The present building is the third church on the site, once forming a centrepiece of the ancient villages of Paddington and Lilestone. John Donne preached his first sermon in the original church and William Hogarth was married in the second.[2]
The current Georgian church was commissioned in 1788 and consecrated in 1791. Designed by John Plaw with a Greek Cross ground plan, in yellow London stock brick dressed with white stone. It is one of two confirmed surviving buildings by Plaw in the UK, along with Belle Isle on Windermere.[3] A further building in Romford, known as The Round House, has been attributed to him.[4] John Plaw later worked in Southampton before emigrating to Canada, where he designed several public and private buildings.[5]
The church was altered in the 19th century but was restored to its mid-Georgian appearance by architect Raymond Erith in the early 1970s using some of the compensation for the construction of the urban motorway Westway, alongside the church. Restoration included the chancel being reinstated in its original form, the nave reseated with box pews and the organ moved to the West end.[6] The organ case is dedicated as a memorial to Erith.[2] The church houses monuments to some of the area's residents, including sculptor Joseph Nollekens and lexicographer Peter Mark Roget.
Gravestones in St Mary's Gardens
St Mary’s Churchyard
The adjoining churchyard was converted to a public park in the 1890s and is now known as St Mary's Gardens. It consists of grass with scattered trees. The grave of well-known 18th-century actress Sarah Siddons is located towards the northern end. Some headstones from the former churchyard are stacked against the west wall of the Gardens.[7]
The southern part of the churchyard was destroyed to make way for the approaches to Marylebone Flyover in the 1960s, with exhumed burials being reinterred in an area of Mill Hill cemetery and marked with a plaque.[7]
St Mary's Paddington Green, Reburials in Mill Hill Cemetery, London
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