Henry Moore

At the heart of the redevelopment at St Stephen Walbrook there is a major statement about the theology of the Church in the city. That is the large altar by Henry Moore commissioned by Lord Palumbo for the church during it’s restoration in 1978. It was carved in 1972.

Nature's Symphony

Henry Moore 1898 – 1986

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St Stephen Walbrook was the only church designed by Wren in 1672 and was his prototype for the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. It was the first classical dome to be built in England at the time.


The damaged St Stephen Walbrook needed repair after the war and until then the interior was filled with pews in dark stained wood and the conventional east end altar table with the reredos containing the Ten Commandments and paintings of the Old Testament figures of Moses and Abraham. The windows had been filled with stained glass and the pristine feeling of Christopher Wren’s classical building had become dark and Victorianised. The original clear glass windows reflecting the light had been lost and filled with stained glass.


In taking the controversial step of commissioning one of the world’s most original artists to devise a statement about belief as seen in the Walbrook altar was taking a risk. Dr Chad Varah and the people of St Stephens were engaged in a major social outreach programme in founding the Samaritans in 1953, a telephone ministry for those in serious trouble and they now wanted this iconic Wren building to express a theology of how they saw the gospel in relation to the workplace.


This meant that the 17th century placing of the altar away from the people with the priest standing with his back to the congregation no longer expressed what they felt to be the immanent nature of the God they worshipped and served. Thus Henry Moore conceived a centrally placed altar made of travertine marble cut from the very quarry which provided the marble for Michelangelo’s work.


By carving a round altar table with forms cut into the circular sides Moore suggested that the centre of the church reflected the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem commemorating the sacrifice of Abraham and Isaac as a prefiguring of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and the place for the offering of the Eucharist at the heart of Christian worship. This place was designed for people to gather as a community around the altar where God could be found at the centre.


This changed the way that Walbrook was to develop for the future, if you want to know what a community believe see how they worship. The restoration itself cost £1. 3. Million. The altar measuring 8ft across and weighing several tons was at the centre of a controversy and court case as a result of objections and eventually was resolved by going to the highest ecclesiastical court of the land, the Court of Ecclesiastical Cases Reserved where the judges ruled that the Moore altar was acceptable as an altar for the Church of England!

Nature's Symphony

Henry Moore 1898 – 1986

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The painting was not in good condition by 1814, and the artist undertook the cleaning and varnishing of it. By 1848, the painting had been taken down, and moved to the north wall. The church was the subject of reordering during the period 1978 to 1987, at which time the painting was removed to storage. The main reasons why the petitioners applied for a faculty for the disposal of the painting were that it would not be appropriate to reintroduce it; that the church needed financial resources; and that the picture had been identified as the most appropriate asset to realise. Having heard evidence from both sides, the Chancellor concluded that, on the balance of probabilities, the picture was introduced into the church without a faculty, and that its introduction compromised the integrity of the Wren building in scale and visual appearance, and by the damage to the original fabric in taking out and bricking up of the east window.


The evidence established, the Chancellor said, that Dr Wilson commissioned the work to hang above the altar, and that West painted it to hang there. So not only did the painting compromise the Wren concept, but the painting was compromised when it was moved to the north wall just 45 years after it had been cleaned and restored by the artist. That move, the Chancellor found, was because the worshipping community did not want it where it had been installed, or at all, but they did not feel that they could get rid of it altogether. The Chancellor also said that, “whatever the merits of this painting, or Benjamin West as an artist”, he had “a higher reputation and profile in the United States of America than he does in the United Kingdom, although he . . . did virtually all of his painting in Europe”. 


As a matter of law, the Chancellor said that he had no power to order the return of the painting either to a specific location, or to the church generally, although, if he expressed an opinion to that effect, the petitioners would be morally or honourably bound to return the painting into the church. The petitioners’ evidence was that, because of the nature of the reordering, the return of the painting would have a negative impact both on the appearance and layout of the church and its worship, in particular the eucharist, as the central altar brought things together under a central dome. It was said on behalf of the CBC that the parish should not be allowed to “get away” with the illegal act of removing the painting from the church. The Chancellor said that, while he understood why the CBC might think that way, it was nevertheless “an unattractive way of thinking”.


These petitioners had behaved entirely properly in regard to the painting, the Chancellor said. The current parishioners were the “double victims of the high-handed and unlawful behaviour of previous incumbents”. This case was an object lesson of “[former] incumbents’ behaving as though the church building was a sort of personal doll’s house for them to play with”, without reference to the parishioners or the authority of the Chancellor. Unfortunately, the Chancellor said, that attitude was not restricted to previous centuries, but was “still held by certain incumbents today”. Eventually, as in this case, however, “the pigeons come home to roost, and subsequent generations have to bear the consequences and meet the costs. The original introduction of the painting was to the detriment of the interior of the church, the Chancellor ruled, and its reintroduction would be, too.