CDELsrjk OLD Cnurtmt.
Is it possible for you, in your kindness, to allow me to tell readers of the Spectator of a danger that now threatens one of the most famous of the ancient parish churches of London ? '' Chelsea Old Church," " All Saints ' on the Chelsea Embank- ment, dates from at least A.D. 1290, and has been declared by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments to be " speci- ally worthy of preservation." But a discovery has just beeh made of very serious decay in the timber of the roofs, both of the seventeenth-century nave and of the Chapel "-rebuilt " by the great Sir Thomas More in 1528. (The tomb he erected three years before his execution stands in the Chancel.)
The full extent of the infection and damage cannot yet be ascertained, but the necessary work is already begun and must be costly. The " Old Church " district includes few of the large houses of the neighbourhood. Its resources have already been strained by a recent expenditure of two thousand pounds upon the Church and the Petty House " adjoining it. Con- tributions to this new need will be welcomed by the Incumbent, the Reverend H. Maude Roxby, 22 Embankment Gardens, S.W. 3 ; and I should be happy to answer any inquiries and to supply copies of the illustrated history of the building, its tombs and monuments.—EDMUND PHIPPS, Hon. Sec. the Fabric Committee, Chelsea Old Church, 21 Carlyle Square, Chelsea, S.W. 3.
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