St John's, Smith Square, Concert hall in Westminster, London, United Kingdom
St John's Smith Square is a concert hall in Westminster, London, housed in an early 18th-century English Baroque church with a Portland stone exterior and four corner towers topped with pediments. Below the main hall, a crypt reached by spiral staircases contains a restaurant and hosts smaller events.
The church was completed in 1728 as part of a government program to build new places of worship across London. It was badly damaged by bombing in World War II and stood as a ruin for decades before reopening in 1969 as a concert hall.
St John's Smith Square was once a church and is now a concert hall where chamber music, orchestral performances and choral events take place regularly. The crypt below functions as a restaurant that visitors use before and after concerts.
The hall is set on a quiet side street in Westminster, within walking distance of several underground stations. The spiral staircases leading to the crypt are narrow, so arriving a little early gives you time to find your way around before an event.
The church has a popular nickname, "Queen Anne's Footstool," said to come from a story that Queen Anne kicked over a footstool in frustration at the design, and the architect used the upturned stool as inspiration for the four corner towers. Whether true or not, the story helps explain why the towers look so unusual compared to other churches of the same period.
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