About Us
Church History
In 1892, with London expanding, the first Bishop of Islington agreed to establish a tin hut church on Burgoyne Road. This grew to such a size that a stone church was commissioned at the top of Burgoyne Road. It seated 700 people and served Harringay for nearly a century.
On Ash Wednesday 1984 the church caught fire and was reduced to rubble in one night. Many of our congregation remember watching helplessly as it burned, despite the efforts of the fire brigade. The current brass lectern we use for Bible readings was carried out of the burning church by a member of the community and is one of the only surviving articles from the Victorian building.
An excerpt from Thames News, 7th March 1984. With thanks to Harringay Online for making this footage available.
In 1993 a new church building was finished, designed by Inskip & Jenkins. It’s been listed as one of the top ten post-modern buildings to see in London (C20 magazine). Architecture Today commented that it could seem rather “Awkward that the church should want to make a comeback at all, in a secular age”, but commended St Paul’s “simplicity and monumental scale”. Visitors tend to find that the building has a Marmite quality – you either love it or hate it – but we are delighted that it makes such a bold statement to London: in our great post-modern city, Jesus Christ is still our greatest treasure. Click here to look inside.
In 2018 a group of Haringey residents who were previously part of Christ Church Mayfair moved to be part of St Paul’s Harringay, under the leadership of Pete Snow and with the help of the Co-Mission network and the Bishops of Islington and Edmonton. This ‘church graft’ brought together a new family of Christians at St Paul’s from different church backgrounds, ethnicities and ages, and we love it: it says something wonderful about the multi-faceted people of God who will one day be gathered in heaven.
