Busman's holiday

Where does a vicar go to church when he's on holiday?

Today, the end of our half term break, were actually back at home but we decided to make full use of that rare event, a free Sunday, to sample worship at another church.

For this we crossed the river to Limehouse and Hawksmoor's 1730 parish church of St Anne.

I had two reasons for wanting to go there: (1) I had long wanted to see inside Hawksmoor's masterpiece and (2) I knew that St Anne's had a well-established evangelical  ministry and I was interested to see what they were doing for the Gospel in an area not dissimilar from Bermondsey.

Inside, the church has been about 60 per cent restored. The rest, mainly the galleries and ceiling, is what they term shabby chic - but the restored bits are pretty wonderful. And I liked the way the congregation sat in comfy seats in a semi circle at the front.

The service? This was a family service coming at the end of a half term holiday week - very child friendly and very well done. The congregation was a little smaller than St James's,  perhaps a bit more middle class, less racially mixed, but still a good mix of ages and backgrounds.

Limehouse, like Bermondsey, has seen a lot of urban regeneration. St Anne's parish includes the massive Canary Wharf development .

Their 'daughter church' in the middle of the Canary Wharf is London's only floating church, St Peter's Barge, where they hold midweek services and bible studies for office workers.

Now that's what I call enterprising.