Author: Alberto Pearson

St Mary Abchurch

St Mary Abchurch is one of the easiest of the City Churches to actually miss. Rather than occupying any lofty position, or possessing a high steeple that towers over the surrounding vista, it is situated halfway down a narrow and easily overlooked thoroughfare called Abchurch Lane, linking the more formidable highways Cannon Street and King William Street. The church first appears in the historical record in 1198, and its suffix has been spelled in many ways: Abbechurch, Habechirch, Apechurch, Abchurch and Upchurch. The provenance of the suffix is unclear: it may have been because the building could be seen ‘up’ the hill from St Mary Overies across the river, later Southwark Cathedral, as the Prior was the Patron of the living until the fifteenth century. Alternatively it may have been named after a forgotten benefactor named Abbe, although in the absence of historical proof this is pure speculation. After the Reformation, Archbishop Parker persuaded Elizabeth I to grant the church to his College, Corpus Christi Cambridge, and the College has appointed the incumbent ever since. Stow described St Mary briefly, calling it ‘fair’. It contained side chapels and a medieval crypt which still exists below the churchyard, but this building was completely destroyed in 1666.

In the interval between the church’s destruction and its rebuilding, a Tabernacle was erected in the ruins. The Altar table existing in the church to this day comes from that temporary measure. Christopher Wren rebuilt the church between 1681-86 for £4,922, and he seems to have constructed it to form a perfect contrast with his nearby reconstruction of St Stephen Walbrook. Where St Stephen is faced with white Portland stone, St Mary’s exterior is of warm redbrick with dressed quoins at the angles (this is a Dutch style also seen at St Benet Pauls Wharf). Where the interior of St Stephen is a celebrated baroque experiment in spatial manipulation, the small square box of St Mary’s interior is given over to the intimate glory of wood. Betjeman described it as ‘a complete surprise’ and ‘one of the most beautiful in the City’, and it is easy to understand why, considering the building’s hidden location and the exterior that suggests nothing of what awaits those who cross the threshold. Did Wren design this surprise deliberately? Of course he did, and it works as well today as it did back in the 1680’s, for St Mary contains Wren’s least ‘interfered with’ interior, and stands today almost exactly as he would have wished it to be seen.

The church entrance is approached across the churchyard, now cleared and pleasantly cobbled with five types of stone forming a geometric design. The 14th century vaulted crypt is below this yard. The tower can be seen to good effect; while not large, it is built of the same redbrick and quoin as the walls and ends in a lead-lined obelisk spire.

Through the entrance, and the visitor is confronted by the truth of how beautiful wood can be in the hands of the best craftsmen of Wren’s day. It has been described as ‘a treasury of seventeenth century art’. The beautiful pulpit is the work of William Grey, and William Emmett contributed the Door Cases, Royal Arms, Lion & Unicorn and Font cover, all in wood. The Font itself was a William Kempster work. The symbol of the Pelican feeding her young, which appears at other City Churches like St Michaels Cornhill and is symbolic of Christ shedding his blood for his flock, can be seen twice: first as the coppervane which once adorned the spire and now is fixed above the north door, and also in the reredos. It is also a symbol of Corpus Christi College. The pews, mostly originals from the Wren restoration, were once accompanied on the south side by small kennels for the benefit of parishioners who wished to bring their pets to church!

The reredos is the glory of St Mary’s woodwork. It is the largest surviving work of Grinling Gibbons, and his original bill for what he called the ‘Olter Pees’ was discovered as recently as 1946 in the Guildhall Library. It is limewood, Gibbon’s favourite material due to its versatility. He carved trailing fruit and flowers, and topped it with four gilded urns. Fruit and flowers can also be seen adorning the elaborate pulpit, very appropriate as this is now a Guild Church for the Fruiterer’s Company.

However, Wren had not yet finished with the element of surprise. When the visitor manages to tear his eyes away from all this fascinating and ornate decoration, he may cast his eyes upward to see that the architect had incorporated a Dome into the ceiling, a Dome which – unlike that at St Stephen – cannot be seen from the exterior. It has been described as an ‘architectural tour-de-force’, as Wren arranged the stresses so that the Dome stands on four plain walls without the need of any buttressing. It was painted in 1708 by William Snow, and depicts the worship of heaven.

A bomb hit St Mary in 1940, and typically the greatest damage was to the church’s greatest treasures – the Dome, and Gibbons’ reredos. Godfrey Allen repaired the church, lowering the Victorian floor level and consequently revealing some grave slabs which remain on display. It was restored to look as much like Wren’s original as possible: the Dome, repainted by Hoyle, now looks as though it were never damaged and the reredos, smashed into 2000 pieces, was painstakingly restored in an operation that took five years.

This is one of the smallest of Wren’s church interiors, and it is the one that took me by surprise the most. I spent longer in this place, gazing at the minutae of detail on offer, than in many other churches twice the size. I felt completely manipulated by Wren, taken in by the casual way in which he confounded any expectations I had when approaching the building. Its opening times are limited, more’s the pity, but if any visitor should ever take a shortcut from Cannon to King William and happen to notice the dors are open, then they should certainly not continue passing by. St Mary Abchurch is a rare treat indeed!

Author Mark McManus 

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St Mary Aldermary

It was ten to four on a weekday afternoon when I slipped through the door of St Mary, just as its courteous and bow-tied custodian was about to lock it.


‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ll come back another time.’
‘Not at all,’ he beamed, and gave me a guided tour. He was proud of his church, and rightly so; one needs only to glance around the interior to appreciate that there is something unique about this particular City church.

t’s so… gothic!

his is due to the parishioners who, after the Great Fire, asked Wren to rebuild their church to exactly the same medieval design as before. Wren obliged, even using some of the fire-scarred stonework from the old building. He also created the only parish church to use fan vaulting, the ceiling a series of saucer domes and semi circles which draw the eye to a curious feature of the chancel… it’s lopsided!

The reason for this is that the narrow street to the east of the church runs obliquely from the main road. The east wall follows this pattern, so that one side of the chancel is longer than the other. The guide pointed out other features, such as the plasterwork which apparently is rare for Wren, and woodcarvings which were probably by the ubiquitous Grinling Gibbons. Various Lord Mayors were buried here, although Heminges and Condell were not, as erroneously attributed in a recently published work called London City Churches. The mistake is easily made, given the similarity between the words Aldermary and Aldermanbury.

he foundation is old – St Mary de Eldermariechurche is mentioned as far back as 1080, and simply means ‘Older Mary’, to differentiate it from St Mary le Bow, a younger foundation just around the corner. Sometime around the turn of the sixteenth century, the Gothic church was built by a grocer mayor named Henry Keble, who donated the not insignificant sum of a thousand pounds for the purpose. This was the church destroyed in the Fire but rebuilt to the previous design by Wren, although many of its interior fittings were removed in 1876 when the Victorians – presumably with good intentions – attempted to ‘medievalise’ it. It still retains, however, a wooden swordresr and pulpit, font and font cover from the seventeenth century. The tall, thin, pinnacled tower is later than the body of the church – although surviving the Fire, it was damaged in the Great Storm of 1703.
St Mary appears to have had a fairly quiet history. Milton’s third marriage took place here, and one of its rectors, Henry Gold, was sentenced by the Star Chamber and executed at Tyburn.

Other than this, the church never seems to have been tainted by any scandal, and has remained in its position near the Mansion House, waiting to surprise the unwary visitor with its Gothic splendour.

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St Mary Aldermanbury

It was in December 2003, on a cold but thankfully dry day, that I adjourned to the London Guildhall and spent a couple of hours browsing its fascinating Library with my companion, top TTFF mover and shaker Pete G.

Lunch was a visit to a sandwich shop just across the road, where a ciabatta and a fruit salad were purchased, and I decided where we should sit and eat our grub. A spot to the west of the Guildhall, the small garden that holds the remains of St Mary Aldermanbury.

Ruined churches are not unusual in the City, the Blitz saw to that, but unlike the nearby St Albans Wood Street and other notables such as Christ Church Newgate Street and St-Dunstan-In-The-East, St Mary lacks a dominating tower or standing exterior walls.In fact, it is quite the opposite – the remains are sunken in comparison to the surrounding landscaped churchyard. Low stonework, only a few courses high, trace the shape of the building and the bases of the columns that once supported the roof can be seen. One would be forgiven for feeling a little sadness at the loss of what was a lovely Wren church, but the fact is that St Mary has not been lost. It has simply been moved!

Of which more later, for St Mary’s history goes back long before the enemy aircraft changed its destiny. Stow provided an explanation for the name of the street: ‘this street took the name of Alderman’s bury, or court… but now called the Guildhall; which hall of old time stood on the east side of the same street… I myself have seen the ruins of the old hall in Aldermanbury Street’.
He described the pre-Great Fire church as fair, with a cloister in which was displayed a ‘shankbone’ of a man, some twentyeight inches in length. Among the burials he lists is that of Dame Mary Gresham, wife to the important City figure Sir John, and mother of the even more important Sir Thomas.

Other than Stow’s description, little seems to be known of the medieval church, which was one of many victims of the Great Fire. Two of Shakespeare’s fellow actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, lived in the parish and were buried in the churchyard. Their names may be unfamiliar to most but, in fact, it is due to the diligent efforts of these two that English Literature is the most respected in the world for, without them, the name of Shakespeare would hardly be known.
A bust of the Bard is displayed in the churchyard, and an inscription on the plinth describes the achievement of his two friends and fellow actors: ‘To the memory of John Heminge and Henry Condell, fellow actors and personal friends of Shakespeare. They lived many years in this parish and are buried here. To their disinterested affection the world owes all that it calls Shakespeare. They alone collected his dramatic writings, regardless of pecuniary cost, and without the hope of any profit gave them to the world. They thus merited the gratitude of mankind.’
These publishings are known as the First Folio and are probably the most influential works in literature. As a fan of Shakespeare, I can only second the sentiments of the inscription.

Wren designed the church that rose from the ashes of the Great Fire and, when the building was still young, it hosted another burial – this one done quietly and with a minimum of fanfare, for the deceased in question was anything but popular.
Judge George Jeffries, known to history as the Hanging Judge, rose to prominence as a crony of the Duke of York, later James II. Following the failed uprising that culminated in the Battle of Sedgemoor in 1685, Jeffries was sent to the West Country to deal with the captured rebels. His trials, known as the Bloody Assizes, are still spoken of with a sense of horror today. Somewhere in the number of three hundred were hanged, drawn and quartered, and many more were transported. Mercy was not a word that Jeffries included in his thinking.
Naturally, this made him tremendously unpopular with the common folk, but his friendship with James saw his power continuing to grow, and his attaining the position of Lord Chancellor All this ended suddenly with the Glorious Revolution. William and Mary landed, James fled to France, and Jeffries – believing his life in danger of lynch mob justice ( a probably correct suspicion), sought sanctuary in the Tower of London. He never left it alive. Placed under arrest and charged with treason, he died unlamented in 1689. Three years later, he was moved from his grave in the Tower and quietly dumped in St Mary. Today, no monument marks his presence.

Wren’s church was burned out in the Blitz and, after the War finished, it was one of the churches that received a new lease of life. However, it was not rebuilt on the site. Its stones were labelled in strict order, then packed up and exported to Missouri!
In 1946, Winston Churchill had visited the States and made a speech at Westminster College in Fulton. It was decided to rebuild the church of St Mary on the campus as a Churchill memorial. The rebuilding took place under the care of architect
Eris Lytle, who actually visited London to study Wren’s work for himself before refitting the interior of the church.

St Mary Aldermanbury survives today, a Wren church on a college campus in the USA. Its exterior, of 7,000 Portland stones, looks much the same as it did when it occupied its site near the London Guildhall. Its interior is bright and welcoming – Lytle obviously appreciated Wren’s love of sun-filled churches with clear glass. The site in London that it occupied for centuries is a garden, easily missed as it sits below the level of the Guildhall, and looking at first glance like it has been excavated out of the earth by archaeologists. I sat there on a cold December afternoon and found amusement in the fact that Pete, the TTFF resident expert on Dorchester, sat eating a ciabatta above the bones of Dorset’s most infamous scourge, and I looked across at the bust of the Bard and gave quiet thanks, as I always do when I pass this spot, to his friends John and Henry.

Later, Pete and I visited St Mary le Bow, but that’s a different story!

Author Mark McManus 

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St Martin in the Field

St Martin In The Fields is not only the most well known of the parish churches in London, it is probably one of the best known in the world. Thanks to its position overlooking Trafalgar Square, it has appeared in countless paintings and photographs, and its orchestra – the Academy of St Martins – has received global acclaim. Ironically, the building was once concealed from view in St Martins Lane. Only the clearing of the area to the southeast for the construction of Trafalgar Square in 1820 afforded the church its famous vista and prominent position. Although the Oranges and Lemons rhyme ‘you owe me five farthings’ may refer to the City church of St Martin Orgar ( of which nothing remains but a tower), it is this baroque church in Central London that is the one everybody thinks of. It is believed that the present St Martin is the fourth building on the site. The earliest recorded mention came in 1222, when the Abbot of Westminster disputed the Bishop of London’s authority over the church. The Archbishop of Canterbury mediated and decided in favour of the Abbot, so St Martin was probably used by monks from Westminster until 1542, when Henry VIII built a church which was added to in 1609 by Prince Henry, brother of the future Charles I (who was christened here).


In the seventeenth century, with the nearby Whitehall Palace in full use, St Martin became the parish church of the Court, and started to receive notable Jacobean interments. In 1615, Anne Turner was laid to rest here. A Court dressmaker, she had been involved in one of the greatest scandals of James I’s court. Sir Thomas Overbury had been poisoned by his enemy, the unstable Frances Howard Countess of Essex, and it had been Anne who had delivered the fatal potion. She was hanged for her troubles. Four years later, St Martin hosted the funeral of the celebrated Nicholas Hilliard, the first true painter of miniatures. Some of his work can be found in the National Portrait Gallery, adjacent to the church.


Following the Restoration, Whitehall resumed its place as the centre of Court. John Taylor, Thames boatman celebrated as the ‘Water Poet’, was buried here in 1654. Nell Gwynn, actress and probably the most celebrated Royal Mistress in British history, was laid to rest in the chancel following a fatal stroke (1687), and the renowned philosopher /scientist Robert Boyle found his resting place here in 1691. Other notable actors interred here include John Lacy in 1681, Susannah Mountfort Verbruggen in 1703 and her husband John Verbruggen five years later. The artist Thomas Manby was buried in 1695, and the playwright George Farquhar in 1707.

In 1721 the architect James Gibb designed a replacement for the Tudor building. It was consecrated in 1726 and, as the church that stands to this day, has proved extremely influential. Its style has been copied many times since, even abroad in Ireland and North America. However, it was not universally acclaimed at the time; the architect John Gwynn complained that ‘the absurd rustication of the windows, and the heavy sills and trusses under them, are unpardonable blemishes’.

People of repute continued to find their way into the churchyard, notably the highwayman and multiple prison escapee Jack Sheppard (1724), Louis Roubiliac the sculptor (1762), Thomas Chippendale the furniture maker (1779) and Dr John Hunter, the pioneer of modern surgery ( 1793). New catacombs were constructed around St Martin’s when Duncannon Street was installed as part of John Nash’s re-ordering of London, and coffins were exhumed from the yard and removed to the catacombs. They were, for a time, open as a somewhat macabre tourist attraction. In the 1850’s, when London churchyards were closed to further burials, Hunter was transferred to Westminster Abbey, but most coffins were transferred to cemeteries outside London, such as the St Martin’s extra-parochial ground in Pratt Street, Camden.

The last of the coffins were removed in 1938 to Brookwood in Surrey. The catacombs and the crypt beneath the church serve a variety of purposes, such as the popular ‘Cafe In The Crypt’, a centre for relief of the homeless, the London Brass Rubbing Centre, a bookshop and a gallery.

From whatever angle the visitor approaches St Martin, one cannot fail to be impressed by its sheer presence. In an area also containing the NPG, Trafalgar Square and the English National Opera House, the church more than holds its own. The facade is one of the best in London. A pediment displaying the Royal Arms of George I ( the only monarch to be a churchwarden of St Martin) is supported by a row of large, solid Corinthian columns. Above the pediment the tower soars, its steeple topped with a gilt crown.

The interior is scarcely less impressive. Columns rise from the galleries to support the barrel-vaulted ceiling, and the ceiling of the chancel is resplendent with gilding. The church has an box pew for the Admiralty (who, at one time, worshipped at St Olaves Hart Street) and it is festooned with the Royal Navy White Ensign and the flag of the Admiralty Board. Based in Whitehall, the Admiralty falls within the parish boundaries and the bells are traditionally rung on the occasion of Naval victories. In the north aisle is a portrait of the architect Gibb. Originally the church owned a bust of Gibb, by Rysbrack, but this is now in the V&A Museum. This year (2004) is the 250th anniversary of Gibb’s death and the church has been commemorating him.

Perhaps the most welcome aspect of the interior, in my experience, is that it is truly a haven of peace. I visited during the weekend of the Chinese New Year. Trafalgar and Leicester Squares were holding thousands of visitors, the roads between a constant flow of movement… but I took a few paces away from the bustle, stepped into the cool interior of St Martin and spent a while walking around the nave with admiration. The drums and whistles of the celebration, only a stone’s throw away, were muted and unintrusive. I sat on a pew and contemplated the irony that the mighty plaza across the road, with its four stone lions and its soaring monument to our greatest naval hero, is not the real historic gem of this corner of the cityscape…

With thanks to churchwarden Mr Jeff Claxton for further information

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St Leonards Shoreditch

**”When I grow rich, say the bells of Shoreditch…’**

Apparently the rhyme originally referred to ‘Fleetditch’ and the bells were those of St Brides. Why it changed appears to be unknown.

The suburb of Shoreditch seems to have begun in late Saxon times, at the junction of two Roman roads leading to Bishopsgate. The earliest known reference is to ‘Soerditch’ in the mid twelfth century, and this may have meant a sewer.

Originally a medieval foundation, probably associated with a nearby Priory, St Leonards Church grew up in an area that was to become famous for being the birthplace of the English theatre. It was close enough to the City for easy access, but outside the jurisdiction of the pious aldermen and sheriffs who viewed such displays of public entertainment with suspicion. Similar developments were taking place south of the Thames at Southwark. After the Priory had been dissolved, the first playhouse since Roman times was constructed in its grounds during 1576 by James Burbage. It was known simply as ‘The Theatre’, a name now used to describe all playhouses. Two years later, a rival was opened along the same road. This was known as ‘The Curtain’, possibly because it stood in the shadow of the Priory’s curtain wall. Not as successful, this was eventually purchased by Burbage and his two sons, Richard and Cuthbert. When the lease for the land on which The Theatre stood expired and renewal was refused, the enterprising Burbage brothers dismantled their building and carried it to Southwark,where it was rebuilt as ‘The Globe’. The Curtain continued into the 1640’s, when it fell victim to Puritanism.

Stow wrote about St Leonards in his Survey, listing members of the noble Houses of Westmoreland and Rutland who had been buried in the church. He also commented upon an example of ecclesiastic greed: ‘…of late one vicar there, for covetousness of the brass, which he converted into coined silver, plucked up many plates fixed on the graves, and left no memory of such as had been buried underneath them, a great injury to both the living and the dead, forbidden by public proclamation, in the reign of our sovereign lady Queen Elizabeth, but not forborne by many, that either of a preposterous zeal or of a greedy mind spare not to satisfy themselves by so wicked a means.

Although St Pauls Covent Garden is proud to call itself the Actors’ Church, St Leonards is the original, due to its connection with the two earliest theatres. The first known entertainer to be buried in the churchyard was Will Somers, court jester to Henry VIII, and he was followed by many of Shakespeare’s friends, business partners and fellow actors. When Richard Burbage, the greatest tragedian of his age and the first to play Hamlet, was laid here in 1619 his gravestone carried a simple but fitting two word epitaph: ‘Exit Burbage’.

By the eighteenth century, the old medieval church was delapidated and a replacement was needed. The Palladian style was all the rage and the architect, George Dance the Elder (creator of the Mansion House), designed a church similar to that which was being erected by Flitcroft at St Giles In The Field: a large brown-brick building with a splendid porticoed front and a tall, dominating steeple.

During its construction, the Church became the site of the first strike in the building trade. This came about because local builders refused to work for the low wages that were being offered, so Irish workers were brought in from outside the parish. This led to anti-Irish riots, and the militia had to be called out to disperse a mob of about 4,000. The new Palladian church was finally completed in 1740, looking pretty much as it does today. In 1817 it became the first church to be lit with gaslight, and in 1824 a local worthy named James Parkinson was interred in the yard. He was a doctor who was born, baptised, married and worked his entire life in the parish, and his name survives to this day because of his ‘Treatise On The Shaking Palsy’, an illness which is now known as Parkinson’s Disease.

I found my visit to St Leonards left me with mixed feelings. It is the first Actors’ Church, yet – unlike its equivalents at Southwark Cathedral and Covent Garden – it seems determined to keep its historical theatrical connections a secret. The portico and the steeple are certainly impressive to look at, especially the spire with its slender, graceful soaring into the sky, but otherwise the exterior shows no sign of the colourful and vibrant history of the area. The churchyard is mostly cleared, partly landscaped at the rear, and its one curious fixture – the Shoreditch village stocks – have now been removed elsewhere. This lethargy is not confined to the church – the sites of the Theatre and the Curtain, in nearby Curtain Road, are marked only by easily overlooked plaques unveiled in 1994 by Sir Ian McKellan.

St Leonards does possess an Actors Memorial, but sadly even this is not on prominent display. It is kept in a side room of the church, although vergers will show interested parties. It lists the men of the theatre who rest within the precints of the church: Will Somers the jester, James Burbage and his sons Richard and Cuthbert, the famed Elizabethan comedian Richard Tarlton, the actor Gabriel Spencer who died fighting a duel with Ben Jonson, and Shakespeare’s business partners William Sly and Richard Cowley.

Nowadays, Shoreditch is undergoing something of a regeneration. The church was recently spruced up, new railway links are being constructed and celebrity chefs are opening restaurants in the area. Perhaps with this regeneration may come more visible recognition that the parish and its church have just as important a place in the history of acting as the South Bank and Covent Garden. I live in hope…

Author Mark McManus 

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St Lawrence Jewry

Standing proud on the south side of Guildhall Yard, the church of St Lawrence can owe its survival to its position as the Church of the Corporation of London. Originally, the Guildhall possessed its own Chapel but after this was turned into a court in 1782, the Corporation’s services moved to St Lawrence. The area is full of the remains of former churches: Among many others, the site of St Michael Bassishaw is marked by a plaque on the other side of Guildhall, the remains of St Mary Aldermanbury and St Alphage are close and so are two towers, those of St Alban Wood Street and St Olave Jewry. The church of St Michaels Wood Street (at which was interred the head of James IV of Scotland) has vanished, but the yards of two Great Fire victims, St Olave Silver Street and St Peter Cheap, can be found within a short distance.

The great survivor in this crowded area, St Lawrence, was built in 1136 over a tiered section of the Roman Amphitheatre. It received its suffix, ‘Jewry’, from the fact that it was sited at the edge of the medieval City’s Jewish area, and archaeological remains relating to their religious customs have been unearthed in the area quite recently. Although Edward I expelled the Jews, and other Kings persecuted them mercilessly, the suffix remained so that the church could be differentiated from other City churches sharing the same dedication. Stow described it as ‘fair and large’,and also remarked that it displayed a human ‘shankbone’ (an odd relic which he also claimed for St Mary Aldermanbury). This one was twentyfive inches long and was at one time accompanied by a tooth the size of a fist. Whether these proportions were correct cannot be proved, as both relics are long gone, but Stow claimed to have personally seen the bone. Of course, whether the bones were human or not seems a more pertinent question. Buried in this medieval church were members of the Rich family, ancestors of Lord Richard Rich the slippery Tudor courtier, and Sir Richard Gresham the father of Thomas. William Grocyn, a scholar praised by the humanist Erasmus, was Rector in 1496 and the parishioner Sir Thomas More preached here.

This church went up in flames in 1666, and Wren’s rebuild opened 11 years later, costing a then impressive £11,870, the re-opening being graced by the presence of King Charles II. It was now a Guild Church rather than a Parish Church, the Corporation its patron. The King’s Chaplain, John Tillotson, revered as one of the great preachers of his age, was a weekly lecturer at the new church before becoming Archbishop of Canterbury in his twilight years. Married in St Lawrence, he was placed in a vault here in 1694. A century later, it was a custom to print and circulate the church’s Michaelmas Sermon to the City aldermen.

On December 29th, 1940, during the same air raid that gutted St Brides, a bomb struck the church and nothing survived save sections of the walls and the tower. History then repeated itself. St Lawrence was rebuilt by Cecil Brown, closely following Wren’s design. The new spire is a replica of the old. Following the example of her predecessor, Queen Elizabeth attended the re-opening of the church in 1957.

A couple of curious features can be spotted if one circles the church before visiting. The churchyard is long paved over and forms part of the Guildhall Yard; a plaque on the wall of the church explains its now invisible limits. It is well known that the streets around the Guildhall seem to ‘bulge’ outward, a consequence of the medieval street system having to build around the remains of the amphitheatre, and I did a bit of research to see if the churchyard’s shape also had any features that may have accomodated the tiers of Roman work below. According to Roque’s 1740 map of the area, the yard was more or less rectangular but does seem to curve slightly to the west, although this could just as easily be due to the marked curve of the roadway in front of the church entrance.
Another feature is the weathervane on top of the spire. This is the vane from Wren’s original church, and is in the unusual shape of a gridiron. One finds out why as soon as one enters the building.

Through the western entrance, the visitor stands in a long vestibule. To the right are the vestries, to the left a small chapel in which can be found the crests of Basing and Gresham families. Ahead, to the right of the entrance to the main church, is a display case carrying relics salvaged from the rubble of Wren’s building. The most notable feature here, however, is a painting. This has been attributed to the North Italian School of the late 16th century, and has miraculously survived both the Great Fire and the Blitz. The painting shows the martyrdom of St Lawrence, who was roasted on a gridiron in Rome during the year 258. Here’s what Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs’ had to say about this:
‘He was beaten with iron rods, set upon a wooden horse, and had his limbs dislocated. He endured these tortures with such fortitude and perseverance, that he was ordered to be fastened to a large gridiron, with a slow fire under it, that his death might be more tedious. But his astonishing constancy during these trials, and his serenity of countenance under such excruciating torments, gave the spectators so exalted an idea of the dignity and truth of the Christian religion, that many immediately became converts. Having lain for some time upon the gridiron, the martyr called out to the emperor [Valerian], who was present, in a kind of jocose latin couplet, which may be thus translated: ‘This side is broil’d sufficient to be food, For all who wish it to be done and good.’ On this the executioner turned him, and after having lain a considerable time longer, he still had strength and spirit enough to triumph over the tyrant, by telling him, with great serenity, that he was roasted enough, and only wanted serving up.’
Foxe was, of course, a Protestant propogandist and his texts should not be taken too seriously, but the painting – more or less contemporary with Foxe’s work – certainly gives a vivid portrayal of this scene.

I entered the church and noticed two things immediately: the interior is very splendid, probably due to the Corporation’s patronage, and some sort of event was under preparation. Several suited people were loitering, and a sound engineer was setting up a big fluffy microphone in one corner. I sneaked a glance at one of the booklets strewn in the pews. It seemed I was only half an hour from the commencement of a special service, held in the presence of the Lord Mayor, which is held just before the election of same. Furthermore the rather ornate pew at the front of the church, from which I had picked up the booklet, was that of the Mayor himself. I prudently replaced the booklet.

Other than a tablet commemorating Tillotson, and the fact that Cecil Brown’s ashes are interred in a cinerarium below the altar, most of the church’s monuments take the shape of stained glass windows, colourful yet not overdone in a way that darkens the church. Most of these are the work of a Master Glass Painter named Christopher Rahere Webb. He owes his unusual middle name to the fact that, at the time of his birth in 1866, his uncle Sir Aston Webb was restoring St Bartholomew The Great at Smithfield, the priory church founded by Rahere. Three windows commemorate the parishes of St Mary Magdalen Milk Street and St Michael Bassishaw, which were united with St Lawrence in, respectively, 1666 and 1892. Others commemorate Thomas More and Dr Grocyn. My favourite, however, is back in the vestibule, where a window shows Wren flanked by his mason Thomas Strong and his carver Grinling Gibbons, above Cecil Brown and the Vicar at the time of that restoration, Frank Trimlingham. They are surrounded by the craftsmen of the post-War rebuild and stand above an idealised skyline of Wren spires and towers.

The Commonwealth Chapel, on the north of the church, is divided by an oak screen which contains, in its centre, a wrought-iron screen built and donated by the Royal Marines. Flanking this are two further gates, donated by the Airborne Forces and the Parachute Regiment. The chapel contains an Ascension window and a Madonna and Child painting by Cecil Brown, also a St George window containing the arms of the Sovereign Independent States of the Commonwealth in 1957: South Africa, India, Pakistan, Ceylon, Ghana, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Malaya.

The church was beginning to fill up with people who, frankly, looked a lot more dignified than I looked. I paused to admire the Font, a c1620 work originally from the disappeared Holy Trinity Minories, then surreptitiously made my exit. Stepping back through the western doors, I stood aside to allow a man wearing a great big chain around his neck to pass, accompanied by his coterie. Off I strolled, having no time to hobnob with Lord Mayors. Not when there were other churches on my list for the day…

Author Mark McManus 

Navigate for more: St Leonards Shoreditch St Helens Bishopsgate

St Helens Bishopsgate

Perhaps the greatest irony with St Helens is that, as a monastic building, it managed to survive the Dissolution, the Great Fire and the Blitz… only to be hit by a double whammy of terrorist bombs during the 90’s. The 1992 St Mary Axe explosion saw it receive damage from the north, while the Bishopsgate bomb a year later saw it seriously damaged from the west. Since then, the church has been fully restored and today stands as one of the busiest City churches, its attached Rectory being the offices in charge not only of St Helens, but also the nearby churches of St Andrew Undershaft and St Peter Cornhill, both of which are used by study groups and generally closed to the public.
St Helen’s capacious interior and range of monuments has led to it being described as the City’s equivalent of Westminster Abbey, and a description of this remarkable building will follow… but first, the history.

The church is first mentioned in 1140, but early in the thirteenth century a William Basing, Dean of St Pauls, was given permission to establish a Benedictine nunnery on its north side. He also built a new church, attached to the old, which is why St Helens has an unusual shape – it is two churches merged together. The double nave was originally separated by wooden partitioning; the nuns used the northern nave and the parish used the southern. In 1385 the nuns were reproved for their less than strict lifestyle, for ‘the number of little dogs kept by the prioress, kissing secular persons, wearing ostentatious veils’ and ‘waving over the screen which separated the parish nave from the convent nave, and too many children running about’.

in 1466 a local Sheriff and grocer called John Crosby leased land next to the church from the prioress Alice Ashfed, for the sum of £11 6s 8d per annum. On this land he built a stately home called Crosby Hall. It was in this building, legend has it, that Richard of Gloucester’s cohorts begged him to usurp the throne. Crosby’s fortunes continued to rise; he was an alderman in 1470, was knighted in 1471, and died in 1475 leaving St Helens the sum of five hundred marks. Crosby Hall was controversially dismantled in 1910 and rebuilt on the Embankment at Chelsea, where it stands to this day. In hindsight, this was probably a good thing – had it remained in Bishopsgate, the 1993 explosion would have reduced it to firewood.

The nunnery was surrendered to Henry VIII in 1538, valued at £314 2s 6d, and its buildings sold to the Leatherseller’s Company. The last of these buildings survived until 1799. The screens dividing the double nave were removed, and St Helens remained as the parish church. Stow laments that the church ‘wanteth such a steeple as Sir Thomas Gresham promised to have built, in recompense of ground in their church filled up with his monument’. Thomas Gresham is a historically important figure in the City of London; it was he who founded the Royal Exchange. His symbol, a grasshopper, can still be seen in parts of the City. The Royal Exchange has a gilded grasshopper on the roof and a building in Lombard Street carries the symbol alongside the initials TG. As well as this, Gresham Street is named after him.

Notable parishioners came and went, including Sir William Pickering, who was Elizabeth I’s Ambassador to Spain, William Shakespeare who briefly resided in Bishopsgate and a Master of the Rolls and Privy Counsellor to James I named, somewhat ostentatiously, Julius Caesar. In 1874 the nearby church of St Martin Outwich, which stood at the junction of Bishopsgate and Threadneedle Street, was demolished and eighteen of its monuments transferred to St Helens. Chief among these was the late 14th/early 15th century monument to John de Oteswich.

As time passed, and City populations fell, so parishes were merged. Since 1991, the full title of St Helens parish has been ‘St Helens Bishopsgate with St Andrew Undershaft & St Ethelburga Bishopsgate & St Martin Outwich & St Mary Axe’. A year after this title was adopted, a bomb went off in St Mary Axe, only 60 yards from the east end of St Helens Church. All the windows were broken, one was completely blown into the church, the roof sustained serious damage, and so did the church organ and the tomb of Julius Caesar. A second bomb in Bishopsgate the following year added insult to injury, although St Helens fared better than St Ethelburga, a small medieval church which was torn to pieces and has only recently opened its doors following very heavy reconstruction.

The architect in charge of St Helens reconstruction was Quinlan Terry, and he put forward an ambitious plan to restore the church’s medieval floor level, thus returning it to its original level throughout, and allowing for underfloor heating. He also re-ordered the interior, and the description of St Helens as it appears today will now commence!

The best approaches are from Bishopsgate, where one can appreciate the twin medieval facade that matches the twin naves, and the neatly paved churchyard that retains a couple of table tombs, or from Leadenhall Street where one can assess the length of the church and see the adjoining Rectory.

Enter and stare at the effect of the double nave. It’s wide! The restoration has emphasized light streaming in through the new windows, making it one of the brightest church interiors in the City. Before the damage, the pews were aligned to face east, but now the seats focus toward a pulpit on the south. Turning left,one can ascend a stair turret to the gallery with the organ. There is an internal tower, designed by Wren in 1699, which leads to the belfry. Although it blends with the surrounding masonry, this tower is cleverly disguised wood! The organ itself dates from 1743 and its case is carved with representations of musical instruments.

Returning to the nave(s), the spaciousness of the church seems to highlight its grand monuments. Gresham’s 1579 tomb is marbled, and the marble is dotted with small fossils. On the north wall near the tomb can be found a ‘squint’, through which the nuns used to watch services. Moving south from Gresham, you come across a marvellous marble tomb surrounded by a rail of wrought iron. This is Pickering, the man who had what must have been a job only for the very politically astute – Queen Bess’s man in Spain. This tomb dates from 1574.

Moving into the south transept, we find the 1475 monument of Sir John Crosby. The 500 mark bequest he made to St Helens is believed to have paid for the four great arches in the centre of the building that mark the split between the naves. Also in the transept are many brasses, often defaced. An engraver was actually paid to commit this damage during the Commonwealth, as the inscriptions were deemed ‘superstitious’. Near these brasses is the tomb of Caesar, fully restored following its brush with terrorism.
Walking back toward the entrance, we find the oldest monument, that of John de Oteswich and his wife, brought from the demolished church with the same name. Could he have been a benefactor, and the church named after him? There are other precedents in the City: the church of St Laurence Pountney, destroyed in the Great Fire, was named after the mayor John Pountney who paid for its enlargenment in 1347.
The last monument, very ornate and restored to its original colours, is for Sir John Spencer and his family. He was Mayor in 1594. His tomb, too fragile to be moved, had to remain in its place during the post-bomb restoration and is now protected by a railing. From a distance, it looks as though it has sunk into the floor; a peek over the railing shows you the ground level of this corner of the church before Terry changed it.

Despite the monuments, the church is full of life. The Rectory attached to it always seems to be bustling, on my visit the organ was being played with a saxophone accompaniment, and a register on the altar revealed that a wedding had taken place there that very morning! A short guide book, taking you on a tour of the building and full of little details which you otherwise may have missed, makes a visit to St Helens a worthwhile and uplifting experience!

Author Mark McManus 

Navigate for more: St Lawrence Jewry St Giles In The Fields

St Giles In The Fields

St Giles In The Fields is certainly a site of contrasts. To begin with, there have been no proper fields in this area of high urban density for a long time, unless one counts the large but somewhat shabby-looking churchyard, so the name is in conflict with the reality.
The second noticeable contrast is the building itself. Its facade is a triumph of Palladian majesty, striking loftily above the bustle of the West End, but the high, rectangular building behind the facade is sombre brownstone, with rows of small windows that put one in mind of a Victorian workhouse.
The last contrast is the impression conveyed by the interior. Walking into St Giles leaves the visitor breathless at its beauty, not least because it is so unexpected. The sheer scale of it leaves your lower jaw sagging. Large, ornate chandeliers, gilded patterns on the white ceiling, galleries with imposing arcades. This place looks as though it were designed to be a palace, not a parish church… and yet this site, with all its impressive architectural features, its glorious fittings, its colourful array of monuments to the great and good of the parish, has more dark moments in its history than most of the other London churches put together.

Its history begins in the year 1101 when Matilda of Scotland, Queen to Henry the First, founded a leper hospital on the site. Not an auspicious start, you might think, and you’d be right – this was not to be the last time in its history that the parish was connected with pestilence. The hospital had a chapel, which was most probably used by local villagers as a church, although one cannot imagine too much mingling with the inmates.

Little seems to be known about this medieval phase of the site’s history (other than the fact it was probably surrounded by fields!), apart from an event during the reign of Henry the Fifth, an event which was to be the prelude to St Giles’ later connection with condemned prisoners: the story of Sir John Oldcastle.
Oldcastle was a leader of the heretical religious movement known as the Lollards. Originally a friend of Henry the Fourth, and companion of the future Henry the Fifth during his campaigns in the Welsh Marches, Oldcastle fell from favour when his religious leanings were discovered and he refused to renounce them. Convicted of heresy, he managed to escape from the Tower and start an uprising, easily dispersed, at St Gile’s Field. Fleeing to Herefordshire, Oldcastle remained at large – and plotting – for four years, until being seized by Earl Powis and returned to London on a horse litter. Oldcastle was hanged at St Gile’s Field in Decmber 1417, and his body (including the gallows!) burned to ashes.

At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the hospital was surrendered but the chapel remained as the parish church, the first rector being appointed in 1547. For the first time, it became known as St-Giles-In-The-Fields. In the 1620’s the delapidated building was replaced by a proper Gothic church, mostly paid for by the noble Dudley family.

In 1665, the parish was once again connected with pestilence as, unfortunately, the first recorded outbreak of the plague in London was reported in the nearby street called Long Acre. The outbreak ravaged the parish, and the churchyard was extended to accomodate the plague pits. However, this had a detrimental effect on the relatively young building, which began to suffer from damp.

Fifteen years later, another dark episode was written in the church’s history. The Popish Plot, inflamed by Titus Oates, saw widespread panic over rumours to assassinate King Charles the Second and re-introduce Catholicism. Between 1678-81, twelve executed victims of the Plot were interred at St Giles, including Oliver Plunket, the Archbishop of Armagh. Plunket has since been re-interred elsewhere, and was canonised in 1975. The other eleven, mostly Jesuit priests, have been beatified. No other London church has this many prospective Saints in its graveyard.

By the early 1700’s the damp problem had become intolerable. After years of wrangling, the parishioners finally received a grant of £8000 and in 1730, work began on a new church created in Palladian style by the architect Henry Flitcroft, who is better known as the designer of the Duke of Bedford’s sumptuous home, Woburn Abbey. This is the church that occupies the site today.

When completed in 1734, St Giles must have stood as one of the most impressive churches outside of Wren’s work in the City. But, wouldn’t you know, the bad publicity just kept rolling in. The population of the parish well nigh exploded in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and furthermore it was one of the most notorious parishes in the capital for poverty and squalor. The church’s connection with executions continued; it was the last church on the route from Newgate Prison to Tyburn, and the churchwardens would often pay for condemned prisoners to have a last drink of ale at the neighbouring tavern.Slight architectural alterations were made during Victorian times, but still the parish received censure from social observers. An article in the ‘Weekly Dispatch’ of September 1838 gave a vivid and gruesome picture of the scandalous condition of, and inhumation practices witnessed at, St Giles overcrowded churchyard. I won’t repeat any of it here in case you’re eating.

Parliamentary Acts closed London’s churchyards in the 1850’s, which solved the hygiene problem, and the parish’s poverty problems faded with the gradual fall in population – from over 30,000 in 1831 to about 4,600 at present.

The church survived the War with a few broken windows, and was restored during the early 1950’s well enough for the work to be fulsomely praised by John Betjeman, writing in the Spectator. The internal appearance of the church today is mostly owing to that restoration.

As well as the wonderful, striking galleries, and the intricate gilded patterns on the ceiling, St Giles has two paintings beyond its altar, of Moses and Aaron, painted by Francisco Viera, court painter to the King of Portugal. A model of the church, built by Flitcroft himself as a template, is displayed in a glass case and a wooden pulpit by the north wall turns out to be from John Wesley’s principal chapel at West Street. The founder of Methodism himself regularly preached from it, as did his brother Charles.

The monuments are many: in the entrance, before even stepping into the main body of the church, one can see a monument to the sculptor Flaxman who lived in the parish. He was buried at St Pancras – but the remaining monuments are to notable folk who were interred here. These include the Jacobean poet Andrew Marvell, Cecil Calvert 2nd Lord Baltimore, the first proprietor of Maryland, the poet George Chapman who first translated Homer into English (and whose monument was designed by his architect friend Inigo Jones), William Balmain, a surgeon who was one of the founders of New South Wales and who has a suburb in Sydney named after him, Luke Hansard printer to Parliament (after whom Parliamentary records are still called ‘Hansard’), and – resting in the crypt with no memorial – one John Pell, a clergyman and mathematician who invented the symbol for division.

St Giles’ most notorious monument is to Richard Pendrell. Generations have found mirth in his overblown epitaph, with which I close this history of St Giles In The Field:

‘Here lieth Richard Pendrell, preserver and conductor to his sacred majesty King Charles the Second of Great Britain, after his escape from Worcester Fight, in the year 1651, who died Feb 8, 1671.


Hold, passenger, here’s shrouded in this Herse,
Unparalell’d Pendrell, thro’ the universe.
Like when the Eastern Star from Heaven gave light
To three lost kings; so he, in such dark night,
To Britain’s monarch, toss’d by adverse war,
On Earth appeared, a second Eastern Star.
A Pope, a Stern, in her rebellious Main
A pilot to her Royal Sovereign.
Now to triumph in Heav’n’s eternal sphere,
Whilst Albion’s Chronicles, with matching fame,
Embalm the story of great Pendrell’s Name.

Author Mark McManus 

Navigate for more: St Helens Bishopsgate St Giles Cripplegate

St Giles Cripplegate

Approaching St Giles. the impression given is that of a survivor. Surrounded by the Barbican development, the medieval church has endured several fires and one incendiary bombing. The surrounding area was shattered by the WW2 bombs and the Barbican rose from the ashes, but St Giles – after a Godfrey Allen restoration – carried on.

The original church may have been a Saxon chapel, but in 1090 one Alfune, Bishop of London, built a Norman church. The dedication to St Giles came later in the Middle Ages, but has nothing to do with Giles being the patron saint of cripples. The name Cripplegate comes from one of the many gates in the adjacent city wall, and is derived from the Saxon ‘crepel/cruple’, meaning a covered walkway. The church was rebuilt in Gothic Perpendicular style in 1394, at which time it was being used by a religious fraternity founded by John Belancer, and the style has been maintained throughout three destructive fires: one in 1545, another in 1897 and of course the incendiary bombs of 1940 which gutted the interior. For his post-War reconstruction, Allen used the actual plans for the 1545 restoration, which were being kept at Lambeth Palace.

St Giles seems deceptively small as one approaches, a consequence of its position in the centre of an uncluttered plaza, and the eye is drawn to its solid walls, repointed by the Victorians, and its red-brick tower with a white wooden turret. It has a great deal more character than the expensive flats which surround it, and as such seems to dominate the area despite being of less stature than its neighbours!

The interior is quiet and somewhat stately, thanks to the arcades separating the north and south aisles from the nave, and a leisurely stroll quickly reveals the church to be one that is very proud of its historical connections!

The most notable of these features is a collection of busts set on plinths, showing four famous parishioners. Daniel Defoe, government agent, pamphleteer, useless businessman and famous author, was born in the parish and worshipped here. Oliver Cromwell was married in the church, although the incumbent vicar lost his living at the Stuart Restoration. His name was Samuel Annesley, but his descendants had the last laugh – his daughter, Susannah Wesley, gave birth to a boy called John…
A third bust is that of John Bunyan, the Nonconformist preacher who spent twelve years in Bedford Jail for his beliefs and wrote ‘The Pilgrims Progress’, one of Puritan England’s most popular and influential books. He was an occasional visitor to the church, and is buried close to Defoe in Bunhill Fields, a Dissenter’s Cemetery in St Giles’ parish, which also contains another famous local – the poet/painter William Blake, one of history’s true eccentric geniuses.
The remaining bust is that of John Milton, author of Paradise Lost and a member of Cromwell’s Council of State. Milton is the church’s most famous interment; as well as the bust, there is a memorial in the south aisle and his burial place is marked near the chancel.

Another legendary poet with connections to St Giles is William Shakespeare. Two of his nephews were christened here, one was buried here, and interred here in 1634 was the grand-daughter of Sir Thomas Lucy, supposedly the basis of the comic ‘Justice Shallow’ in Henry IV Part II and The Merry Wives Of Windsor. Shakespeare’s fellow actor and local benefactor Edward Alleyn is memorialised by a stained glass window – he was the proprieter of the Fortune Theatre which once stood close by.

Also buried in the body of the church are two eminent Elizabethans: John Foxe, the propagandist whose ‘Book Of Martyrs’ did absolutely nothing for the Catholic cause, and Sir Martin Frobisher, a mariner who fought against the Armada and attempted to locate the North-West Passage. Close by, and with a monument that has managed to survive the Victorian fire and the Luftwaffe bombs, is the seventeenth century cartographer and historian, John Speed.

I’ll round off St Giles’ history with a couple of macabre but amusing anecdotes, the first of which is – hopefully! – a legend. A young gentlewoman named Constance Whitney was buried in the church during the 1600’s. On the night of her funeral, a verger stole into the crypt to retrieve a ring which he had previously noticed adorning the deceased’s finger. Attempting to cut off the finger, the verger was surprised (to say the least, one would think) when the woman woke up with a cry, jumped out of her coffin and ran home. I can’t imagine the reaction of the housemaid when she answered the door being much better than that of the verger.
St Giles’ historically unscrupulous vergers lead us to the second story, which seems to be true. During the 1790’s, while repairs were being made to the chancel, the coffin of John Milton was exhumed. The enterprising verger opened it and put the great poet on public display, charging interested parties first 6d, later 2d, and finally the price of a pint for a peek. This led to his teeth, hair and one rib being purloined for souvenirs before he was reburied, and the contemporary poet William Cowper wrote, ‘Ill fare the hands that heaved the stones, where Milton’s ashes lay! That trembled not to grasp his bones, and steal his dust away!’

Author Mark McManus 

Navigate for more: St Giles In The Fields St Clement Danes

St Clement Danes

Oranges and Lemons, say the bells of St Clements…’

It is historically unsure whether the famous nursery rhyme refers to St Clement Danes or St Clements Eastcheap. Many researchers favour the latter. Nevertheless, it is the former that has appropriated the song, and proudly refers to itself as the ‘Oranges and Lemons Church’. Standing in a dominant position at the junction of Fleet Street and the Strand, the church is a highly visible landmark, and its bells can often be heard ringing out the tune of the rhyme. Once a year, after a special service, the attending children of St Clement Danes Primary School are each presented with an orange and a lemon.


The history of the church is pre-Norman. Stow writes of ‘the parish church of St Clement Danes, so called because Harold, a Danish king, and other Danes were buried there. This Harold [Harold I, ‘Harefoot’, r1035-1040], whom King Canutus had by a concubine, reigned three years, and was buried at Westminster [Abbey]; but afterward Hardicanutus, the lawful son of Canutus, in revenge of a displeasure done to his mother by expelling her out of the realm, and the murder of his brother Alured, commanded the body of Harold to be digged out of the earth and to be thrown into the Thames, where it was by a fisherman taken up and buried in this churchyard.’ Stow also mentions an event during the reign of Ethelred, when marauding Danes destroyed the monastery at Chertsey, but got their desserts when they were ‘by the just judgement of God all slain at London in a place which is called the church of the Danes.’

Although the Great Fire did not reach the church, it was deemed unsafe by its parishioners and in 1680 the body of the church was rebuilt by Christopher Wren. Joshua Marshall had built the west tower over a decade before Wren designed the main body, and James Gibb added a spire in 1719.

As with so many London Churches, the Blitz caused serious damage when an incendiary bomb burned out the interior in 1941. During clearance of the rubble, the crypt was opened for the first time since the 1850s, when it had been cleared following the passing of an Act prohibiting further city burials. The crypt today is a chapel, quite spartan and with the walls oddly decorated with old coffin plates. A chain hangs on one of the walls. This was once used to secure coffin lids against grave robbers, but is now obsolete as the coffins were removed to a newly formed chamber in Victorian times. At the entrance to the crypt is a memorial plaque set up by the poet John Donne to commemorate his wife Ann, who was buried there.

Post-war restoration was carried out by Anthony Lloyd in 1955. The interior is light, the dark-stained wood of the pews forming a pleasant contrast to the paleness of the walls and floor. It is galleried, and Corinthian columns above the galleries help support the tunnel-vault nave ceiling.

St Clements has been the central church of the Royal Air Force since 1958, and this is immediately apparent: statues of Dowding and Harris stand outside the entrance, and the floors of the nave and the wide aisle are set with emblems of different squadrons, all in slate.

When I visited St Clements, the bells began to peel as I approached the entrance. Alas, this was not to welcome such a distinguished visitor, but because the time happened to be two o’ clock exactly. The church is imposing from the outside and this is matched by the spaciousness of the interior. Although the subterranean chapel is somewhat haunting, all those coffin plates a constant reminder that the chamber was for many centuries a far less pleasant place, the military slates in the nave are another reminder of continuity, of an ancient foundation finding new life and relevance in the modern world, even if they DID have to commandeer a nursery rhyme to do it!

Author Mark McManus 

Navigate for more: St Giles Cripplegate St Brides Fleet Street

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