St George’s Bloomsbury, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661–1736), stands as one of the most audacious architectural statements of 18th-century London. Completed in 1731, it was the last of Hawksmoor’s six churches erected under the 1711 Act of Parliament and remains the most eccentric—a work in which antiquarian erudition, architectural invention, and political symbolism are brought together with unsettling boldness.
The church’s steeple is its most striking feature: a great pyramid recalling the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, surmounted not by a Christian cross but by a statue of George I. This startling choice reflects both Hawksmoor’s fascination with classical antiquity and the Hanoverian monarchy’s desire to assert dynastic legitimacy through architectural spectacle. At its base, Hawksmoor originally placed sculpted lions and unicorns—the heraldic supporters of the royal arms—further reinforcing the political dimension of the design. Removed in the 19th century, they were only reinstated in 2006, restoring something of the original charged symbolism.
The south front is dominated by a massive Corinthian portico, said to be inspired by the Temple of Bacchus at Baalbek in Lebanon. Hawksmoor had earlier contributed illustrations of Baalbek to Richard Pococke’s travel accounts, and his use of this reference here reflects his unusual ability to rework archaeological precedent into an entirely new London idiom. Unlike the polite Palladianism of his contemporaries, Hawksmoor’s architecture draws its power from stark contrasts, unexpected sources, and a sense of grandeur bordering on the theatrical.
Inside, the church was no less ambitious. Among its most remarkable furnishings is the vast chandelier—originally from the Catholic church of Kaatsheuvel in the Netherlands, now on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum—that embodies the late Baroque taste for opulence between 1680 and 1730. Such elements reveal Hawksmoor’s willingness to blur cultural and confessional boundaries in pursuit of visual impact.
