Long before the bustling streets of modern Battersea emerged, a traveller along Nightingale Lane would have seen a deeply rural landscape of open fields and grand mansions. Where St Luke’s stands today was once the parkland of Old Park House, while nearby stood Broomwood House, the home of the great abolitionist William Wilberforce.

In 1874, anticipating the rapid expansion of London’s suburbs between the Commons, Canon John Erskine Clarke purchased a plot of this parkland. To serve the emerging neighborhood, a temporary "little iron church" was physically moved to the site from Battersea Rise. It was a modest beginning, but it served the community faithfully for nine years.

By the early 1880s, the local population was growing so rapidly that a permanent, spacious home was desperately needed. Answering a challenge from the Bishop of Rochester—“A fine red-brick Basilica is the one thing of all others I wish to see. Who will build us one?”—the church appointed architect F.W. Hunt to bring a grand vision to life.

Construction was a labor of love completed in stages. The Chancel and South Transept were built first, opening for worship in 1884 while still cleverly connected to the original iron annex to accommodate 600 people. A few years later, the magnificent brick Nave was completed, allowing the temporary iron structure to be safely dismantled after 14 years of valiant service.

The final decade of the nineteenth century saw St Luke’s truly rise above the horizon. The tall north-west tower, with its distinctive copper roof, was completed in 1892 for the princely sum of £1,200, instantly creating a landmark visible for miles around. On All Saints' Day that same year, the finished church was officially consecrated.