Scotch church, Regent Square

The National Scotch Church of St Peter on Regent Square was specially built in 1827 to house the growing congregation of the millenarian preacher Edward Irving. Its grand architecture attests to the popularity of Irving at this time, but also, more generally, to the rising status of the revived gothic style for ecclesiastical buildings. When this drawing was engraved for Thomas Hosmer Shepherd’s ‘Metropolitan Improvements’ (1827), the artist inscribed the print: ‘To W. Tite Esq. the architect. This plate is inscribed from motives of esteem by Tho. H. Shepherd.’