Chelsea still has the look of a village, especially in the vicinity of St Luke’s where there is considerable tree-shaded open ground. Up to the beginning of the nineteenth century Chelsea Old Church (All Saints, Chelsea) served the needs of the small parish. But the development north of Kings Road toward Kensington made a larger church necessary, and St Luke’s was authorized by an act of Parliament in 1819. James Savage, the architect, submitted a plan to the Board of Works (which included John Nash, the designer of Regents Park and Regent Street) for a building essentially Gothic in design, with vaulted ceilings within and flying buttresses without. The design passed, not without resistance, and the new building was consecrated in 1824. It was London’s (and also England’s) first Gothic Revival church.
The outstanding features of the exterior of St Luke’s are the flying buttresses already referred to, the porch of five bays and the 142-foot-high tower, which is a pleasant sight from the surrounding open area. Inside, the sixty-foot vaulted nave is the highest of any parish church in London. The chancel is raised, and beyond it is an impressively tall east window. The organ, much of which dates to 1824, is one of London’s finest. One of the former organists, John Goss, was the author of the well-known hymn, Praise My Soul, the King of Heaven. Charles Dickens was married to Christine Hogarth here in 1826. The father of Charles Kingsley, author of Westward Ho, Hereward the Wake and The Water Babies was rector at St Luke’s, and Charles was curate for a time.