Finsbury Chapel

The Finsbury Chapel was a Congregational church built in classical style for Scottish Calvinists in the City of London. It stood where Blomfield Street meets the East Street entrance to Finsbury Circus, with the London Missionary Society’s house and the Congregational Library across the road and the first St Mary Moorfields on the same block. The chapel opened in December 1826 during the ministry of Alexander Fletcher, who laid the foundation stone. William Brooks, architect of the nearby London Institution, designed the circular auditorium that seated 3 500 worshippers on rising benches like an amphitheatre. A free gallery for children and the poor held another 500 places, and the pulpit copied the design of the Bodleian Library’s reader’s desk. Accounts from Christmas services report almost 5 000 people inside. Inside, the preacher stood in a circular room with excellent acoustics, the benches rising in stepped rows around the central space. The main gallery ran seven rows deep, and a narrower upper gallery gave free access to poorer congregants. Across the street the Congregational Library and the Mission House formed part of the same complex, while St Mary Moorfields began in a building on the same site.