Call the midwives’ builder… their church is crumbling! Baroque backdrop to show launches £7m appeal for desperately needed restoration

• A £7.2m campaign launched to return Grade I listed building to its former glory

Fans of Call The Midwife will know it as the grand backdrop to some of the drama’s most memorable moments.

What they don’t see is that behind its beautiful Baroque facade, St Anne’s Church has gone to rack and ruin.

Rainwater damage, cracked plasterwork and collapsing ceilings have left the East End church in Limehouse in desperate need of repair and on Historic England’s heritage at-risk register.

Now a £7.2 million campaign is being launched to return the Grade I listed building – designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and consecrated in 1730 – to its former glory in time for the church’s 300th anniversary.

Since the mid-1970s, previous projects have seen the roof repaired and the external building secured. 

Rainwater damage, cracked plasterwork and collapsing ceilings have left the East End church in Limehouse in desperate need of repair and on Historic England’s heritage at-risk register

Now a £7.2 million campaign is being launched to return the Grade I listed building – designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and consecrated in 1730 – to its former glory in time for the church’s 300th anniversary

Fans of Call The Midwife will know it as the grand backdrop to some of the drama’s most memorable moments

A £7.2 million campaign is being launched to return the Grade I listed building – designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor and consecrated in 1730 – to its former glory in time for the church’s 300th anniversary

The planned new works – one of the largest church restoration schemes in the country – would see the nave restored and developed into a space for concerts, orchestras and plays, as well as Christian worship. 

The pews, installed by the Victorians, would be removed and replaced with moveable ‘cathedral-style’ chairs, allowing for larger congregations and making the space more flexible.

READ MORE: Call The Midwife’s Helen George ‘spotted leaving co-star Olly Rix’s home in the early hours’ after they both split from their partners 

Meanwhile, the crypt – used as an air raid shelter in the Second World War, and currently strewn with rubble – would be transformed to create more room for the church’s expanding Sunday School and other developments.

The rector of St Anne’s, Richard Bray, 46, said: ‘We love having Call The Midwife filmed here. But the bits of the church you don’t see on TV are in need of a lot of work. We have a fantastic opportunity to preserve and celebrate this fantastic building’s heritage.’

Fariba Kellaway, the project’s campaign director, said they need to raise £3.6 million by November next year to release matched funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The 13th season of Call The Midwife is expected to air next year. The ‘beautiful’ building has been described as ‘one of our favourite locations’ and the show’s ‘parish church’ on Call The Midwife’s official Facebook page. 

A show source said: ‘Scenes in St Anne’s are a time when all of our cast comes together in one place – always a special time for the company.

‘It is a place where the significant spiritual moments that affect our characters happen. And it is a physical expression of the community at the heart of our story.’

St Anne’s has also featured as a location in the biographical crime thriller Legend – starring Tom Hardy as both Ron and Reggie Kray – and 28 Days Later, a 2002 film about a mystery virus spreading throughout the UK.

You can find the link to the fundraiser here. 

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