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. Buried here in 1623 was Nicholas Tooley, a fellow actor and one of the sponsors of the 'First Folio'.

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. The Elizabethan author Thomas Deloney came to rest here in 1600, and was followed by the composer Giles Farnaby in 1640.

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!'

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. No memorials remain of the other historic figures who were laid to rest here, such as the playwrights Thomas Otway (1685) and Mary Pix (1709), the actors John Lowin (1659)and William Mountfort (1692), the engraver Samuel Buck (1779) and the chronicler Thomas Rymer (1713). In an extra ground in nearby Portugal Street, now disappeared beneath a College, were buried the playwright Nathaniel Lee (1692) and the comedian Joe Miller (1738).

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. A chair, donated by Douglas Bader in memory of his wife, can be found near the chancel.

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!

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. Also resting here, anonymously, are the almost-forgotten playwright George Lillo and the preacher Samuel Annesley, grandfather of John Wesley.

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 - I failed to find, although they are supposed to be in the porch. 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 has undergone 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...

All Hallows By The Tower

Barking Abbey, the remains of which can still be seen, was founded by Erkenwald in the year 666. Owning land on the eastern edge of the City, the Abbey constructed the Saxon church of All Hallows Berkyngechirche on Tower Hill in 675. Over the centuries, the name mutated to All Hallows Barking.

The exterior of the building is quite large and imposing, but its different architectural styles bring attention to its historic troubles: medieval masonry dominated by the brown brickwork of the post-Blitz restoration, its tower of 1659 being a rare example of a Cromwellian rebuild.

Despite the somewhat forbidding exterior, the inside of the church is a spacious and light surprise. This is due mostly to Lord Mottistone's post-WWII rebuild, which replaced the previously gloomy Norman nave with concrete and stone, blending well with the medieval work of the aisles with a grace that the cluttered exterior can only dream off. The plain east window allows light to flood into the church, and the glass placed in the recently reopened southern entrance also helps to maintain this airy atmosphere.

All Hallows is eager to tell its story. As you first step in through the main entrance in Great Tower Street, you are greeted by a large facsimile showing Vischer's famous engraving of pre-Great Fire London seen from the South Bank, and a gift shop which is the largest I've seen in a City church. This is probably due to a greater amount of visitors than is usual, tourist overflow from the nearby Tower. A good selection of historic books can be purchased, displayed in glass cabinets... and All Hallows is certainly not short of history. Its proximity to Tower Hill obliged it to be the temporary resting place of various victims of the axe, such as Sir Thomas More (1535), Bishop John Fisher (1535),Henry Howard Earl of Surrey (1547), and Archbishop William Laud (1647). These notable bodies have all since been re-interred elsewhere, with the probable exception of their heads.

On Wednesday 5th September 1666, the recently rebuilt church tower received a visitor from adjacent Seething Lane, one Samuel Pepys, whose Diary records, 'I up to the top of Barking Steeple, and there saw the saddest sight of desolation that I ever saw. Everywhere great fires, the fire being spread so far as I could see it.' He was looking west; Sir William Penn of the Admiralty, father of the founder of Pennsylvania, saved All Hallows from the conflagration by ordering an intervening row of houses to be blown up, thus creating a fire-break. The irrepressible Diarist, never one to let a local apocalypse ruin his appetite, wrote, 'to Sir W Penn's, and there eat a piece of cold meat, having eaten nothing since Sunday but the remains of Sunday's dinner.'

All Hallows' connection with notable figures is impressive. Apart from the short-lived interments mentioned, it was also host to the baptisms of Lancelot Andrewes, the Bishop who helped prepare the Authorized Version of the Bible for James I, and William Penn Jnr. Weddings included the notorious Judge George Jeffreys and John Quincey Adams, who became the 6th U.S. President.

Many of the church's registers survived the ravages of the Reformation by being hidden in a lead cistern in the tower, and they were not discovered until 1923. These records include various plague entries, a mention of the Gunpowder plot, and names Penn, Quincey Adams and Laud in the register of baptisms, marriages and burials. They are the only unbroken record of events on Tower Hill in the sixteenth century.

In the 20th Century the incumbent, Revd Philip Clayton, made two important contributions to the history of the church. He founded the international movement called 'Toc H', which promotes the spirit of war-time camaraderie through Christian fellowship, and he also changed the name, removing the obsolete Barking ( the Abbey had been dissolved since 1536) and replacing it with the more practical By The Tower. The parish Bounds are still ritually 'beaten' on Ascension Day, which involves a boat trip as part of the boundary is on the Thames, and sometimes a mock 'clash' with Beefeaters beating the Bounds of the Tower of London. Most of the churchyard, crowded as the above picture shows, was cleared in recent years so that the area could be re-developed.

Many historical treasures are displayed in the church. The canopy tomb of Alderman John Croke (1477) was destroyed in the 1940 air raid and reconstructed from over 150 fragments. Today it holds a bronze casket containing the Lamp of Maintenance of Toc H. There are seventeen brasses, the earliest being that of William Tongue of 1389. The wonderful font cover, depicting cherubs and vines, was carved by master woodworker Grinling Gibbons in 1682 for £12, and a triptych of c1500, known as the Tate panel after the benefactor who commisioned it, shows the figures of St Joseph, St John the Baptist, St Jerome, St Ambrose and Tate himself kneeling in prayer! One example of survival is the pulpit, originally from the church of St Swithins London Stone, pulled from the rubble after it was completely demolished in the Blitz.

The Undercroft is a museum in its own right. It contains an in-situ Roman tessellated pavement from a 2nd century house on the site, and a Saxon archway from the original church which was rediscovered after the Blitz. There are three chapels, one of which - dedicated to St Francis - was once a crypt of c1280 which managed to get lost for three centuries before rediscovery in 1925. A small neighbouring oratory, dedicated to St Clare, has a 'squint' through which services could have been observed. There are models of Roman tombstones, a model of Londinium made in 1928 and sadly dated ( no amphitheatre!), archives dating back to the year of the Armada (1588), the burial pit in which Laud once rested, and small artefacts from the Roman and Saxon periods.

Overall, the Church is a marvellous surprise to the unwary. One could spend a couple of hours there, gazing at the relics of two thousand years of history. It was standing for 400 years before the neighbouring Tower was even started, and the Londinium relics date back even further. It's also cheaper than the Tower, asking only for donations and a small fee for the Undercroft!

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!

St Andrew Undershaft

At the start of the new Millennium, after centuries of obselescence, St Andrew's suffix has now gained new meaning, as it stands today in the shadow of the soaring Swiss RE building, more colloquially known as the Gherkin. Originally, however, the name had a different meaning.

The history of the site may extend as far back as Saxon times, and it has previously been known as St Andrew Cornhill, St Andrew juxta Aldgate and plain St Andrew the Apostle. The name Undershaft appeared in the 15th Century due to a custom that took place in the street nearby - the erection every year of a large maypole. This custom was described by Chaucer in his typically dense Middle English:
'Right well aloft, and high ye beare your heade
The weather cocke, with flying, as ye would kill
When ye be stuffed, bet of wine then brede
Then looke ye, when your wombe doth fill
As ye would beare the great shaft of Cornehill
Lord, so merrily crowdeth then your croke
That all the streete may heare your body cloke.'

This tradition was suspended in 1517 after the so-called 'Evil Mayday', when City apprentices rose in riot against foreigners. Clearly the authorities did not wish any more public gatherings on this particular day. The maypole was hung aloft on houses along Shaft Alley, and today a replica maypole can still be found hanging on the wall of this alley, east of Leadenhall Street next to Marks & Spencer. Presumably the original was kept preserved in the hope that the tradition may some day be restored, but this was not to be.

In 1520 the more wealthy parishioners joined forces to rebuild the late medieval church which still stands - with various alterations - to this very day. Its major benefactor at this time was Steven Gennings, a merchant tailor and one time Mayor, with 'every man putting to his helping hand, some with their purses, others with their bodies.' The church was finished in 1532.

In 1549, the curate of St Katherine Creechurch - a neighbour of St Andrew, further along Leadenhall Street - was a rather fiery preacher named Sir Stephen. He denounced the dormant maypole during a sermon at St Paul's Cross, claiming that it was idolatrous. As a consequence of this, the maypole was removed from its resting place in Shaft Alley and sawn into pieces. These events were witnessed, and later recorded, by a Cornhill tailor named John Stow. Sir Stephen was later forced to flee the City after informing against, and therefore condemning to the gallows, a popular Romford bailiff who may well have been innocent. This execution took place virtually on Stow's doorstep.

In 1565, the nearby church of St Mary Axe was closed down and its parish united with St Andrews. This church had been dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, St Ursula, and the 11,000 virgins, and keen observers of Undershaft's exterior today will spot a reference to the Axe. St Andrews seems to have led a quiet existence, being fortunate enough to escape the Great Fire and any significant Blitz damage. Its parish was eventually merged with St Helens Bishopsgate, and both churches were seriously damaged by the terrorist bomb which exploded in St Mary Axe in 1992, destroying the historic Baltic Exchange which now boasts the Gherkin on its site. St Andrews was repaired as quickly as possible, with none of the major changes which became so controversial at St Helens.

Generally speaking, St Andrews is not open for tourists. It is used by study groups, for prayer meetings, and a Sunday school. Pews have been cleared from the interior and corners of the building are cluttered with catering equipment and toys! A bain marie stands in the northern aisle, ready to provide a buffet for study group luncheons, and visitors need to ask prior permission at St Helens Rectory if they wish to view the interior for themselves.

The style of the building is late Perpendicular Gothic, and the crowding of surrounding buildings gives the deceptive impression that the church is very small. This impression is dispelled when the visitor actually enters - it consists of a nave and two aisles, plenty of windows both clear and stained, and the absence of pews makes the interior seem even more spacious. The roof is mainly comprised of flat wooden beams, mostly modern following the post-1992 repairs. Font and pulpit are Jacobean, and the Harris organ dates to 1696.

The church contains some notable monuments. A brass remembers Nicholas Leveson, d1539, a Sheriff who was one of the benefactors dusring the church's construction. His father in law, Thomas Bodley, founded the Bodleian Library in Oxford. This is the oldest brass remaining in the church. A lovely monument by Cornelius Cure, Master Mason to Elizabeth I and James I, commemorates Sir Thomas Offley and his family. He was Lord Mayor in 1556.
A recess contains a memorial to Alice Byng, d1616, consisting of a small figure of Alice kneeling in prayer. She was married three times, and the monument lists her husbands and children. A monument in the south aisle remembers the Datchelor family, one of whom - Mary Datchelor - founded a well known girl's school in Camberwell.

Three monuments deserve special attention - the large memorial to Sir Hugh Hammersley, Lord Mayor in 1627, his kneeling figure flanked by soldiers. This represents his presedential connection to the Honourable Artillery Company, which once had land near Spitalfields. Artillery Lane now marks the spot. Hammersley was also the president of Christ's Hospital in Newgate Street, which used buildings from the old Greyfriars monastery. Another monument in the NE corner, is the terracotta figure of John Stow, seated at a desk and holding a quill. Despite his popular and influential writings, Stow ended his days in poverty and was granted a licence to beg by the King James I. His wife erected the monument; one wonders how she was able to afford it. A Latin inscription reads: 'Sacred to the memory. Here awaits the resurrection in Christ, John Stow, a citizen of London who, having with the greatest care and diligence studied the ancient monuments, wrote the 'Annals of England' and 'A View of the City of London'. He deserved well of his own time and of posterity.'
Stow's work provides the most complete record of the City before the Great Fire, and are highly valuable primary historic sources. He was the first man to fully describe the City Churches, most of which have either disappeared or been completely altered. I resisted the temptation to kneel and wail, 'I'm not worthy!'

The third notable monument is a simple brass to the great Tudor court painter, Hans Holbein. He lived in the parish and died during an outbreak of the plague in 1543. Opinion was divided among historians as to whether he was buried here or in St Katherine Cree, but most now follow the conclusion of John Strype - a successor of Stow - who claimed the latter. This would make more sense - more land was available for plague pits at St Katherine, due to the land to its rear belonging to the recently dissolved Holy Trinity Priory. St Andrew's churchyard is small, and today only a tiny garden exists to the rear of the building.

According to its guardians, thanks to its recent repairs St Andrews 'probably looks the best it has for at least 100 years'. It is well worth a visit, but remember - arrange it with the St Helen's Church Office first!

St Brides, Fleet Street

St Brides has a long history, probably due to the proximity of a Holy Well once dedicated to St Bridget, from which the church received its dedication. Indeed, the name Bridewell has been synonymous with the area for centuries, and is now the name of a nearby theatre.

On the site of the future church, the Romans dug a mysterious extra-mural ditch which was bigger than the one they eventually dug around the city walls, only a stone's throw away at Lud Gate. Soon after they put up an equally mysterious building, which has puzzled arcaeologists since its discovery. Why build just outside the walls of Londinium? Could this building, under the site of the present St Brides, have been connected to the Well? Or could it have been one of the earliest Christian sites, erected away from the settlement due to fear of persecution? The answers remain elusive, but the relics do not: the line of the ditch is marked on the floor of the crypt, and a section of tessellated pavement can still be seen.

In the sixth century the first definite church was built here, a nave and chancel with a typical Saxon rounded apse. This was rebuilt many times over the following centuries, with the result that the marvellous crypt contains remains from seven previous St Brides! It was, as the first church encountered between London and Westminster, of considerable importance: in 1205, the Curia Regis, first court of the realm, was held in St Brides and in 1210 King John held his Parliament there.

By 1500 the area had become a magnet for the clergy. The Bishops of Salisbury, Peterborough and Ely all had buildings in the neighbourhood, and this in turn led to the area's enduring association with printing and journalism. At the time, the printing press was still a relatively new development but Wynkyn de Worde, the apprentice and successor of Caxton, knew that the principal purveyors of literature were churchmen - so he erected his printing press in the heart of the clergy's quarter, the churchyard of St Brides, where he has been buried since 1535. Other printers soon followed his example and flocked to the area.The connection between St Brides and the world of journalism is today still as strong, despite the mass defection to the Docklands in the 1980's.

The growing number of printing presses attracted Dryden, Milton and Evelyn to the neighbourhood. Samuel Pepys was born in a road adjacent to the church, and was baptised there along with his eight siblings. Later, he recorded in his Diary the necessity of having to bribe the gravedigger with sixpence to 'jostle together' coffins in the crypt to make way for his brother Tom. Other notable interments at this time were Mary Frith (1659), otherwise known as 'Moll Cutpurse', a rather notorious local criminal, and the Cavalier poet Richard Lovelace (1658), who wrote 'Stone walls do not a prison make'. One speculates if these really were his thoughts, as he sat in the Gatehouse Prison doing time for his Royalist beliefs. Also here, across the centuries, were buried the composer and organist Thomas Weelkes (1623), the historian Sir Richard Baker (1645), the miniaturist Lawrence Hilliard (1648), the poet and miniaturist Thomas Flatman (1688) and the campanologist Benjamin Annable (1756).

The Great Fire destroyed St Bride's, other than the remains in the crypt, now very extensive due to the number of preceding churches on the site. Rebuilt to Wren's design at a cost of £11,430:5:11d, it was one of the first post-fire churches ready for worship. The steeple, one of the most remarkable in London, was completed in 1703.

The steeple is of Portland stone. It consists of rising and diminishing octagons, ending in a spirelet, and until a lightning strike was eight feet higher. Its shape gave rise to one of St Brides most romantic stories, that of Thomas Rich.
Rich was, as a young man, apprenticed to a baker near Ludgate. He fell in love with his master's daughter and, at the end of his apprenticeship when he set up his own business, asked for her hand in marriage. The proposal was given her father's approval. As a baker, Rich wished to create a spectacular cake for the wedding feast, but was unsure of how to create something completely new for his betrothed... until, one day, he looked up at the steeple of the church in which they were to be married, and the inspiration hit him. A cake in layers, tiered, diminishing as it rose. And thus began, according to the story, the tradition of the tiered wedding cake, based on Wren's steeple for St Brides.
This story may be fanciful, there is no concrete historical proof to its veracity. However, walking through St Brides Churchyard, now paved over and with benches for lunching workers, one can still find - among about a dozen now prone gravestones - the names of Thomas Rich and his wife, still together after centuries, and one hopes the story is true.

The area - and its printing presses - continued to attract the great and the good. Johnson, Boswell, Reynolds, Garrick, Goldsmith, Pope, Hogarth, Sarah Siddons, Richardson, writers, actors, artists all. A later generation saw Wordsworth, Hood, Keats, Hazlitt and Lamb holding deep discussions in local coffee houses. Naturally, the rise of the newspaper was here - the crypt holds a copy of the first edition of the 'Daily Courant', the first newspaper.

On December 29th 1940, the area suffered massive bombardment. By morning, all that remained of St Brides was the wedding-cake steeple and outer walls. With financial help from newspapers, Godfrey Allen studied Wren's original plans and created a faithful rebuilding, keeping the clear glass which Wren loved, but not rebuilding the galleries, instead laying out the stalls in collegiate style. The church today has a light, open feel of symmetry, the floor is paved with marbled parquets of black from Belgium and white from Italy. The church is very much a living church in a modern world - an altar in the NE corner carries sympathy messages to reporters who have lost their lives in current conflicts. A bust of Virginia Dare, the first child to be born of settlers in the New World, is a reminder that her parents were married here.

The crypt has the feel of a medieval charnel, which is exactly what it is - in a bricked up chamber to the south are the bones of several thousand Londoners. On display are the remains of former churches, the Roman pavement, an iron coffin (to deter grave robbers) and the brass plate once attached to the coffin of Samuel Richardson, author of 'Pamela' and 'Clarissa', often proclaimed - alongside DeFoe and Fielding - to be the 'Father of the English Novel'.

Richardson was buried at St Brides in 1761. Something of a hypochondriac, he left behind several letters bemoaning his mediacal complaints. His coffin seems to have been disturbed during W F Grimes' post-War excavations, but was rediscovered in 1993 by the osteologist Dr Louise Scheuer, who scientifically compared the state of the bones with the complaints Richardson listed. Along with Christ Church Spitalfields, on the opposite side of the City, the many hundreds of named remains at St Brides are an invaluable resource for those studying illness in antiquity.

Set back from Fleet Street, only yards from the tremendous bustle of Ludgate Circus yet seemingly existing in its own peaceful space, St Brides is one of the most historic, vibrant and beautiful churches to be found in London. The list of people connected with it reads like a Who's Who of historical personages, and even now, in this high-rise age, the famous spire draws the eye from surrounding vistas. A historic, architectural and thought-provoking gem.