Bevis Marks’ fate to be considered on 13 December
City of London planning committee to look at proposal to build 43-floor tower which would overshadow 300-year-old synagogue
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
After months of protests flooding in to the City of London about a proposed 43-storey tower block, which would overshadow Bevis Marks Synagogue, the City’s planning committee is to consider the proposal on 13 December.
A similar proposal was rejected in 2022 because of the damaging impact on both Bevis Marks Synagogue and the Tower of London. The synagogue is now included in a Conservation Area which should provide further protection.
At more than 300 years old, Bevis Marks is the oldest synagogue in the UK, and its courtyard functions as part of the synagogue. Bevis Marks supporters say that the tower scheme would block out the natural light vital to the synagogue, as well as the view of the passage of the moon across the night sky, intimately related to the synagogue traditions.
Since January 2024, Bevis Marks has been included in a heritage conservation area, the Creechurch Conservation Area, and that, as well as the more than 1340 objections received by the City of London, will have to be taken into account by the planning committee.
Among those objecting is historian Sir Simon Schama, who said: “Despite the rejection by the City of London of a previous proposal for a high-rise tower to be built close enough to the Bevis Marks Synagogue as to block light from entering the interior and block the sky view, this most magnificently beautiful and historic building is again threatened by a proposed 43-storey tower on Bury Street.
“This looming tower would monstrously compromise the experience of worship and even a visit to a place sacred and inspirational to all British Jews, dating as it does from 1701 — the earliest existing architectural example of Jews finding a hospitable and safe home in this country.
“To damage the experience Jews have in Bevis Marks is to inflict a wound on the Jewish community of this country, at a time when it is already subject to many kinds of insensitive outrages. It ought not to have to endure another.”
Bevis Marks’ rabbi, Shalom Morris, who has been at the forefront of the campaign against the new tower block, said: “It is an outrage that in modern Britain a proposal that threatens the religious life of a minority community could even be considered. Freedom of worship is a central premise of human rights.”
Bevis Marks Synagogue is a hugely significant building both within the City of London and nationally, recognised by its Grade I Listed status.
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