance, choir classes). St George's Bloomsbury is located on Bloomsbury Way, next door to the Bloomsbury Thistle Hotel. A hymn used on St George's Day (written by Ursula Roberts, wife of the rector William Corbett Roberts) begins: