St. Mary's Church, Putney
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
St. Mary's Church (in full, the Church of St. Mary the Virgin), Putney is an Anglican church in Putney, London sited next to the river Thames. There has been a centre of Christian worship on this site from at least the 13th century, and the church is still very active today. It is also noteworthy because in 1647, during the English Civil War, the church was the site of the Putney Debates on the English constitution.
The building itself has seen many changes; parts of the existing church have survived from medieval times, such as the 15th century tower and some of the nave arcading, and the early 16th century Bishop West Chapel. Most of the building, however, dates from the substantial re-build of 1836.
In 1973 an arson attack gutted much of the church. Rebuilding was not completed until nearly ten years later, when the church was rehallowed by the Bishop of Woolwich, on 6 February 1982.
In 2005 a new extension to the church, the "Brewer Building", built at a cost of £1.7m was opened by the Bishop of Southwark.
St. Mary's is one of the two churches in the Parish of Putney, the other being All Saints' Church, Putney Common. The parish is within the Wandsworth Deanery, the Kingston Episcopal Area and the Diocese of Southwark. The current vicar of St. Mary's is the Reverend Dr. Giles Fraser, who is also lecturer in philosophy at Wadham College, Oxford, and a leading authority on Nietzsche.
