In the early 19th century Chelsea was in the process of expanding from a village to an area of London.[5] St Luke's was built as a new, more centrally located replacement for the existing parish church, now known as Chelsea Old Church, which until then was also known, though unofficially, as St Luke's. This was initially a chapel of ease to the new building following its opening.[6] The new church was the idea of the rector of Chelsea, the Hon. and Revd Gerald Wellesley, brother of the 1st Duke of Wellington, who held his office from 1805 to 1832, seeing the consecration of the church in 1824.[5]
In 1819 Savage's plans for the church were chosen from among more than forty submissions. Designed in imitation of the Gothic churches of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the church is built of Bath stone and has a stone vault supported externally by flying buttresses.[7] It was, according to Charles Locke Eastlake "probably the only church of its time in which the main roof was groined throughout in stone".[8] Sir John Summerson notes similarities to Bath Abbey, King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and the tower at Magdalen College, Oxford. All are masterpieces of the Perpendicular style, although some of the detailing refers to earlier Gothic styles. Savage originally intended the tower to have an open spire, like that of Wren's St Dunstan-in-the-East, but this was forbidden by the Board of Works.[7] Summerson praises "an air of competence and consequence about the design which makes one respect its architect very much. The interior has real dignity and the fittings are carefully detailed".[9] Eastlake, writing in the 1870s, by which time Gothic Revival architects had developed a far better grasp of the historical styles, criticised the building for its "machine made look" and "the cold formality of its arrangement".[8][10]
St Lukes's was an ambitious building, costing £40,000 and designed to accommodate 2,500 people. With Sir John Soane's Holy Trinity Church, Marylebone, it was the most expensive Commissioner's church in terms of its total cost.[11]
The organ installed in the new church, with thirty-three sounding stops, was built by W. A. A. Nicholls but completed by Gray.[12] It was rebuilt, using the original case and many of the pipes, by John Compton in 1932.[5]
The interior of the church was originally arranged as a "preaching house" with a large pulpit, a small altar, and galleries over the aisles. The arrangement was altered in the 1860s, but the galleries over the nave aisles were retained.[5] Unusually for an Anglican church of the period, the St Luke's soon acquired a large altarpiece of the Deposition of Christ by James Northcote.
Originally sharing its parish with Chelsea Old Church, in 1839 a further church, Christ Church, just off Flood St nearby, was added as a chapel of ease. Between 1860 and 1986 Christ Church was a separate parish, but is now re-united with St Luke's as the parish of St Luke and Christ Church, Chelsea, though many aspects of parish business are done separately for the two churches.[13]
The Earls Cadogan, who owned the land around the church, have always been the patrons of the church, and there is a wall monument to Lt Colonel Henry Cadogan, who died in 1813 at the Battle of Vittoria, by Sir Francis Chantrey.[5] Two actors and actor-managers who were famous in their day are buried in the churchyard: William Blanchard, known for comic roles, and Daniel Egerton. Both died in 1835.[17] The educator, author and natural philosopher Margaret Bryan who died in 1836 is buried here alongside her eldest daughter, Anne.[18]James Savage, the architect of the church, is also buried there.
^Patricia E.C. Croot, ed. (2004). "Religious history: The parish church". A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 12: Chelsea. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 12 December 2012.
