St Marylebone Parish Church, Marylebone

St Marylebone Parish Church is a handsome and historic Anglican church on the Marylebone Road in central London — a grand neoclassical building of the early nineteenth century, and the church that gave its name to the whole district of Marylebone. The name itself is a corruption of "St Mary-le-bourne", St Mary by the bourne, or stream — the Tyburn brook that once flowed nearby. The present church, the third the parish has used, was built between 1813 and 1817 to the designs of the architect Thomas Hardwick, and it has been the setting for some of the most famous events in English literary and social history, including the secret marriage of the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett.

The parish has a long history, and its church has occupied three successive sites. The first church was built around 1200 near the present Marble Arch, dedicated to St John the Evangelist. In 1400 the Bishop of London gave permission to demolish this church and build a new one in a more convenient position, further north near the village at the top of Marylebone High Street; this church was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and it is from this dedication, beside the Tyburn stream, that the district takes its name. It was in this medieval church that the philosopher and statesman Sir Francis Bacon was married in 1606, and its interior was famously depicted by the artist William Hogarth in the marriage scene of his satirical series "A Rake's Progress" of 1735. By the eighteenth century the church had fallen into decay, and it was demolished in 1740; a new, smaller brick church was built on the same site, opening in 1742.

As the population of Marylebone grew rapidly in the prosperous Georgian age, a much grander church was needed, and the present St Marylebone Parish Church was built between 1813 and 1817 to the designs of Thomas Hardwick. It is a fine example of the neoclassical architecture of its period, with a great Corinthian portico facing the Marylebone Road and a tower above, supported by carved caryatid figures — a building of real dignity and grandeur. When the new church opened, the older church of 1742 was retained and converted into a chapel-of-ease.

The church has been the scene of many famous events. Most celebrated of all, it was here, on 12 September 1846, that the poets Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett were married — secretly, against the wishes of her domineering father — before they eloped to Italy, in one of the great romances of English literary history. Among others associated with the church, Lord Byron was baptised in the earlier church, and Horatia Nelson, the daughter of Admiral Lord Nelson and Emma Hamilton, was baptised here. The composer Charles Wesley and his musical sons also had close connections with Marylebone.

Today St Marylebone Parish Church continues as a thriving Anglican church in the Diocese of London, with a strong tradition of music and a notable healing and counselling ministry, as well as close links with the St Marylebone School for girls behind it. With its grand architecture, its literary associations and its long history, it remains one of the most distinguished parish churches in central London.

The church stands on the Marylebone Road, in the Marylebone district of the City of Westminster, in central London. The elegant streets and squares of Marylebone lie all around, with Regent's Park and London Zoo just to the north, the Wallace Collection and the shops of Marylebone High Street close by, the famous Baker Street with its Sherlock Holmes associations, Madame Tussauds, and Oxford Street and the West End a little to the south, all within easy reach.

From the medieval churches near Marble Arch and Marylebone High Street, through the marriage of Francis Bacon and the Hogarth painting, to the building of Thomas Hardwick's grand neoclassical church in 1813–17 and the secret marriage of Robert and Elizabeth Browning, St Marylebone Parish Church gathers many centuries of London's history into one building. The church that gave its name to the district, it remains the living parish church of Marylebone — one of the finest neoclassical churches in the capital.