St Matthew, Bethnal Green

The church was built 1743–46, to a Classical design by George Dance the Elder. There is a tower, to the centre of the west end, rising above a pedimented, slightly advanced central section. Dance's design was not the first: Nicholas Hawksmoor had produced a plan for the 1711 Commission for Building Fifty New Churches, but, like most of the ambitious target, it failed to come to fruition. A fire in 1859 destroyed the interior of the church, although the registers and the church plate were saved. It was rebuilt (including a cupola being added to the tower) in 1861 to a design by Thomas Knightley. The roof and interior were destroyed by enemy action in 1940. A temporary church was created…