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A short history of the parish
Famous London Churches (1934)


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A short history of the parish

By Jane Kennedy


The Devil’s Acre

In spite of all the development in Westminster, the area around Great Peter Street had deteriorated and people lived in poor conditions.   Dickens described the area as the ‘Devil's Acre’.  This was appropriate as a house in Old Pye Street was used to give lessons in fobology or in other words, pickpocketing.  In 1855, a lodging house in the area was reputed to have held 120 people.  The area was also described as follows:

'It is in these narrow streets , and in these close and unsalubrious lanes, courts and alleys, where squalid misery and poverty struggles with filth and wretchedness , where vice reigns unchecked and in the atmosphere of which diseases are generated and diffused.'

Contents

        Introduction
 >     The Devil's Acre
        Building the church
        The first vicar
        Social and educational welfare
        Frank Weston
        Church House
        Early 20th Century
        Post-war developments