Last November I was invited to co-present the Building Beauty Awards at the Bloomberg Building. Among the prestigious architects and City folk attending, I spotted an incongruous figure in a dog collar. Later, as we mingled to toast the winners, I discovered this was the Reverend Stephen Baxter from the ‘church next door’, which happens to be St Stephen Walbrook, one of the capital’s most celebrated Wren churches. In the tercentenary of Sir Christopher Wren’s death, it seemed fitting to explore further.

Wedged between Bloomberg and Rothschild, St Stephen Walbrook is largely obscured, but once inside, it is full of light and its soaring cream dome is astonishingly beautiful. Unusually, Henry Moore’s 1972 stone altar thrusts up from the church’s centre and is encircled by a multi- coloured kneeler by the artist Patrick Heron.

In 1666 the original church was destroyed by the Great Fire but in 1672 a new foundation stone was laid and St Stephen opened on 27 May 1679. After WWII, property developer Rudolf Palumbo and his son Peter, now Baron Palumbo of Walbrook, generously supported the restoration of the severely bomb-damaged church.

In 1953 Chad Varah was appointed Rector. His first funeral had been for a teenager who’d taken her own life. This inspired Varah to set up the Samaritans in the church, with the world’s first telephone helpline for the suicidal. The original black telephone stays in the church, a reminder of its role providing a listening sanctuary.

Baxter worked as an accountant for E&Y, and later for PwC. Raised a Christian, he enjoyed visiting city churches. ‘I walked into St Stephen around 2006 and had the sense of being tapped on the shoulder,’ he remembers. Ordained in 2014, he arrived at St Stephen as Rector in 2018. ‘That year, 425 people came to the memorial service of a City banker who’d killed himself, leaving behind an 18-month-old son and pregnant wife. Ruth [Sutherland], then CEO of the Samaritans, spoke at the service which reinforced the idea that the church forges trusted relationships with bankers, brokers and other City workers around it. ‘The minister’s key role is to provide a listening, non-judgemental ear,’ Baxter explains. ‘Pre-Covid a woman who worked in IT came in and told me she’d done something stupid in breach of her employer’s security code. I couldn’t offer a solution, but the church is there to provide time and solace for the many who feel overwhelmed by the City. We also get a number of actors coming in for calm and sanctuary.’

Samaritans’ figures published in March this year reveal that they are receiving record numbers of first-time callers worrying about finance and unemployment. It’s hardly surprising, post-Brexit and Covid. ‘Lunch hours do seem more pressurised now,’ observes Baxter. ‘In “the good old days” most people left for at least an hour but now there’s a lot of stress staring at screens and hurriedly finishing a Pret sandwich without dropping mayonnaise into the keyboard.’

St Stephen provides yoga and mindfulness classes for increasingly young City workers and continues to support the Samaritans. I had an informal chat with a Samaritans volunteer. ‘In the City we do online chats rather than calls, designed for younger people,’ she explained. ‘We’ve moved away from just being a suicide phone hotline and this is an easier, more private, way to communicate; you can do it on the bus or in the office. The average time is about an hour, much longer than a phone call. We try to keep the conversation away from people’s jobs to focus on their feelings. In the past months we’ve heard from more people unable to pay their escalating bills and some are wondering if they should move away from all the stress. Some feel under relentless pressure and we’re definitely seeing more anxiety.’

This month marks the Samaritans’ 70th anniversary. In February, Baxter invited me to a Choral Eucharist to celebrate St Stephen’s 350th year, and it was impossible not to notice the black telephone in pride of place. It is an extraordinary, beautiful church marrying the majesty of Wren’s vision with modern design by Moore. More than that, it provides spiritual and emotional solace; a welcoming haven right in the heart of the City.

You can donate to the Samaritans here: samaritans.org/donate-now