St. Alban's Church
Sir Arthur Blomfield
1885-1887
Churchill Park
Copenhagen
Denmark
Photograph and text by Jacqueline Banerjee
This late Victorian Gothic Revival church is very pleasantly situated in the park by Copenhagen's famous harbour. In the nineteenth century, the town had become more and more of a commercial centre, and an English congregation had developed there. So when the Prince of Wales married Princess Alexandra of Denmark in 1863, the couple set about raising money to erect a suitable church. Sir Arthur Blomfield was selected to design it, and the design was executed by a Danish artchitect, Professor L. Fenger. The idea was to build the church just as it might be built in England, but the materials used seem to have been particularly fine: "The walls are faced externally with cleft flints from Stevns in Denmark, the stone dressings are of the harder quality of limestone from Faxe, also in Denmark, except the spire, which is of cut stone from &Aaring;land in Sweden" ("About the Church"). The effect is light and appealing.
Many dignitaries gathered for the consecration on 17 September 1887, including the Prince and Princess of Wales themselves, and the Danish Crown Prince and Princess Marie of Denmark, as well as the King and Queen of Denmark, The Czar and Czarina of Russia, and the King and Queen of Greece. Members of other foreign royal families also attended, along with the "entire Diplomatic Corps, Ministers and representative from Army and Navy, Church Officials, as well as Greek, Russian and Roman Catholic Priests" ("About the Church").
Source
""About the Church" (St Alban's website). Viewed 18 November 2008.
Last modified 18 November 2008