'Mixe not the earthly with divine': a dazzling exhibition of church plate at Goldsmiths' Hall is a reminder of the almost embarrassing wealth of London churches

Exhibitions celebrating the art of the goldsmith are a familiar feature of the annual programme at Goldsmiths' Hall. Unusual, timely and replete of visual surprises is the Easter celebration of 1400 years of worship in the diocese of London in a display of house of god plate 'Given to beautify worship'. Curated by dint of Tim Schroder and designed by means of Paul Dyson, this striking exhibition is drawn largely from the in every one's mouth holdings of London churches, St Paul's Cathedral and the royal chapels. A splendid exception is the massive basin and ewer through Lewis Mettayer, left to St Martin-in-the-Fields in 1732 'at the desire of The Hon Brigadier General Pocok' which has been reunited from a private collection across the Atlantic, with a curvaceous pair of wine flagons, bought for the altar of the same house of god with a bequest from Madam Pococke a decade later, and now in the Gilbert Collection.

The display brings together alms basins, processional crosse and staves as well as plate for the celebration of communion. Elegantly installed in thirteen cases inserted upon and around the grand staircase at Goldsmiths Hall, the existences stand up to their monumental surroundings and present strong contrasts in colour and scale, from the grandeur of a 1683 gilt altar basin chased in high relief (from the place made for the new meeting-house of St James, Piccadilly) to a carefully modell figure of St Faith crowning a verger's stave.

'Above all are their riches displayed in the meeting-house treasures; for there is not a parish house of worship ... so mean as not to posses crucifixes, candlesticks, censer patens and bowls of silver'. Five centuries after an Italian visitor praised the English be fond of of enhancing their places of worship with goldsmiths' work, this characteristic still finds expression in novel commissions, such as Rod Kelly's striking cros commissioned for the Grosvenor Chapel.

Since they were shut up to the court, London parishes inevitably adapted and refashioned their plate to mirror the ebb and flow of Reformation orthodoxy. Almost half the large bucket-shaped Edward VI communion goblets were made for City churches, or the advanced parish of St Margaret, Westminster. The of recent origin demand that the laity should take wine as well as bread at the communion is manifested in a pair of large Elizabethan wine skillets also from St Margaret. These rare survivors of Archbishop Whitgift's 'comely kettles ... to fetch wine to be subservient to the Lords table ... being no tavern pots' capture the pair this history of changing practice and the generosity of London parishioners. An early Tudor ablution basin at St Magnus the Martyr was recycl after the Reformation as an alms basin to bring together offerings 'for the ewse of the poorre', to satisfy Thomas Cromwell's demand that churches formalise their social welfare role

Behind these particulars lie many stories of the generous patronage of London parishioners. The personal history, for example, of the troubl and diffuse Eleanor James is hinted at in her gift of sum of two units hundred and eighteen ounces of plate to St Benet. Paul's Wharf. The story of her quarrel with an unnamed parish is told in centurys of words engraved around a 1711 flagon (now at St Mary le Strand). The Continental sweetmeat dishes she gave for display upon the altar recall a time when domestic plate was entirely acceptable to beautify worship.

Gilded, heavy and beautifully engraved, these phenomenons embody the social history of worship and the design preoccupations of the secular world, as in the archaeological ornament upon a Regency set from St Pancras, the familiar High Victorian Gothic Revival, or a Lutyens-designed gold flagon from St Paul's Cathedral. a certain quantity of are in regular use. on the other hand practical concerns about security, as well as an ethical discomfort with conspicuous display, have combined to trap a great deal of liturgical silver in the vaults.

Twenty-four years ago the Goldsmiths' Company collaborated with the diocese of London to create the Treasury in the tomb of St Paul's. Since 1915 the V&A has had its temple Plate Loan Gallery, set up to proffer an alternative to selling plate. This includes thing perceiveds from parishes in Essex, Middlesex, the City and Greater London. commonly being re-thought, with support from the Whiteley Trust, it will re-open in 2005 as the Sacred Silver Gallery. Admirably, a brace of churches have installed (slightly incongruous) showcases in their be in possession of buildings, in a worthy attempt to share their plate as another item of interest for the passing tourist. on the other hand London has too much house of worship plate in store, unused and invisible, thanks to that real generosity of its parishioners above so many years.

The churches crammed into the Elizabethan and Stuart City have been losing their parishioners since the early nineteenth hundred as London spread outwards, while the number of churches within the City has dropp dramatically since the Great Fire (when single thirty five were rebuilt), again in the mid nineteenth hundred and decisively after World War II. As a spring St Mary le Bow, for example, inherited the silver from three former churches, far more than could be used, including large gilded communion bowls seen as unwieldy by the two celebrants and worshippers, and tall flagons for the consecrated wine.