Savage originally intended the tower to have an open spire, like that of Wren's St Dunstan-in-the-East, but this was forbidden by the Board of Works.

[9] Eastlake, writing in the 1870s, by which time Gothic Revival architects had developed a far better grasp of the historical styles, criticised the building for its "machine made look" and "the cold formality of its arrangement".

[5] The interior of the church was originally arranged as a "preaching house" with a large pulpit, a small altar, and galleries over the aisles.

[5] Unusually for an Anglican church of the period, the St Luke's soon acquired a large altarpiece of the Deposition of Christ by James Northcote.

[13] Charles Dickens was married at St Luke's to Catherine Hogarth, who lived in Chelsea, on 2 April 1836, two days after the publication of the first part of the Pickwick Papers, his first great success.

[14] The artist Robert Gill was married on 25 May 1825, shortly before returning to India, where he spent the rest of his life, much of it copying the paintings of the Ajanta Caves.

The parents of Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of the Scouting movement, were married on 10 March 1846, for the third time in the case of his father Baden Powell, a distinguished mathematician and theologian.

Other marriages have included William Hewson the Victorian theological writer, in 1830,[5] John Prideaux Lightfoot, later Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, in 1835,[15] and the parents of Harry Arthur Saintsbury in 1854.

[5] Two actors and actor-managers who were famous in their day are buried in the churchyard: William Blanchard, known for comic roles, and Daniel Egerton.

St Luke's also houses the memorial chapels of the Punjab Frontier Force and 3rd Gurkha Rifles of the British Indian Army.