St Michael, Cornhill

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Parish church of St Michael, Cornhill
St Michael's Alley, City of London
London, September 2014

“Scott added an elaborate Gothic porch (1858–1860) facing Cornhill. It is decorated with carving by John Birnie Philip, which includes a high-relief tympanum sculpture depicting ‘St Michael disputing with Satan’. Scott inserted Gothic tracery to the circular clerestory windows, and into the plain round-headed windows on the south side of the church. New side windows were created in the chancel, and an elaborate stone reredos, incorporating the paintings of Moses and Aaron from its predecessor, was constructed in an Italian Gothic style. A contemporary account of the work explained that this was appropriate since ‘the classical feeling which pervades the Italian school of Gothic art enabled the architect to bring the classical features of the building into harmony with the Gothic treatment which our present sympathies demand’. The chancel walls were lined with panels of coloured marble, up to the level of the top of the reredos columns, and richly painted above this point.” (St Michael, Cornhill, Wikipedia)