AGM 2026 – All Souls Church, Langham Place
Standing directly opposite Broadcasting House, All Souls is the last surviving church designed by John Nash. It was consecrated in 1824.
Its prominent circular-spired vestibule was planned as an eye-catching monument at the point where Regent Street, newly laid out as part of Nash’s scheme to link Piccadilly with the new Regent’s Park. The church is built of Bath stone; its spire has seventeen concave sides, encircled by a peripteros of Corinthian columns, forming two separate sections.
On 8th December 1940, a nearby Luftwaffe parachute mine caused some damage to the church, mostly to the ceiling. Due to structural concerns, the top of the spire was temporarily removed in 1942 and All Souls was closed for ten years while repair works were carried out. Despite only having recently been fully restored, the church was again extensively renovated and modified in 1975–1976. A large basement was excavated under the church to provide a church hall, the Waldegrave Hall, and other spaces for the congregation and visitors.
At the same time, the opportunity was taken to restructure the interior of the church to make it more suitable for the forms of worship favoured by the more evangelical wing of the Church of England in the 1970s. No original furnishing remains apart from the organ case and the reredos.