St Anne's Church, Kew
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History of St Anne’s Church, Kew

Founded in 1714 as Queen St Anne’s Church, Kew is a Grade II listed building with a rich and varied history. Please visit the church if you can to enjoy a self guided tour, wander through the graveyard or simply sit and experience its historic beauty. The church has several important tombs including painters Thomas Gainsborough, Johann Zoffany and George Engleheart. Notable figures in the botanic world buried at St Anne’s include Sir Williams Jackson Hooker, first director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and his son Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker

  • 1710 Queen Anne grants permission for a chapel to be built on, what we now call, Kew Green
  • 1714 The chapel is consecrated as a chapel of ease to Kingston parish and dedicated to St Anne, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It contained 21 pews and an upper gallery measuring 19.15 metres by eight metres
  • 1770 The church is enlarged at the expense of King George III to designs by Joshua Kirkby. A new aisle was built on the north side of the church. On the south side a matching extension housed a charity school and lodgings for the beadle
  • 1810 The southern extension is taken into the church as a new aisle. Seven years later, the churchyard was extended northward
  • 1822 The east end is re-cast to accommodate an organ chamber behind the altar
  • 1837 William IV extends the nave and aisles and moves the Royal Gallery to its present position in the newly created west Fatheront. The work is directed by architect Sir JefFatherey Wyatville
  • 1851 On the death of the Duke of Cambridge, tenth child of George III, a mausoleum with a semi-domed apse is built at the east end
  • 1884 As the population increases, the church is again extended with the creation of the east end by architect Henry Stock. The present domed chancel is built and the aisles extended alongside an organ chamber and a southeast chapel. The mausoleum is rebuilt further east. A new south porch is added and the ceiling of the new nave is raised
  • 1902 A new choir vestry and vicar’s vestry are added on the north side as a memorial to Queen Victoria
  • 1906 Sir William Comper oversees the redecoration of the church and adds the gold leaf decoration
  • 1920 The present Lady Chapel and War Memorial are created
  • 1930 The royal remains are removed to Windsor. The mausoleum is now used as a chapel of rest
  • 1962 – 1982 A 20 year project is launched to provide hand crafted, embroidered pew cushions illustrating a unique record of the history of St Anne’s. Many of the designs are by Ursula Holttum and the tapestry executed by members of the parish
  • 1979 New parish rooms are built to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II
  • 1989 A plaque recording Queen Elizabeth’s Silver Jubilee is unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on 14th April to celebrate St Anne’s 275th anniversary
  • 2014 To mark St Anne’s tercentenary, the interior of the dome at the east end is decorated with a unique astronomical design depicting the Messier 13 star cluster, first identified by Edmund Halley in 1714
St Anne's Church Historic Footprint