St Andrew's Church, Tangier
The Church of Saint Andrew is an Anglican church in Tangier, Morocco. Consecrated in 1905, the church is within the Archdeaconry of Gibraltar. The building is constructed in a Moorish architectural style.
History
In 1880, Hassan I of Morocco donated land to the British community in order to build a small Anglican church in Tangier. The resulting church was soon found to have insufficient capacity for the increasing number of worshippers, and a new building was constructed in 1894 which became the Church of Saint Andrew. It was consecrated in 1905. The interior is designed as a fusion of numerous styles, notably Moorish. The belltower, shaped like a minaret, overlooks the adjacent cemetery. Henri Matisse's 1913 painting Landscape Viewed from a Window depicts the church.The church has a number of memorial plaques, including one to commemorate Emily Keene,, Sherifa of Wazzan, who introduced the cholera vaccine to Morocco. She was a British humanitarian who married the Shareef of Ouazzane, a local religious leader. She died in Tangier and there is a plaque in the western side of the church to commemorate her - her actual grave is in the Wazzan family burial ground in the Marshan district of Tangier overlooking the Strait of Gibraltar. Another memorial commemorates Thomas Kirby-Green, one of the members of the Great Escape who was executed on recapture.
Administratively, the church is in the Archdeaconry of Gibraltar.
Notable burials
The churchyard holds the graves of a number of notable people:- Christopher Gibbs,, antique dealer and collector, credited with inventing Swinging London
- Walter Burton Harris,, a British diplomat, journalist and author
- Claire de Menasce and her second husband Commander Roy Howell RN. Claude-Marie Vincendon, her daughter by her first marriage, was the third wife of Lawrence Durrell
- Paul Lund,, British gangster and friend of William Burroughs
- Sir Harry MacLean,, soldier and commander of the Moroccan Army