Church of St Luke, Liverpool

St Luke's Church, known to almost everyone in Liverpool simply as "the bombed-out church", is one of the city's most beloved and poignant landmarks. Standing on the corner of Berry Street and Leece Street, at the top of the fashionable Bold Street, it is a former Anglican parish church that has stood as a roofless, open-air shell since it was gutted by fire in the Liverpool Blitz of 1941. Preserved deliberately as a ruin, it is at once a war memorial, a green oasis in the heart of the city, and a thriving venue for art, music and community life — a building that found a new and unexpected life out of catastrophe. The church, together with its surrounding walls, gates and railings, is a Grade II* listed building.

The church was the creation of a remarkable architectural partnership of father and son. The site was given in 1791 by Edward Smith-Stanley, 12th Earl of Derby, on the strict condition that the land should never be used for any purpose other than a church. Plans were first drawn up in 1802 by John Foster senior, surveyor to the Corporation of Liverpool, but the foundation stone was not laid until 9 April 1811. Building progressed slowly, and during the long construction the design was repeatedly amended — not only to serve as a parish church, but also to act as a ceremonial place of worship for the members of the Corporation and even as a concert hall. A chancel was added in 1822, and Foster's son, also named John, who succeeded his father as Corporation surveyor, continued to supervise the work and made further changes in 1827. The building was finally completed in 1832, more than two decades after the first stone was laid.

In its early years St Luke's played a varied role in the life of Georgian and early Victorian Liverpool. It was popularly known as "the doctor's church", because of its closeness to Rodney Street, the home of so many of the city's physicians, and it served as a concert hall as well as a place of worship until the opening of the Philharmonic Hall in Hope Street in 1849 gave the city a dedicated music venue. Minor alterations were made to the church between 1864 and 1873 by the architects W. and G. Audsley. Architecturally it is a fine example of the Perpendicular Gothic Revival, built of ashlar sandstone, with a five-bay nave, a four-bay chancel ending in an apse, and a tall west tower of three stages crowned by a battlemented parapet and pinnacles. The church was richly fitted: it had two aisles and a groined, "richly ornamented" nave ceiling, a ring of eight bells cast in 1818 by William Dobson of Downham Market, a clock by Roskell's of Derby, and a three-manual organ by Gray and Davison. Within the tower survives a cast-iron bell frame made in 1828 by George Gilliband — believed to be the first metal bell frame ever made anywhere in the world, a small but significant piece of engineering history.

Disaster struck on 6 May 1941, during Liverpool's terrible "May Blitz", when the city — a vital Atlantic port and a prime target for German bombers — endured some of the heaviest raids of the entire war. An incendiary device struck St Luke's and set it ablaze, and when the fire had burned itself out only the blackened stone shell remained. The roof and the arcades that separated the aisles from the nave were gone; five of the bells crashed down from the tower and the other three were badly cracked; the clock fell to the ground, and the organ was destroyed. Rather than demolish or rebuild the ruin, the decision was taken to leave it as it was — a burnt-out shell, kept as a permanent memorial to all those who died as a result of the war. So it has remained for more than eighty years, and so it earned its enduring nickname. It was designated a Grade II* listed building in 1952.

In the twenty-first century the bombed-out church has been reborn as a centre of creativity and community. From 2007 to 2014 the organisation Urban Strawberry Lunch took on the day-to-day maintenance of the ruin and filled it with life, coordinating exhibitions, film showings, and performances of dance, poetry and drama within its roofless walls and gardens. In 2014 Ambrose Reynolds, formerly the artistic director of Urban Strawberry Lunch, joined with others in the community to found a new organisation, "Bombed Out Church", named after the building's affectionate nickname, which has carried on the work of caring for the church and running it as a creative hub. Today the open shell hosts concerts, markets, art installations, open-air cinema and countless community events, its grassed nave a much-loved gathering place where the ruined Gothic arches frame the Liverpool sky.

The name of St Luke lives on too in the local parish. Since 1981 it has been commemorated in the name of the St Luke-in-the-City team parish of the Church of England, which today comprises St Bride's Church, the Church of St Dunstan, St Michael-in-the-City, and OpenTable, an inclusive fresh expression of church — so that the worshipping life associated with St Luke's continues in the surrounding churches even as the original building serves the whole city in its new role.

St Luke's stands at the very heart of Liverpool's cultural quarter, at the top of Bold Street, one of the city's most characterful shopping streets, lined with independent shops, cafés and restaurants. The Georgian splendour of Rodney Street, the two great cathedrals — the Anglican and the Metropolitan Roman Catholic — at either end of Hope Street, the Philharmonic Hall, the bars and music venues of the Ropewalks, and the waterfront with its world-famous Three Graces and the museums of the Albert Dock are all within easy reach.

From a church begun in 1811 by the Fosters, father and son, as both parish church and concert hall, through its decades as "the doctor's church", its gutting in the May Blitz of 1941, and its preservation ever since as a roofless memorial, to its remarkable rebirth as the "Bombed Out Church" and a creative hub for the city, St Luke's gathers the whole story of Liverpool — its Georgian ambition, its wartime suffering, and its irrepressible cultural energy — into one unforgettable ruin. A Grade II* listed landmark at the top of Bold Street, it stands as both a memorial to the dead and a living, open-air heart for the city that loves it.