Deutsche Evangelische Christuskirche,
Montpelier Place
This attractive Edwardian building on the north side of
Montpelier Place (fig. 36) came into being in unusual and
somewhat controversial circumstances.
The church traces its origins to the late 1660s, when a
Lutheran congregation was formed from within the German and Scandinavian merchant community in the City of
London. The first building, in Trinity Lane (erected on the
site of Holy Trinity-the-Less, which had been destroyed in
the Great Fire), survived until the 1860s, when it was
replaced by the Hamburg Lutheran Church, adjoining the
German Hospital in Dalston. (ref. 146)
The German offshoot of this congregation from which
the church in Montpelier Place derives enjoyed a long
royal association, meeting for several years at the Savoy
Chapel, and later at St James's Palace. From 1781 the
church met in what is now the Queen's Chapel, adjoining
Marlborough House, which became known as the German
Chapel (or German Chapel Royal). (ref. 147) In 1901 Edward VII,
who before his accession had been a regular attender at
the Anglican Sunday-morning service there, brought this
custom to an abrupt end. (ref. 148)
Natural enough in Hanoverian days, by the early twentieth century the existence of a German Chapel Royal
might, in view of the growing imperial rivalry between
Great Britain and Germany, have come to seem anomalous,
and tradition has it that the King put a stop to the German
services on the grounds that their continuance was incompatible with his position as head of the Church of England.
There is, however, little doubt that the closure of the German Chapel Royal was brought about essentially to reduce
expenditure in the Lord Chamberlain's department. Such
other considerations as there were seem to have been personal rather than nationalistic.
Figure 44:
Deutsche Evangelische Christuskirche, Montpelier Place, section looking north
In April 1901 Dr Edgar Sheppard, Sub-Dean of the
Chapels Royal, proposed two money-saving measures: a
reduction in the number of sinecures associated with the
Chapels Royal, and the 'eventual abolition' of the chaplaincy attached to the German Chapel. Such was Sheppard's
official line, but in a private note to the Comptroller of the
Lord Chamberlain's department, he urged that the chaplaincy should be abolished 'in the immediate present'. (ref. 149)
The weekly German service attracted only a small congregation, drawn mainly from the suburbs, yet the associated costs, met by the department, were substantial. They
included the pay of the chaplain and chapel staff, and the
maintenance of furnished rooms in St James's Palace for
the chapel-keeper and organist, Dr Weber. These rooms, in
earlier times the Sub-Dean's official lodgings, had been
given up by a predecessor of Sheppard's, much to the
annoyance of successive Bishops of London, as well as of
Sheppard himself, who had to live at a distance. In 1895 he
had attempted to oust Dr Weber, but there was a 'rumpus'
and the scheme fell through. By 1901 the circumstances
were more favourable to change: the chaplain, the Rev. Dr
Frisius (who was also the minister at Dalston), was a fairly
recent appointee with no local connections – his predecessor having been, like Weber, elderly and long-serving.
As a result of Sheppard's recommendations, a royal
decree dated 1 July 1901 required the German services to
cease in three weeks; and on the same day the Lord Chamberlain gave notice that the chapel-keeper's rooms would
again become the Sub-Dean's lodgings. The staff were at
once pensioned off or otherwise discharged. Diplomatic
pressure was brought to bear on the King to postpone the
closure until after Easter, but the deadline was merely
shifted from 22 July to 4 August. Dr Frisius (who was to
become the first pastor of the Christuskirche) subsequently complained, with some justice, of the 'insulting manner'
in which a long tradition had been ended. (ref. 150) That the Danish services were allowed to continue there made it all the
more galling, but then Queen Alexandra was Danish.
Thenceforth the building was known as Marlborough
House Chapel. (ref. 151)
For some time the congregation met in Eccleston Hall in
Victoria. (ref. 152) The present church was erected at the expense
of the Anglo-German merchant banker Baron Sir John
Henry William Schröder (1825–1910), who had been
involved in the negotiations over the closure of the German
Chapel Royal. It was intended both to provide a permanent
home for the congregation and to serve as a memorial to his
late wife, Evelina.
The building was designed jointly by Edward Boehmer
and a comparatively obscure architect, Charles G. F. Rees.
Boehmer (who Anglicized his name to Bomer during the
First World War) was born in Philadelphia of Pennsylvanian-German parents, and was educated and trained in Germany. He completed his training in London, in the office of
Archer and Green. Rees, an architect, surveyor and estate
agent with an office near Stanmore railway station from the
1890s, designed at least one other church for the Schröders,
the Markuskirche in Kelvedon Road, Fulham (1911). He
was also surveyor to the German Hospital in Dalston (of
which the Schröders were benefactors), designing two substantial additions to that institution in 1911–12. (ref. 153)
The Knightsbridge church is the only work Rees and
Boehmer are known to have done in collaboration, and
their respective roles in this presumably ad hoc partnership
(based apparently in Boehmer's Spring Gardens office),
are not known, although there are indications that Rees's
was the senior position. His name appears before
Boehmer's on the contract drawings (ref. 154) and on a perspective
view of the building (Plate 64a), as well as in their initial
application to the London County Council regarding the
church. Rees alone was named as architect in published
reports of the consecration ceremony. And he, moreover,
received a decoration from the Kaiser on the completion of
the church. (ref. 155) There is, however, nothing in the comparatively coarse design of Rees's other known buildings to suggest affinity with the Christuskirche, and Boehmer's may
be presumed to have been the guiding hand in the finer
points of the design. It is a building of quality, and may perhaps be seen as something of an architectural riposte to the
King's action. There was no prestige in the location, however, for Montpelier Place in the early 1900s was at best an
indifferent address.
The site, then occupied by Nos 18–20 Montpelier Place
and Nos 1–3 Alfred Cottages, was acquired about 1903, the
plans of the new building being approved by the LCC in
November that year. (ref. 156) Construction was carried out by
Dove Brothers at a cost of more than £8,600. (ref. 157) The foundation-stone was laid at a ceremony in June 1904 and the
building consecrated in the following November, the service being attended by Kaiser Wilhelm II's representative
Count Bernstorff, Prince Christian, Princess Louise
Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein, Prince and Princess Louis
of Battenburg, and Baron von Schröder. (ref. 158)
The Christuskirche is a diminutive church, Decorated
in style and built of orange brick with plentiful stone dressings (Plate 64a, 64b). Short staircase turrets with stone
spirelets flank the entrance and the geometrical 'west' window. Along the frontage are iron railings with sliding gates
(fig. 45). Despite the confines of the site, it is very much
a church 'in the round', the sides being as well finished as
the front. There is no tower, but a ventilation-shaft rises,
belfry-like, over the chancel arch.
The aisleless interior (figs 43–4; Plates 64c, 65a) is simply treated, with a plain hammer-beam roof with arched
braces, white-painted walls and a tessellated floor bearing a
fleur-de-lis motif. A late addition to the design was the
inclusion of the German ambassador's or 'royal' pew, set to
the side of the chancel behind an archway and a balustrade
of curvilinear tracery (Plate 65c). (ref. 159)
Beneath the church is a large meeting-room with wellpreserved original features, tiled to dado level in coloured
Burmantofts faience, together with various ancillary rooms
(fig. 43, Plate 65d).
Fittings and furnishings
Many of the interior fixtures and fittings, and all the stained
and painted windows, were made in Germany.
Two Munich glass-workshops, F. X. Zettler, glasspainters to the Bavarian court (Königliche Bayerische
Hofglasmalerei), and Ostermann & Hartwein, made the
figurative glass for the three chancel windows and the two
central windows of the nave. A Cologne firm of glass-makers, Schneiders & Schmolz (Kunstglasmalerei), produced
the leaf-patterned glass in greenish monochrome which
fills the remaining windows in the nave, and the large west
window (Plate 125e). All the glass is signed by the makers.
The figurative glass illustrates New Testament subjects:
Chancel. The Nativity and the Crucifixion (Zettler, Plate
125d, 125f); the Resurrection (Ostermann & Hartwein; Plate
125b)
Nave. 'Suffer Little Children' (Zettler; Plate 125a): the
Good Samaritan (Ostermann & Hartwein; Plate 125c)
The communion vessels, with a crucifix and other pieces
of plate, were given by the Kaiser, from whose own designs
they were made by Professor Otto Rohloff. (ref. 160) The brass
memorial plaque to Baroness von Schröder in the entrance
lobby was cast in 1904 by P. Stotz of Stuttgart.
The conventional octagonal wooden pulpit was carved
in Berlin.
Figure 45:
Deutsche Evangelische Christuskirche, Montpelier Place, sliding gates and railings
The font, a stone basin with a bulbous wooden cover, the
whole mounted on a wooden stand with barley-sugar twist
uprights, is said to be of late-seventeenth-century date and
a relic of the German church in Trinity Lane (Plate 65b).
In 1980 the original organ, made in Germany, was
replaced by a new and highly regarded baroque-style
instrument by the Danish organ-builders Peter Bruhn &
Son (Plate 65a).