Church Of St Anselm

The Church of St Anselm is a church built between 1939 and 1941 by N F Cachemaille-Day. It incorporates elements from a previous church, St Ansehn, Davies Street, City of Westminster, which was designed in 1891 by Balfour and Thackeray Turner and demolished in 1938. The church is constructed of brown stock brick with tiled roofs. It has a rectangular basilica plan, with an apsidal East end sanctuary, an apsidal baptistry to the northwest, and a western gallery. The nave has six bays, and the chancel has four bays with wider aisles. Stone windows with flowing reticulated tracery were brought from the former St Ansehn, Davies Street, along with thick 'Prior' glass. Small round-headed clerestory windows are above the nave. A round-arched stone south doorway has double doors. Single-storey vestries are located at the East end.

The interior is notable for its fine stone columns with cushion capitals, also brought from Davies Street where they had originally been set in pairs, with smaller columns placed between the aisle windows. A flat ceiling covers the nave and chancel. Within the gold-coloured apse is a baldacchino designed by Cachemaille-Day, featuring a painting of saints around a cross attributed to Giovanni Caroto, and surrounded by marble paving. The Lady Chapel contains a tester from Davies Street, formerly attributed to John Ninian Comper and in a similar style, together with a painting of the Virgin and Child attributed to the studio of Luca Giordano. Both paintings originally came from the Hanover Chapel, Regent Street, via St Ansehn, Davies Street. The organ and choir stalls are also from the earlier church. The font is situated in a separate apse to the side of the western gallery, creating a particularly pleasing combination of shapes and levels.

The incorporation of numerous elements from the Davies Street church into the 1930s design is remarkable, especially given the demolition of inner London churches to fund suburban building projects. The Davies Street church was considered an exceptional example of Arts and Crafts architecture, a rare design principally attributed to Thackeray Turner. This was also partly influenced by N F Cachemaille-Day's personal connection to the earlier church and by wartime shortages, which meant that salvaged materials allowed construction to continue through the early years of the war. The resulting building represents a synthesis of Cachemaille-Day’s eclectic style, demonstrating enhanced detailing, and incorporating elements of exceptional quality from the previous structure.