St Matthew's, Bethnal Green

St Matthew's, Bethnal Green St Matthew's is a local church in the East End of London, a parish full of vastly different people. We trust in God, work and pray for justice and peace.
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We're part of groups such as: The Diocese of London, Inclusive Church & Christian Aid.

So we’re 280 years old. We look alright for it, don’t we? We’ve had a bit of TLC over the years - the inside has been re...
12/09/2026

So we’re 280 years old. We look alright for it, don’t we? We’ve had a bit of TLC over the years - the inside has been rebuilt twice - but when you look at the two pictures of the outside, you can see not an awful lot has changed from those Georgian days of marshland and mothers’ ruin that we all so nostalgically remember. (Unlike Trigger’s broom, it is indeed still the same old church.)

For the sake of chronological simplicity (and so that we have any chance of displaying all of this history at our 280th birthday celebration on 27th September), we’ve carved up these two hundred and eighty years into nine distinct eras:

1746-1754: Finally! A church for Bethnal Green
1754-1810: Body robbing and bear baiting
1810-1865: Festival, Frost and Fire
1865-1914: Slums and cesspits
1914-1956: Warfare and Welfare
1956-1966: Arches and Art Deco
1966-1990: Games, Grace and Gangsters
1990-2000: Resolution vs Rome
2000-Present: Hipsters, hospitality and hope

Come along on the 27th September to Mass at 10:30am and, afterwards whilst eating our laid on brunch, travel back in time through our exhibition of 280 years of history, including some never-seen-before photos and artefacts and experts on hand to answer your questions.

Here’s to another 280 years 🥂

Open invitation to a good old fashioned East End knees-up! Celebrating 280 years as the Mother Church of Bethnal Green, ...
08/09/2026

Open invitation to a good old fashioned East End knees-up! Celebrating 280 years as the Mother Church of Bethnal Green, plus our patronal festival, St Matthew’s Church is pulling out all the stops on Sunday 27th September with an action packed day of free-to-enter events. Starting with the historic bells of the tower ringing out at 9:30am, a very special Choral Mass led by the Bishop of Stepney and accompanied by the East London Evensong Choir will follow at 10:30 and itself be complemented by a buffet brunch for all who attend. Then, there will be a history hour at 1pm including the renowned Russell Stephen Edwards and a tour of the church. Then a talk and book signing by the Suresh Singh and plentiful stalls, games, food, drink, bouncy castles and music in the churchyard until the early evening including an appearance by Kids Deziah Business .

Wonderful moments today as we welcomed two more new lives into the church, which takes us to four in as many weeks! The ...
02/08/2026

Wonderful moments today as we welcomed two more new lives into the church, which takes us to four in as many weeks! The reverence with which this age-old rite and sacrament is still held in Bethnal Green is heartwarming.

Three photos from today which encapsulate everything we are here for at St Matthew’s: 1. Welcoming people to the faith w...
19/07/2026

Three photos from today which encapsulate everything we are here for at St Matthew’s:

1. Welcoming people to the faith with our traditional Anglo-catholic Mass.

2. Being at the heart of Bethnal Green with our very own young entrepreneurs showcasing their hard work to the community

3. Recognising our place within this local landmark’s 280-year history

Summer is here and St Matthew’s is going to be making the most of it! Come and join us for Mass at 10:30am on 19th July ...
05/07/2026

Summer is here and St Matthew’s is going to be making the most of it! Come and join us for Mass at 10:30am on 19th July before Kids Deziah Business lead this celebratory fayre in the churchyard at noon. All leaving you plenty of time to get back and (hopefully) watch England in the World Cup Final that night!

Join us this Sunday for a special interactive teaching Mass. This is your chance to learn all about what we do, the trad...
10/06/2026

Join us this Sunday for a special interactive teaching Mass. This is your chance to learn all about what we do, the tradition we follow, the style of liturgy and, most importantly, why we do it! And it will be followed by a picnic in the sunshine afterwards, just outside church in the forecourt. Hope you can come!

And here we have Mr Anthony Lewis, the architect who designed the rebuild of St Matthew’s following the destruction of i...
09/06/2026

And here we have Mr Anthony Lewis, the architect who designed the rebuild of St Matthew’s following the destruction of its interior on the first night of the Blitz, presenting his model to Princess Alexandra in 1960. We won’t give him too much credit for the part you see in the photograph, since the exterior was not severely damaged and, but for a new style of window, is almost identical to the original from 1746. For that, credit must go to George Dance the Elder.

However, not to rain on Lewis’s parade, his design of the new interior was nothing short of remarkable. With the chancel arc still in place, Lewis very creatively worked around it, designing a modern church, with stairs leading to a new upper chapel, beneath it. Unrecognisable from the original, but holding a distinct reverence of its own, the new inside gets credit to this day for its surprising brightness, openness and art deco beauty.

The monstrance came out for our beautiful Mass today celebrating Corpus Christi and remembering the very presence of Chr...
07/06/2026

The monstrance came out for our beautiful Mass today celebrating Corpus Christi and remembering the very presence of Christ Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Next week is your chance to join us to learn about the Mass and why we do what we do.

Ever wondered why St Matthew’s has a 1960s art deco interior within its Georgian brickwork? On 7th September, 1940, the ...
04/06/2026

Ever wondered why St Matthew’s has a 1960s art deco interior within its Georgian brickwork? On 7th September, 1940, the very first night of the German Blitz on London in World War II, St Matthew’s, the mother church of Bethnal Geeen, was bombed. The bomb was dropped straight through the middle of the roof and gutted the church from the inside, destroying the original interior (seen in the fifth photograph) forever. The tower, though destabilised and thus making the Victorian cupola unsalvageable, was otherwise unaffected and is the only part of church’s interior that remains in its pre-war condition.

But, as we know, Hi**er had to do a lot more than this to stop the resilient people of the 1940s east end. The show must go on, and so it did. Almost immediately after the hit, St Matthew’s resumed services, with a full Mass and servers’ procession, within the bombed out shell of the church, as you can see from the first three photographs. These open-air services went on for almost a decade, and attendance at church even increased during this time, before at last a temporary church (photo 4) was erected within the bombed out ruins in 1952.

It was to be just short of another decade before the church, unlike many of its daughter churches which now faced closure after sustaining damage of their own, was fully reconsecrated in 1961. The sixth photograph shows the then rector of Bethnal Green, Charles Geoffrey How, inside the church as it is being redesigned in the style we see today.

The parish’s response to the war was a story of remarkable community resilience at a time when just about everything was under threat. However, it was neither the first, nor the last, time St Matthew’s would have to stand strong and stubborn in the face of adversity. But more about that another time.

St Matthew’s (PCC pictured above) would like to thank , Fr Peter McGeary, the Brick Lane , the East London Evensong Ch...
03/06/2026

St Matthew’s (PCC pictured above) would like to thank , Fr Peter McGeary, the Brick Lane , the East London Evensong Choir and all who attended for a joyful evening of music, spirituality and conversation. And even the tree blowing down in the churchyard couldn’t spoil it! We hope to see many more nights like this in the weeks, months and years ahead.

Address

St Matthew's Row, Bethnal Green
London
E26DT

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm
Sunday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+442077397586

Website

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