St Mary's Church, Battersea

Watercolour by G.M. Downes, depicting St Mary's Church, Battersea. 1900c.

The watercolour depicts a river scene, with a wooden barge moored at a dock with a church tower rising in the background. The barge is decorated in shades of blue and brown, with a red flag on top of the mast, and it is surrounded by mooring wooden post.

The church dominated the midground with a tall, pointed spire. There is a row of greenery between the river and the church.

A cloudy sky fills the upper portion of the watercolour. And the artist painting is visible on the bottom left corner.

Grade I listed St Mary’s stands as Battersea’s oldest place of Christian worship, with roots tracing back to the Anglo-Saxon era, c.800 AD. The current Georgian building, completed in 1777 by architect Joseph Dixon, replaced earlier medieval structures and incorporates elements from its predecessors, including a 14th-century East window.

The church has long been a cultural and spiritual landmark. William Blake married here in 1782, and J.M.W. Turner painted the Thames from its vestry window. Its stained glass windows and monuments commemorate figures such as botanist William Curtis and American Revolutionary Benedict Arnold.