Every church in the City, and some in the outlying areas and in Westminster, is worth a visit. Some have such a colourful history, and/or have been touched with the hand of architectural genius, that they have merited articles of their own. The others may lack such colourful backgrounds, but are nonetheless worth seeking out and appreciating, and I will list them here.

All Hallows On The Wall

Originally founded by Queen Matilda in the year 1108, and constructed on the foundations of the City’s Roman wall, the present building is the first church to be designed by George Dance The Younger, who referred to it as ‘my first child’. The hall attached to the east was constructed in Edwardian times to provide shelter for early morning commuters.
The exterior is simple dark brick with an ashlar-faced tower, the inside a tunnel-vault nave with simple and delicate decor. Two chandeliers, one a modern replice of the other, hang in the nave. The church is currently being used by Christian Aid, and opening times are limited.

St Andrews Holborn

First mentioned in 951, this church stood on what was once the bank of the River Fleet and is now Holborn Viaduct. It was the largest parish church rebuilt by Wrenand was restored after a 1941 incendiary attack. Engineer Marc Brunel and essayist William Hazlitt were married here, and Benjamin Disraeli baptised. The church contains the tomb of philanthropist Thomas Coram (its third resting place), and a brass plaque beyond the altar records the burial of the controversial cleric Henry Sacheverell. William Marsden was prompted to found his famous hospital after finding a homeless urchin dying on the church steps.

St Andrew By The Wardrobe

Boasting one of the best names of a City church, this stood across the road from the long-demolished Baynard’s Castle. The name of the church recalls the King’s Wardrobe which stood next door, and from which Shakespeare’s players acquired costumes for their productions in the nearby Blackfriars Theatre. Both church and Wardrobe were destroyed in 1666, and the rebuild was Wren’s final church for the City. The parish was united with that of another destroyed church, St Ann Blackfriars, and masonry remnants of the great monastery can still be found close by in Ireland Yard. John Dowland, Jacobean songwriter, was buried in St Andrew in 1625 and is remembered by a wall monument.

St Anne & St Agnes

Now home to the City’s Lutheran community, this Wren/Hooke collaboration is the third known church on the site. Wartime damage almost saw it demolished, but it was saved by the persistence of a verger who insisted upon keeping the church open despite a Dangerous Building notice. It was also considered briefly as a possible residence for the Bishop of London.
The church interior, a Greek cross within a square, holds many relics from other,destroyed City churches and the churchyard is second only to St Olaves Hart Street for rusticity. Supposedly the burial place of Peter Heywood, d1640, the man who apprehended Guy Fawkes. To the rear of the church can be seen the junction of two Roman walls – the City wall and the Fortress wall.

St Bartholomew The Less

Dating from the late twelfth century, this was originally the chapel of the medieval St Bart’s hospital. It became the parish church after the Dissolution, its boundaries being those of the hospital itself. The present building was first designed in wood by Dance The Younger, but rebuilt in stone a few decades later by Thomas Hardwick. The tower and vestry are survivors from the medieval building. Inigo Jones was baptised here in 1573, and in the early 1590’s it hosted the burials of two poets, Thomas Watson and John Lyly. A fifteenth century brass to William Markeby, described by Stow, survives in the vestry and there is a memorial erected by Thomas Bodley (founder of the Bodleian Library) to his wife.

St Benet Paul’s Wharf

The church was mentioned as far back as the year 1111, and is recalled by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night. He would have known it from his visits to the College Of Arms, just over the road. Inigo Jones was buried here in 1652, leaving £100 in his will for a sumptuous tomb which was destroyed in 1666. The attractive Dutch-style replacement church has been attributed to both Wren and Hooke, and the New Atlantis author Mary de la Riviere Manley was buried here in 1724. Today, hemmed in by very busy roads, St Benet is used by the City’s Welsh community.

St Botolphs Aldersgate

St Botolph is the patron saint of travellers, and his dedication is found at gates in the City wall: Aldersgate, Aldgate, Bishopsgate and at one time Billingsgate. This church goes back to early Norman times, the present building a 1791 rebuild by Nathaniel Wright. The oblong exterior hides interior apses at both east and west, and much graceful and well proportioned decoration. The rosettes along the ceiling of the nave conceal gas lamps, and what at first looks like a painted panel in the eastern apse turns out, upon closer inspection, to be a painted window. Wesley preached on land adjacent to the church and received the inspiration that led to the founding of Methodism. Two notable Tudor women were buried here; the philanthropist Lady Anne Packington in 1563 and Lady Mary Grey (sister of the ill-fated Jane) in 1578. To the south is the burial ground, now known as Postman’s Park and containing Victorian memorials to unsung heroes.

St Botolphs Aldgate

Dating back to Saxon times, the present building is a sturdy and imposing Dance The Elder design of 1744. Daniel Defoe was married here and wrote of the church in his Journal Of The Plague Year; Isaac Newton was a parishioner while he worked for the Royal Mint; and the philosopher Jeremy Bentham was baptised here. The traitors Thomas D’Arcy and Henry Carew, executed by Henry VIII, were interred here, as was the head of Henry Grey Marquess of Dorset. Other notable burials are Robert Armin, stage comedian and friend of Shakespeare, and the steamship pioneer William Symington.

St Botolphs Bishopsgate

Mentioned in 1212, the church was rebuilt first in 1571, then in 1728 by the elder Dance and his father-in-law James Gould. Unconventionally, they placed the tower at the east end where it dominates Bishopsgate. In 1863, the churchyard became the first in the City to be landscaped into a public garden. John Keats and the philanthropical actor Edward Alleyn were baptised here – the present font is the one at which Keats was christened. A memorial marks the burial of Sir Paul Pindar – his nearby house had a facade which is now an exhibit in the V&A Museum.

St Clements Eastcheap

Probably the original Oranges and Lemons church, despite the later pretensions of St Clements Dane, as citrus fruit was once unloaded from a nearby wharf. It was first mentioned in 1067, but the present building was created by Wren and enlarged to accommodate the congregation of fellow Great Fire victim St Martin Orgar. A modest and quiet church, no longer in Eastcheap since the Victorians created King William Street. Today, it houses the National Interpreting Service and hosts a year-round second hand book sale.

St Dunstan In The West

The church with the eye-catching lantern tower which now stands overlooking Fleet Street dates to 1829, its predecessor having been demolished to accommodate the widening of the street, but the dedication – to a Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury – implies that a church has stood here for much longer. A statue of Elizabeth I, the only such statue in London, was brought from the demolished Lud Gate and placed on the outside of the building; in the vestry are statues of King Lud and his sons, rescued from the same source. The interior is octagonal and richly decortaed, a blend of Anglican and Romanian Orthodox styles. Buried here were Lord Baltimore, after whom Baltimore in the U.S. is named; also Thomas White the founder of Sion College and the poet Thomas Campion.

The Dutch Church, Austin Friars

Closed in by towering office blocks north of Cornhill, this is one of the better-hidden City churches. The present building was constructed after its predecessor was flattened during the Blitz, its foundation stone laid by the 10 year old Princess Irene of Holland. The exterior is attractive Dutch-style, the interior straightforwardly modern and somewhat dull, offering no clues to the site’s colourful history. Originally it was an Augustinian monastery at which Richard II’s brother Edward was buried, as well as receiving the bodies of many nobles slain at the Battle of Barnet in 1471. The humanist scholar Erasmus lodged there, but disliked the wine. After Dissolution the land was briefly owned by the Marquess of Winchester before Edward VI granted it to the City’s Dutch community, under whose auspices it has remained ever since!

St Ethelburga

The smallest City church, a medieval building at which Henry Hudson and his crew prayed before setting out on their unsuccessful search for the North-West Passage. Seriously damaged by the 1993 Bishopsgate bomb, it was gradually pieced back together in something of a patchwork fashion. Most of the previous fittings were destroyed or removed; the church’s single aisle has been converted into an office. It is now a Centre for Reconciliation and Peace.

St James Garlickhythe

Dating back to the twelfth century, this church is named after a nearby wharf at which garlic was unloaded. Pilgrims also used to arrive here from Compostela, having visited the shrine of St James, hence the church’s dedication. James’ symbol of a shell can be found all over thebuilding. The present church is sometimes known as Wren’s Lantern, although Hawksmoor was responsible for the tower, and it has the highest nave in the City. A bomb fell between two pillars during the Blitz, but failed to explode; in 1991, a crane toppled onto the church and landed between the same two pillars! The damage has since been repaired. Ritual processions by the Vintners’ and Skinners’ Companies, dating back to medieval times, still occur at St James.

St Katherine Cree

The suffix is a contraction of Christ Church, named after the Priory in the grounds of which the church was built. The original church, only a few decades old, was demolished at the Dissolution but rebuilt a century later, possibly by Inigo Jones. The tower, ‘vilely snail-pointed’ by the Victorians according to Betjeman, is a 1504 survivor from the earlier church. The new building was consecrated by Archbishop Laud, to whom a chapel is now dedicated. Its best monument is the tomb and effigy of Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, Elizabethan courtier and the father-in-law of Walter Raleigh. A brass in the Sanctuary commemorates John Gayer, a Lord Mayor who survived a lion attack in Africa and, in gratitude, endowed an annual ‘Lion Sermon’ which is still carried out. Despite interesting monuments and windows, the interior aesthetic is poor due to the conversion of both north and south aisles into offices. A small churchyard, reached from Mitre Street, contains a 1631 doorcase built in Portland stone and paid for by a goldsmith named William Avenon.

St Magnus Martyr

First mentioned when William I granted it to Westminster Abbey, the church’s next claim to fame was its Rector in Tudor times, the Bible translator Miles Coverdale. He was originally buried at St Bartholomew By The Exchange, but when that church was demolished in 1840 for the enlarging of the Royal Exchange, he was moved here. Windows on the north were bricked up in an attempt to alleviate traffic noise from the very busy Lower Thames Street. The tower and portico stood on the footway to the old London Bridge; footings for the bridge’s supports can still be seen, as can a piece of Roman wharf timber excavated nearby.

St Margaret Lothbury

The Banker’s Church, due to its proximity to the back door of the Bank of England. It stands over the Walbrook, for a stone arch was erected over the brook in 1440 so that the church could be extended. Wren rebuilt the fire-damaged church but the tower may be the work nof Hooke. Many of the fittings are survivors from demolished City churches.


St Margaret Pattens

Named after the wooden shoes worn to protect proper shoes from the mud of London’s pre-tarmacadam streets, a pair of which were on display in the vestibule when I last visited. First mentioned in 1067, but rebuilt in Tudor times and post-Fire by Wren. Its spire, almost 200ft tall, is a local landmark and probably by Hawksmoor. One of the church’s canopied pews bears the monogram CW; it is unknown whether this stands for Christopher Wren or Church Warden.


St Martin Ludgate

In legend, the burial place of King Lud and Cadwallader. The west wall of this church is actually a section of the City’s Roman wall, against which the church was constructed. Although the post-Fire church was probably the work of Hoke, the spire was designed by Wren as a foil to the great Dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, and from a point along Fleet Street the spire can be seen to bisect the Dome.The interior, somewhat dark, contains curious relics: bread shelves and a double-seated chair for the two churchwardens.


St Mary At Hill

Described by Betjeman as having ‘the most gorgeous interior in the City’, St Mary suffered a calamitous fire in 1988. Some fittings were destroyed; others survived but are presently in storage, hance the interior’s somewhat ’empty’ feel. It has suffered at least four fires in its history. The exterior is relatively plain, but boasts an eye-catching protruding clock. A Fish Harvest Festival’ is held here in October, reflecting the church’s historic connection with Old Billingsgate Market.


St Mary Moorfields

This replaced a RC proto-Cathedral which was demolished in 1899. The new church was built in 1903 and became the only RC church in the City when the boundary of the City was moved from the front to the rear of the building. Its entrance blends well with its neighbours but retains modest grace. The altar was originally intended as a sarcophagus for Cardinal Wiseman, whose seat was the earlier ‘cathedral’.


St Mary Woolnoth

During the reign of Queen Anne, a series of new churches were constructed in the suburbs around the City, and it is here that Hawksmoor’s power can be seen – at Christ Church Spitalfields, St George In The East and St Ann Limehouse – but he did manage to rebuild one City church, and that was St Mary Woolnoth. Despite this attribution, it came close to demolition when Bank station was being constructed by the Victorians. Hawksmoor’s towered facade is an interesting contrast to the exteriors designed by his teacher Wren. The Elizabethan playwright Thomas Kyd was christened here; the slaver-turned-preacher John Newton, who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’, was Rector here and was buried here until being translated to a Home Counties church in 1893.


St Michael Paternoster Royal

This church goes back to at least 1219 but was famously refounded in 1409 by the wealthy merchant and oft-times Lord Mayor, Richard Whittington. It had to be completely rebuilt after both the Fire and the Blitz, and is now HQ of the Mission To Seafarers. Whittington is remembered by a stained glass window and a inscribed tile south of the altar; post-War excavations failed to recover his coffin but, curiously, did recover the skeleton of a cat!


St Peter Cornhill

The highest church in the City, it stands on the site of the Roman Forum and somewhat fancifully claims to have been founded in AD79, although the foundation is more likely Saxon. It contains a Wren chancel screen in its original position, and the City’s most upsetting church memorial – to seven young siblings who died in a house fire in 1782. The churchyard was described in Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens, who ironically noted the ‘healthy’ proximity of crowded graveyard to crowded neighbourhood! The churchyard is still crowded by other buildings, but has long since been an attractive public garden.


St Nicholas Cole Abbey

This never was an Abbey; the name is a mutation of ‘Coldharbour’. The spire is notably surmounted by a gilded ship, brought from a demolished church. Built by Wren and restored after the Blitz, its war-blackened walls featured in the Ealing comedy Lavender Hill Mob. At the Counter-Reformation, it was the first church to celebrate Mass in Latin, and until recently was being used by Scottish Presbyterians.


St Vedast Alias Foster

Thanks to parochial amalgamations, this parish can boast the name of ‘St Stephen with St Michael le Querne, St Matthew Friday Street, St Peter Cheap, St Alban Wood Street, St Olave Silver Street, St Michael Wood Street & St Mary Staining, St Anne & St Agnes and St John Zachary Gresham Street’. A cloister between the church and its rectory contains a section of Roman tessellated pavement which was excavated nearby.


St Etheldredas

This RC chapel in Holborn is all that remains of Ely Palace, the London residence of the Bishop of that see. It has an atmospheric vault, many colourful windows and statues of various London martyrs. Alexander D’Arbley, son of the novelist Fanny Burney, was Reverend here in the 1830’s. The 13th-century crypt in the Palace of Westminster is almost identical to the contemporary crypt here.


St Mary le Strand

Rebuilt by the architect James Gibbs in the eighteenth century, St Mary stands in a sea of traffic at the junction of Aldwych and the Strand. Its once extensive churchyard was curtailed by the construction of its neighbour Somerset House. Father John Huddleston, who accepted Charles II’s deathbed conversion to Catholicism, was buried here in 1698.


Savoy Chapel

The original Savoy Palace belonged to John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, and was burned down in the Peasant’s Revolt of 1381; the present Duke, HM The Queen, is the current owner of the Savoy Chapel. It is all that remains of a Hospital built by Henry VII for the ‘pouer, needie people. Burial place of Gavin Douglas, Bishop of Dunkeld and poet, in 1552.


City Road Chapel

Probably the closest the Methodists have to a cathedral, this stands in an area famous for its dissenting traditions. John Wesley’s House stands alongside, and the man himself occupies an eye-catching tomb in the garden to the rear. The crypts are the site of an impressive museum of Methodism, and just across the busy City Road is the famous dissenters’ burial ground of Bunhill Fields, which contains figures such as Bunyan, Defoe, William Blake, Susannah Wesley, the radical Richard Price and the hymnwriter Isaac Watts.


St James Piccadilly

Commissioned by the rakish Henry Jermyn and built by Wren in the 1680’s, plain brick with Portland stone dressing. Williams Blake and Pitt were baptised here, and indeed it is now the meeting-place of the Blake Society. Burials include the Dutch maritime artists Van Der Velde (Elder and Younger), the essayist and wit Dr John Arbuthnot, Dr Thomas Sydenham the populariser of laudanum, and auctioneer James Christie.


St James Clerkenwell

Originally the site of a Priory of St Mary, this became the Parish church after the Dissolution and was rebuilt in its present form in 1792 by James Carr. It is a dignified old building in a somewhat untidy but vibrant area, dominating Clerkenwell Green. It could possibly claim to be the Playwright’s Church if it had a mind to; Elizabethan writer George Peele was buried here and may have been followed by the Jacobean dramatists Thomas Dekker and John Webster. Also here is Henry Penton, after whom Pentonville is named.


St Mary Lambeth

Standing next to Lambeth Palace, this redundant church is now a Museum Of Garden History, which is perfectly appropriate considering the botanical connections of its famous interments: John Tradescent father & son, travellers and Royal Gardeners; Elias Ashmole, who founded Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum; James Sowerby, botanical illustrator; and commander of The Bounty William Bligh, whose 1789 mission to transport breadfruit from Tahiti to Jamaica met with a minor delay. Also here is a Howard Chapel containing Elizabeth Boleyn, mother of Anne.


St Marylebone

The present church, consecrated in 1817, is the fourth to bear the name. Its outstanding feature is its splendid apse, added in 1884. Robert Browning and Charles Dickens were born in the parish and would have worshipped here; the marriage of Browning to fellow poet Elizabeth Barrett also took place here, and the church retains the entry in the Marriage Register. Baptisms include ‘Bad’ Lord Byron and Horatia, daughter of Emma Hamilton and Horatio Nelson. In the ‘old’ churchyard were buried Revd. Charles Wesley, the animal artist George Stubbs, the sculptor John Rysbrack, the codifier of whist Edmund ‘according to’ Hoyle, and architect James Gibbs. This ground was cleared in 2004 to make way for a school gymnasium; these notables currently reside in boxes under the auspices of the Museum of London.

Author Mark McManus 

Navigate for more: St Mary Aldermary Temple Church

The Walbrook once divided the City of Londinium, flowing between the two hills upon which the City was constructed. Today, the river flows subterraneously, but the gradients leading down to its valley are still highly visible. At one time there were several churches upon its networks. St Mary Woolchurch Haw, now the site of the Mansion House, and St John Walbrook, both victims of the Great Fire. St Stephen, despite various traumas throughout its history, is the sole survivor. The original Saxon church stood on the west bank of the Walbrook, but in the year 1428 the Mayor Robert Chichley donated to the parish a plot of ground on the east bank for the purpose of erecting a Gothic church with its own churchyard. The foundation stones were laid the following year by various benefactors, including Chichley himself, the current Mayor Henry Barton, a contributor called William Stodden and the wealthy draper Richard Whittington, who later purchased the patronage of the church from the powerful Duke of Bedford, uncle to the youthful Henry VI. This Gothic building was completed in 1439. A notable burial took place during the building’s lifetime: John Dunstable, master of astronomy and music, who was once described as ‘the greatest composer in Europe’, d.1453.

The church was destroyed during the Great Fire and was rebuilt by Wren as his major City Church, an experimental baroque variation on his classicism. It cost £7,672, was completed in 1679 with a later tower probably by Hawksmoor, and was highly lauded. It was said to be ‘…famous all over Europe and justly reputed… perhaps Italy itself can produce no modern buildings that can vie with this in taste and proportion. The sculptor Canova expressed a desire to visit London merely to see St Paul’s, Somerset House and St Stephen Walbrook. Even the great Palladio himself remarked that the church was ‘the finest proportioned enclosed building in the world.’

In his recent publication ‘The Real Wren Churches’, Stephen Wheatley claims that St Stephens is ‘almost impossible to describe’. I will endeavour to prove him wrong, but the sentiment is understandable – dry descriptions fail to do much credit to a building that was very much designed as a feast for the eyes.
The exterior is plain. Wren rightly refused to create anything too ornate for the exteriors of his churches, reasoning – quite correctly – that there would be little point in elaborate exterior pretensions when the churches were destined to be closed in and mostly concealed by surrounding buildings. It is ragstone, with a Portland stone steeple which rises in stages to four balls and a vane. Entering the church from its western door, one is immediately confronted with a fairly steep stone stair which leads to the lobby. On the wall to the left is a large stone tablet, carrying a Latin inscription in praise of Wren.

The church interior itself is entered through a baroque screen below the organ case. It is actually a rectangle, its bays arranged to form a longitudinal Latin cross, but other architectural elements such as a Greek cross have also been observed; as Betjeman noticed, Wren showed how to make ‘a plain rectangle interesting and full of vistas’. Clever design techniques actually make it feel almost circular and centrally planned. Sixteen columns create a colonnade effect, and twelve of these support the glory of the church – its Dome. Two of Wren’s churches contain domed ceilings (the other is St Mary Abchurch), experimental practice runs for what would later become the great Dome of St Pauls Cathedral. Light streams into the building through the clear glass of the windows, lantern and clerestory, and together with the perfect proportions of the interior, an impression of airiness and lightness pervades.

Incendiaries struck the church during the second world war, and Wren’s Dome was fatally damaged. Under the auspices of a less sympathetic restorer, this could have been a tragedy but instead, Godfrey Allen reconstructed it in replica in 1951-2. Thirty years later the church was forced to close again, as the waters of the Walbrook were seeping into the foundations and threatening to collapse the Dome. Under the charge of Lord Palumbo, the church underwent extensive underpinning while, at the same time, the interior was controversially re-ordered. Traditional pews were dispensed with and a new stone altar was commisioned from the sculptor Henry Moore. Likened by critics to a ‘ripe camembert cheese’, it sat in a field near Moore’s studio at Much Hadham while the controversy was the subject of a rare sitting of the Court of Ecclesiastical Causes Reserved. Originally carved at a quarry near Rome, the same quarry from which Michaelangelo drew his material, the altar was accepted and now forms the centrepiece of the church. The controversy did not prevent the church hosting a Royal Wedding – that of Lady Sarah Armstrong Jones, the Queen’s niece, and it remains the parish church of the Lord Mayor and his Mansion House staff.

Since the addition of Moore’s altar, two other modern sculptures, tinted red and blue, have been added to the interior. Despite these modern additions, many of the elements are contemporary with Wren. The stone font dates from 1679 and was carved by Thomas Strong, Wren’s master mason – its wooden cover is decorated with representations of Christ, Faith, Hope and Charity as well as the cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance. The canopied pulpit, with elaborate panelling, is by William Newman. Over the vestry door hangs ‘The Adoration of the Magi’ by Lodovico Cardi.

The most unusual relic is an old telephone, standing on a plinth in the corner of the church. In 1953 the Rector, Chad Varah, set up this telephone in the vestry as a hot line for the depressed and suicidal. This grew into the organisation now known as The Samaritans, with 203 branches across the country, and in 1974 Varah founded Befrienders International in the church, to link the 350 branches which exist in 41 countries.

The walls are covered with memorials, the most notable of which is an early twentieth century plaque to John Dunstable, set up by a Company of Musicians. Dr Nathaniel Hodges also has a memorial. He was a brave physician who refused to flee the Great Plague of 1665, staying in London to treat the afflicted. He was buried here in 1688.These, in my opinion, highlight the curious fact that St Stephen’s most famous interment currently lacks a memorial. The playwright and architect Sir John Vanbrugh was buried in a family vault inside St Stephens in 1726, his original epitaph amusingly reading ‘Lie heavy on him, earth, for he laid many heavy loads on thee!’ This reflects the grand Palladian style of Vanbrugh, which is best seen today with his famous works Castle Howard and Blenheim Palace. The epitaph has since disappeared, probably during one of the refittings, and it seems a shame to me that the man who created Blenheim – itself now a World Heritage Site – should be in want of a monument of his own.

In essence, then, from the outside St Stephens Walbrook seems a typical Wren church, but for those with an eye for architecture the interior is a rare treat. Even those who do not concern themselves with the niceties of baroque and classicism will realise quickly that the interior is something very special. I find it impossible these days to actually walk past the building… no matter how often I visit it, St Stephen’s Walbrook never fails to inspire!

Author Mark McManus

Navigate for more: Temple Church St Sepulchre

‘When will you pay me, say the Bells of Old Bailey’

The City of London’s largest parish church, this was dedicated to St Edmund the King at its earliest recorded mention in 1137, but later became the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or St Sepulchre-without-Newgate. This is because it sits just outside the City walls, like the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, and the similarity was not lost on the Crusaders who prayed at the church before journeying to the Holy Land. Its status as the City’s largest church is due to its siting – more room was available to build here than existed within the crowded confines of the walls. The benefice belonged, in 1137, to the Prior of St Bartholomews, Rahere, but he granted it to Hagno the Clerk.

This early church was rebuilt in the middle of the fifteenth century, although Stow cannot be clear if the King at the time was Henry VI or Edward IV as the Wars of the Roses were raging. Much of the medieval fabric is still visible. Although the walls, tower and vaulted porch survive from this period, the rest of the church was gutted by the Great Fire; an unfortunate circumstance, as the Fire stopped only a few yards beyond the building. Around the corner, in Giltspur Street, can be found the effigy of a slightly obese boy, marking the spot where the Fire burned itself out. The statue’s portliness represents Gluttony, the sin for which many believed the City was destroyed. Rebuilt in the 1670’s by architects unknown, the layout was altered twice during the nineteenth century and the roof in 1932, making St Sepulchres today a mixture of styles.

The social history of the Church is dark, thanks principally to the presence of Newgate Prison just across the road, sited where the Old Bailey now stands. A tall, dark brick wall can be seen around the corner in Amen Court, and this is the last remaining section of the Prison. Sir Thomas Malory would have heard the bells pealing as he sat in his cell during the 1480’s, writing ‘Le Morte D’Arthur. However, St Sepulchre’s earliest notoriety is due to its Rector in Tudor times, the celebrated John Rogers. He helped William Tyndale translate the Bible into English during the Reformation. However, at the counter-Reformation, he was tried for heresy in the church which is now Southwark Cathedral, and consequently earned the dubious distinction of being the first Protestant Martyr of Mary I’s reign, being burned at Smithfield in 1555.

Condemned prisoners held at Newgate were originally transported to Tyburn, now the site of Marble Arch, and condemned highwaymen were presented with a nosegay at the Church door – but later the scaffold was erected in the wide street outside the Prison itself, large enough to hang 12 at once. The bells in the Church’s tower (the bells of Old Bailey) started to peal dolefully at 8 o’ clock in the morning, as the unfortunates were led to their doom. This tradition was paid for in 1605 by a Robert Dowe, who also paid for another service to be carried out the previous night. This consisted of a handbell, rung outside the condemned cells at midnight, twelve double strokes accompanied with the words:
‘All you that in the condemned hold do lie, Prepare you, for tomorrow you shall die; Watch all and pray, the hour is drawing near, That you before the Almighty must appear; Examine well yourselves, in time repent, That you may not to eternal flames be sent: And when St Sepulchre’s bell tomorrow tolls, The Lord above have mercy on your souls. Past twelve o’ clock!’
Presumably Dowe granted this legacy in an attempt to save souls, yet one cannot help but wonder if there was a hint of pious sadism involved. This custom continued for a century and a half.

In The Rawlinson MSS exists this curious excerpt regarding a murder mystery uncovered at St Sepulchre: “Dr. Airy, Provost of Queen’s College, Oxon (1599-1616), passing, with his servant, accidentally through St. Sepulchre’s Church-yard: (Holborn Viaduct now almost covers this spot), where the sexton was making a grave, observing a skull to move, showed it to his servant and then to the sexton, who, taking it up, found a great toad in it; but withal observed a tenpenny nail stuck in the temple bone, whereupon the doctor presently imagined the party to have been murdered, and asked the sexton if he remembered whose skull it was. He answered it was the skull of a man who died suddenly, and had been buried twenty-two years before. The doctor told him that certainly the man was murdered, and that it was fitting to be inquired after, and so departed. The sexton thinking much upon it remembered some particular stories talked of at the death of the party, as that his wife, then alive, and married to another person, had been seen to go into his chamber with a nail and hammer, whereupon he went to a justice of the peace, and told him all the story. The wife was sent for, and witnesses were found who testified that and some other particulars. She confessed, and was hanged.”

Newgate Prison was demolished in 1902, and the widening of Holborn Viaduct carried away much of the churchyard on the southern side. Today this patch of land is dominated by a memorial to the Royal Fusiliers, and a watchtower which was originally erected to prevent grave-robbing.

Through the entrance and a vestibule, the visitor comes upon an interior described by Betjeman as ‘a forest of tall pillars’, which suggests the size of the building. The font and organ both date to 1670, the year the church re-opened after the Fire, and the twin pulpits date to 1854.

On the north side of the church can be found a chapel, originally dedicated to St Stephen Harding. The scholar Roger Ascham, tutor to Elizabeth Tudor and Lady Jane Grey, was buried here in 1568. Henry Wood learned to play the organ in this chapel and, at the age of 14, was appointed Assistant Organist. Best known as the founder of the Promenade Concerts, Wood’s ashes were interred in the Chapel in 1944 and, every year on the Last Night Of The Proms, the wreath that adorns his bust at the Albert Hall is brought here to his grave. It is now the Musician’s Chapel, and a window shows images of Wood as a boy and a man. A case contains a Musician’s Book Of Remembrance, and in the north are the remains of what is believed to be an Easter Sepulchre.

Crossing to the south-east of the nave, a glass case on a pillar contains the very handbell that used to make condemned prisoners’ last nights even more fraught. Nearby in the south aisle are the chapel of the Royal Fusiliers, whose City of London regiment still hold Remembrance Day services in the church, and a medieval piscina which appears darkened by fire damage, probably from the 1666 inferno. A brass plaque in this aisle marks the resting place of Captain John Smith, his 1631 epitaph reading ‘Here lies one conquer’d who hath conquer’d kings’. Although he became President of the Council of Virginia and Admiral of New England, Smith is best known for having his life saved in 1607 by Princess Pocahontas. In recent times he has been portrayed by Mel Gibson in Disney’s ‘Pocahontas’, and will return in 2005 as Colin Farrell in ‘The New World’. A window of 1968 commemorates him, showing him surrounded by navigational instruments and above the three ships in which the pioneers crossd the Atlantic.

In essence, then, St Sepulchre retains an air of medieval grandeur and mystery above the busy thoroughfare of Holborn Viaduct. Its presence opposite the Old Bailey recalls its long association with the country’s foremost bastion of justice and, although the bells are no longer rung for the guilty, their mentions by Shakespeare, Dickens and the nursery rhyme have ensured their immortality!

Author Mark McManus 

Navigate for more: St Stephen Wallbrook St Saviours Southwark

Southwark began as a Roman settlement, situated at a junction of roads leading to the south bank of the Thames and the bridge into Londinium. Several London Bridges have now occupied this site, and plans are afoot to open a museum celebrating the earliest principal route into the City. The museum will be the latest among many developments over the past two decades, that have seen the South Bank from Southwark to Westminster become, after centuries in the shadow of the great City, a vivid and colourful part of the metropolis.

Perhaps because of Southwark’s lack of status in former times, its most important church has been overlooked and overshadowed by local development – it is hemmed in by roads, railways and huddled wharfside buildings. The best view is actually from the Thames’ northern bank, although its most famous historic representation sees it dominating the foreground of the famous 1614 engraving by Visscher. The earliest mention of religious activity on the site comes from the Domesday Book which mentions a ‘monasterium’ of which little is known, although Saxon foundations have been recovered during archaeological exploration.

The site’s proper recorded history begins in 1106. Falling under the diocese of Winchester (which covered a huge swathe of Southern England at the time), it was refounded by the then Bishop of Winchester, William Giffard, as the Priory Church of St Marie. It became more informally known as St Marie Over-The-River (meaning over the river from the City), and later during the medieval period the name gradually truncated to St Marie Overie. It was an Augustinian foundation, but perhaps fate would have been kinder if it had been Benedictine for, on St Benedict’s Day 1212, much of it burned down – the first of several fires that were to afflict it over the centuries. Repairs in the Early English style were carried out under Winchester’s Bishop Peter Des Roches. Winchester Palace, the London residence of the Bishop, stood close by and the Bishops were to remain responsible for repairs. This Gothic Priory entertained poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer and John Gower, the first associations with poets that would extend and grow stronger in the later Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. More important structural changes occurred in 1420 when the powerful Cardinal Beaufort, a relative of royalty, heightened the tower and restored transepts and chapels.

At the Dissolution in 1539, the Priory was surrendered with little fuss. The hospital buildings to the north were refounded as St Thomas Hospital and the remainder passed to Sir Anthony Browne, Master of the King’s Horse. He appeared to have little interest in the defunct Priory other than a convenient base near London – after all, he had also inherited the more distinguished Battle Abbey – and he sublet the Priory Church to local tradesmen. Thus the former Priory of St Marie Overie became the Parish Church of St Saviour’s.

The area was seeing other changes. Winchester Diocese was doing very nicely out of leasing its riverside land in Southwark, but this land was being used for the sort of insalubrious activities associated with most of the Liberties surrounding the City. Brothels, known as ‘stews’, were proliferating, prisons such as the Marshalsea were lurking nearby, and areas of public entertainment such as the Bear Garden were drawing rowdy audiences. An enterprising businessman named Philip Henslowe opened a theatre which he called The Rose. The church authorities condemned the playhouses, but were won over by charitable donations from the theatre box office. The association of St Saviours with Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre had begun, taking its place as the Actors’ Church, the South Bank equivalent of St Leonard Shoreditch and preceding the later Jacobean St Paul Covent Garden. Henslowe and his son-in-law, the great actor Edward Alleyn, became churchwardens of St Saviours and the builder of the Rose is today buried in an unmarked spot somewhere in the church precints. Much of the church’s importance during Jacobean times can be seen from a perambulation of the site, of which more later.

By 1830, the playhouses long gone, the area had once more become neglected. St Saviours was once again in disrepair, and the construction of a new London Bridge threatened its existence. Its ratepayers voted for its demolition but it was saved by the energies of the architects George Gwilt and Henry Rose, who completed major repairs which, although slated by the neo-Gothic architect Pugin, restored the fabric of the building that now stands today.

Despite the saving of Saviours, Southwark remained an unhealthy area, described grimly by Dickens and Booth. Winchester was too remote to be able to cope adequately with the area’s social problems, and responsibility was briefly passed to the Diocese of Rochester before the proposal rose for a new Diocese of Southwark. The idea received eager support and the nave was spruced up in preparation for the building’s coming change in status. 1905 saw the passing of the Bill creating the new Diocese and this surely must have been the proudest and most triumphant year of the site’s history. After facing destruction by fire, Dissolution and Regency period lethargy, St Saviours now emerged as Southwark Cathedral. It now had collegiate status and its own Bishop, the first being Bishop Talbot of Rochester. New buildings have been constructed on the Cathedral’s north side, reflecting the regeneration of the Southwark waterfront that has also seen the rebuilding of The Globe theatre and the opening of the Tate Modern. It is the building most used by the Archbishop of Canterbury to enthrone new Bishops, and is the Anglican mother church as far south as Gatwick Airport.

A tour of Southwark Cathedral takes in virtually every aspect of the site’s history, and begins at the SW door. The late Victorian nave to the visitor’s right was constructed on the foundations of the original and has roughly the same proportions. However, the real Glory of the Cathedral lies not in its capaciousness but its wealth of smaller, more personal details. Directly to the right of the entrance is a stretch of arcading, the oldest part of the building, as this is Norman work dating back to the first priory of St Marie. On the other side of the nave can be seen an arch and a doorway from the same period, and the Victorian arcading faithfully follows the pattern of this early fabric. Other notable sculpture at this west end are medieval roof boses, displayed along the wall, and a lovely canopied font. A memorial tablet here, shaped like a ship’s wheel, recalls a local and recent tragedy. On an August evening in 1991, within sight of the Cathedral, the dredger Bow Belle collided with the pleasure craft Marchioness, causing the loss of 51 lives.

Ambling along the south aisle of the nave, one comes across the most impressive of all memorials to a certain Mr W Shakespeare, a wonderful sculpture showing the poet in repose, with images of St Saviours, Winchester Palace and the theatres Rose and Globe behing him. Above the memorial is a stained glass window depicting characters from his plays, and a visual representation of the famous Seven Ages Of Man speech from As You Like It. Right next to it, touchingly placed, is a memorial to the actor Sam Wanamaker who contributed a great deal to the area’s current popularity by campaigning for many years for The Globe to be rebuilt. It is fitting that his memorial should be next to Shakespeare, perhaps representing the new and the old, the historic and modern Globe theatres. A plaque opposite these memorials remembers Wenceslas Hollar, the 17th century engraver. Although he was buried at St Margarets Westminster and also has a small memorial there, Hollar is commemorated here because of his engravings of Bankside and the Thames, images which were sketched in 1638 from the top of the tower.

The south transept, like its equivalent in the north, is practically a small museum of memorialarchitecture, showing varied and colourful styles of remembrance. The most impressive is a painted bust of Thomas Jones, a chaplain of St Saviours and a founder of the Royal Academy. Also commemorated in this transept are John Bingham, saddler to Elizabeth I and James I, and Isabella Gilmore, who was Head Deaconess and sister of the artist William Morris. The organ case is here and so is a blocked entrance to a now demolished chapel, notable for the Plantagenet arms of Cardinal Beaufort who constructed the chapel in 1426.

Moving into the south choir aisle, one sees the first connection to an Shakespeare-era actor: Richard Benefield, a lawyer cousin of one Robert Ben(e)field, a player whose name appears on the First Folio of the Bard’s work and also in the cast list for John Webster’s most celebrated play The Duchess of Malfi. Set in the floor here are some Roman tesserae, a reminder that the antiquary of this site matches that of the City across the river. A cenotaph tomb to the first Bishop of Southwark, Bishop Talbot, is here, and so is the proper tomb of one of the most celebrated Bishops of Winchester: Lancelot Andrewes. He was an extremely learned man, holding no less than three important Bishoprics during his life and apparently mastering twenty-one languages! He was part of the team that translated the Bible for King James’ Authorised version and is personally credited with translating the five books of Moses. A further monument here, designed by John Soane whose greatest triumph was the Bank of England, is that of Abraham Newland, the Bank’s Chief Cashier who oversaw the first issue of the one pound note.

The retrochoir, at the end of the aisle and the east end of the building, contains a series of chapels and is the oldest intact part of the building, dating to te rebuild of 1215 that followed the fire which devastated the Norman Priory. Heresy trials, presided over by Bishop Gardiner, took place here during Mary Tudor’s reign and many prominent martyrs were condemned on this spot. Even today, the retrochoir has a dark and haunting quality.

In the north choir aisle are a series of monuments that differ in style from those on the south, due to their European quality – they were locally designed by immigrants from Germany and Flanders, and of are impeccable quality – the best being to Richard Humble and John Trehearne, two of the so-called ‘Bargainers’ who purchased the church for the parish. Also here is the entrance to the Harvard Chapel, named after the founder of the famous US university, John Harvard who was baptised in St Saviours in 1607.

Move into the chancel, dominated by a Great Screen dating from 1520 and containing three bands of statuary.Here on the floor are tablets commemorating three notable figures of the Southwark Playhouse heyday, all of whom were buried here.The first – and least celebrated – is Edmond Shakespeare, younger brother of the playwright and a fellow actor, who died in 1607. Next is John Fletcher, a prolific dramatist who collaborated with Shakespeare on Henry VIII and succeeded him as chief playwright of The Globe. He died in 1625, and the third slab commemorates Philip Massinger, another collaborative Jacobean playwright who had a hand in 55 plays. He succeeded Fletcher and died in 1640. One of the famous comedians of the Elizabethan stage, Will Kempe (who once Morris-danced from London to Norwich then published a pamphlet about his exploit) may also have been buried here, as he disappears from the historical record around the same time in 1603 that a record in the Burial Register mentions ‘Kempe, a man’.

The north transept is a century older than the south and is also full of monuments, the most interesting being the reclining figure of Lionel Lockyer, a local quack who was buried here in 1627. The amusing epitaph praises the pills he sold, which were reputed to have contained sunlight. Judging by the size of his monument, those pills must have sold extremely well.

The windows of the north aisle commemorate historic figures who have been connected with the parish at some time. One of them, Alexander Cruden, wrote a Concordance to accompany King James Bible, and his work is still used today. He is buried somewhere in the grounds. Another, John Gower, has a tomb in this aisle: he was the earliest court poet, serving Richard II before jumping on board with Henry IV when he sensed which way the wind was blowing. He wrote a collection of verse called Confessio Amantis, which influenced his contemporary Chaucer (who dedicated his Troylus and Criseyde) to Gower, and Shakespeare who had Gower appear in the prologue of Pericles.

The door in this aisle leads to a corridor separating the church from the new buildings of its annexe. Named Lancelot’s Link in honour of Bishop Andrewes, it is paved with the names of churches in the Southwark Diocese. At the east end of the Link, and very easy to miss, is an archaeological display, showing a trench dug by the side of the church’s north-eastern corner. This trench falls through the ages, showing road surfaces of the last few centuries, a 17th century kiln, the foundations of the Saxon minster and, right at the bottom, the surface of the Roman road that led to London Bridge. Two thousand years of history in a single pit.

The visitor to Southwark has a choice after leaving the church. Head east, across the road to visit the dark attractions of the London Dungeon. Or head west, through ancient Southwark, still atmospheric despite the tourist revival. The replica of Golden Hinde is here, the Clink Prison museum, the grey remains of Winchester Palace, the rebuilt glory of the Globe and the towering walls of Tate Modern – the area that saw the first performances of some of the greatest literature of the Renaissance. Even the old name, St Saviours Southwark, hisses with sibilants that an alliterative poet would appreciate. No more is it a decaying, half-forgotten edifice in an untidy and unhealthy area. A true example of resilience and antiquity, St Saviours has emerged from centuries of uncertainty to become the great survivor in one of the most vibrant areas of London

 Author Mark McManus

Navigate for more: St Sepulchre St Pauls Covent Garden

In the 1630’s, the King’s Surveyor of Works was Inigo Jones, and he was commissioned by Francis Russell, 4th Earl of Bedford, to build London’s first planned residential square on the site of what was once the ‘convent garden’ of the Abbey of St Paul’s. Jones, a follower of the neo-Classical architect Palladio, modelled the new ‘Covent Garden’ piazza on Livorno in Italy. During the Restoration years, the piazza became the most fashionable place to live in London, before the coming of the fruit and vegetable market. The Theatre Royal, around the corner in Drury Lane, was constructed and the area became a magnet for performers just as Shoreditch and Southwark had done in late Elizabethan times.

Russell knew that if he were to attract the great and the good to his flash new piazza, he would have to erect a church for them; however, he was mindful of the cost, and warned Jones: ‘I would not have it much better than a barn.’
‘Well then,’ the architect responded, ‘You shall have the handsomest barn in England!’

Built between 1631-33 yet not consecrated until 1638, the church was a simple oblong, towerless, with an overhanging roof and tall arched windows. At the east end, overlooking the piazza, Jones designed an outstanding Tuscan portico with two square and two round columns. He intended this to be the main entrance so, to allow for this, he attempted the unorthodox approach of placing the altar at the east end of the church. This arrangement, however, was disallowed by the Archbishop William Laud, so Jones moved the altar to the east end but kept his Tuscan facade as a false entrance. The proper entrance is now at the west end of the church. Both founder and architect are remembered in local street names: the address of the church is Bedford Street, and it’s western approach is Inigo Place, apparently once the site of an Eleanor Cross.

The second great rise of the theatre, in Restoration years, saw the area at its zenith and St Paul’s took over from St Leonard’s Shoreditch as the ‘Actor’s Church’. Samuel Pepys was a regular visitor and his Diary records his ecstasy at visiting the dressing room of the Theatre Royal and meeting Nell Gwynne face to face. He also records watching, in the shelter of St Paul’s Tuscan portico, the first ever Punch and Judy show. This is another of those touching examples of historical continuity; any visitor to this vibrant part of London today can still see the street performers strutting their stuff under Inigo Jones’s impressive construction. [It is worthy of note that Pepys, an ardent theatregoer, was not much of a critic. Twelfth Night? ‘One of the weakest plays that ever I saw on stage.’ Romeo & Juliet? ‘The play of itself the worst that ever I heard in my life.’ On the other hand, he was quite fond of Hamlet!]

I approached St Paul’s from the west, through a churchyard landscaped with rose bushes, and stopped to admire the red-brick facade, so utterly different from the grey, towering portico on the east, yet somehow a lot more welcoming. The church interior is now different from Inigo’s original design, thanks to careless workmen causing a serious fire in 1795. Although it was redesigned close to the original, this was changed in 1870 by William Butterfield, who removed the galleries on the north and south and raised the east end to make the altar more prominent.

The most striking feature of St Paul’s interior is the wood panelling, the most important of which is a 17th century carving by Grinling Gibbons on the west screen, an image – and monument to – Inigo Jones. The rest of the panelling is adorned with memorials to actors who, although not buried here, had their memorial services held here. Not for nothing is this the Actor’s Church. Charlie Chaplin, Hattie Jacques, Vivien Leigh, many others. On the south wall can be seen an urn. This holds the ashes of Ellen Terry, whose home at Smallhythe Place was recently the site of a Cantiaci visit. St Paul’s was one of many churches I visited on this day, and it was the one where I performed my good deed for the day. An elderly gentleman was tuning the piano, and lacked the strength to replace the piano lid. Yours truly flexed his feeble muscles, and managed to perform the task without crushing any fingers.

Although their tombs are long gone, swept away by Victorian zeal, the bones of many known figures rest in the churchyard and the crypt:

*Claude Duvall, the original gentleman highwayman, 1670.

*Sir Peter Lely, Court painter, 1680.

*Samuel Butler, author of the burlesque satire ‘Hudibras’.

*Edward ‘Ned’ Kynaston, actor who was the main character in the recently released comedy film ‘Stage Beauty’, 1706.

*William Wycherley, poet and dramatist, 1716.

*Grinling Gibbons, Wren’s master woodcarver whose astonishing work can be found in many churches, including this one, 1721.

*Dr Thomas Arne, whose home is marked by a blue plaque just around the corner, 1778. He gave us the patriotic words that everyone knows: ‘Rule Brittania, Brittania rule the waves. Britons never never never shall be slaves!’

So if ever you visit Covent Garden, as I often do, and buy a hot potato from one of the local outlets before sitting in St Pauls Churchyard to eat ( while being bothered by hopeful pigeons), listen to the distant noises of the street performers on the other side of the building, the rhetoric of the actors, the laughter of the assembled crowd, and recall that these ragamuffins under Inigo Jones’s great portico are continuing a tradition that began a third of a millenium ago!

Author Mark McManus

Navigate for more: St Saviours Southwark St Pancras Old and New

When I visit London, and disembark at Fenchurch Street Station, so long as I’m not in a hurry I try to step round the corner to the nearest church, St Olaves which stands at the corner of Hart Street and Seething Lane. I’ve visited it many times, and hope to visit it many more. Despite all its splendid rivals, this small and unassuming building is my favourite of the London Churches.

At first glance, it has little to catch the eye. It’s medieval, built circa 1450, has a small tower of the seventeenth century, survived the 1666 Fire, and its external walls are something of a patchwork due to repairs made necessary by wartime bombing which gutted the building. So what is special about it?

The first thing the visitor should do is walk around the side of the church, to the churchyard with its entrance in Seething Lane. Betjeman described this building as ‘a country church in the world of Seething Lane’, with ‘a real churchyard not got up as a garden of rest’. He was correct: unlike most City churchyards, this one is small and surprisingly rustic. The ground is elevated, due to thousands of burials and a plague pit, so elevated that steps actually lead down to the old south entrance. An oblique line scars the exterior of the building, the last vestiges of a stair which once led to a gallery pew that was reserved for staff from the Admiralty offices in Seething Lane. In this quiet ground are interred Mary Ramsay, reputedly the woman who brought the Plague to London, and an eccentric Elizabethan known as ‘Mother Goose’. This woman used to knit little boots for her geese so that their feet wouldn’t get sore as they were herded to market. The 1658 arch over the churchyard’s entrance is crowned with a cluster of skulls, a Memento Mori carved from the stone, and it bears a Latin inscription which translates as ‘death is a light to me’. Charles Dickens was much taken with this. In his ‘Commercial Traveller’, he referred to it as the church of ‘St Ghastly Grim’, and wrote of ‘…a small small churchyard, with a ferocious strong spiked iron gate, like a jail. This gate is ornamented with skulls and cross bones, larger than life wrought in stone.’ After a century and a half, his description is still accurate.

Through the north entrance in Hart Street, one enters a small vestibule before stepping into the church proper. Now it is possible to see why it is special. Following the wartime damage, the interior was lovingly restored, and the small building gives an almost palpable feeling of intimacy. The walls hold many colourful monuments from the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods, all in excellent condition despite the damage the church sustained in 1941, and all worthy of examination and admiration. It is clerestoried, with north and south aisles of three bays. There is modern stained glass but, unlike some other churches which have been cast into gloom by this form of decoration, St Olave’s maintains brightness. The pulpit is 17th century, originally came from the now destroyed St Benet’s Gracechurch and may be a Gibbons work, and there are swordrests and Communion rails which date to the same period.

However, despite its ingrained sense of intimacy, there is one other aspect of St Olave’s which adds to its atmosphere, and that is its most important historic connection: the parishioner Samuel Pepys. If ghosts really exist, then the spirit of this colourful Restoration figure surely blesses the church with his presence.
Pepys lived and worked for the Admiralty, and he lived in Seething Lane. The site of his home is now a small garden adorned with a bust of the Diarist. He would dutifully visit the church on Sundays, strolling with other Admiralty staff up the steps that led to the Gallery on the south wall. The sermons did not always please him, he is honest enough in his Diaries to admit that he sometimes slept soundly through them.
Although he also admitted impure thoughts about his maid, and had an affair with his wife’s best friend, there is little doubt that he thought the world of his spouse Elizabeth. She died in 1669 at a sadly young age, but Samuel ensured that her memory would continue. After her burial in a vault below the altar, he commissioned the sculptor John Bushnell – who was known for carving figures in animated poses, for example in conversation – to carve a bust which now adorns the wall high over the Sanctuary. Pepys died in 1703 and was also interred below the altar.

And this is what I mean by intimacy. Why is the bust set so high? Stand against the south wall of the church. Directly above your head is a memorial to the Diarist, set where the Admiralty pews were once fixed. This is where Pepys would have sat.
And now see what he would have seen. Every Sunday, when he sat in that pew, he would have been able to gaze across the church straight into the eyes of his much-mourned Elizabeth. When I first noticed this, I smiled to realise that such affection could still be traced after three centuries, and I could almost feel the ghost of Samuel Pepys standing at my shoulder and saying, “Yes, I know, I’m a sentimental fool!”

But it won’t be Pepys I finish with, it’ll be Dickens, and his own amusing anecdote:
“I once felt drawn to it in a thunderstorm at midnight. ‘Why not?’ I said, in self-excuse, ‘ I have been to the Colosseum by the light of the moon; is it worse to go and see St Ghastly Grim by the light of lightning?’ I repaired to the Saint in a hackney cab and found the skulls most effective, having the air of a public execution and seeming, as the lightning flashed, to wink and grin with the pain of the spikes. Having no other person to whom to impart my satisfaction I communicated it to the driver. So far from being responsive, he surveyed me – he was naturally a bottle-nosed, red-faced man – with a blanched countenance. And as he drove me back, he ever and again glanced in over his shoulder through the little front window of his carriage, as mistrusting that I was a fare originally from a grave, in the churchyard of St Ghastly Grim, who might have flitted home again without paying.”

Author Mark McManus

Navigate for more: St Pancras Old and New St Michael Cornhill

‘I do not know, say the Great bells of Bow’

The bells of Bow are indeed famous, and not just because of the song. They are the bells that called back Dick Whittington, they were used during the Second World War by the BBC as a signal for those secretly listening abroad, and legend tells that any born within their sound is a Cockney. A more recent theory suggests that the expression ‘within the sound of Bow Bells’ may actually refer to the area between this church and Bow Church in the East End. Given the fact that Cockneys are associated with East London, this theory may well be correct.

The church dates from 1087, and was originally called St Mary New Church, to differentiate it from the nearby Aldermary. Its Norman crypt dates from this time and is the source of its present name. ‘Bows’ are the arches in the vaulted crypt and the ecclesiastic court, known as the Court of Arches, is held here. The history of the Church is somewhat chequered. Stow writes of ‘divers accidents’ which caused the church to be ‘more famous than any other parish church’.

St Mary’s brushes with infamy began early. In 1090 a tempest lifted the roof and dropped it into the street, causing fatalities. In 1196 a seditious tailor named William Fitz Osbert, along with several accomplices, barricaded himself into the steeple. He fortified his position with munitions and victuals, but the steeple was stormed and he was captured, later hanged at Smithfield. In 1271 part of this steeple collapsed, causing more fatalities. Thirteen years later, a goldsmith named Laurence Ducket sought sanctuary in the church after wounding a Ralph Crepin. Unfortunately, the angry Crepin and some of his friends violated the ancient law by entering the church and dispatching the unfortunate Ducket. This crime led to sixteen men being hanged, drawn and quartered, and one woman – apparently the cause of the mischief – being burned at the stake. For a while the church was interdicted, its doors and windows ritually stopped up with thorns.

It was open again by 1331, when festivities were held in Cheapside to commemorate the birth of the man later known as the Black Prince. A balcony was constructed outside the church for the comfort of Queen Phillippa and her ladies in waiting. Somewhat predictably, given the building’s history, the balcony collapsed. The Queen was injured but survived.

In 1469 it was ordained that the bells should be rung nightly at 9 o’ clock, and local apprentices wrote a poem to the Clerk of the church: ‘Clarke of the Bow bell with the yellow lockes, for thy late ringing thy head shall have knocks’. The Clerke responded ‘ Children of Cheap, hold you all still, for you shall have the Bow bell rung at your will’.

Wren rebuilt the tower and steeple following the Great Fire, and he must have done a good job as it hasn’t collapsed since, not even after wartime bombing which left little but the tower and the crypt. The postwar rebuild was by Laurence King.

I visited St Mary in the company of Pete G. The churchyard is paved, and contains a statue of parishioner John Smith (of Pocahontas fame). Milton is commemorated by a plaque, as he was born in adjacent Bread Street.

The interior is bright and colourful, lots of white and gold, but also greeen and pale blue in the ceiling. The crypt is a famous vegetarian cafe and the pulpit has been used for lunchtime ‘dialogues’. Trevor McDonald, Jeffrey Archer and Dame Diana Rigg have all been ‘on the spot’ here. Noticeable are a throne for the Bishop of London, a bust of Admiral Phillip who was born nearby and founded Australia, and the carved heads above the aisle supports which are of fairly recent benefactors. On Sundays, the church is used by the St Thomas Syrian Orthodox Church.

Not by Cockneys!

Author Mark McManus 

Navigate for more: St Michael Cornhill St Mary Aldermanbury