St Michael's Cornhill

St Michael's is the only City church I've visited with a crowd, and this was a pleasant surprise as none of us were expecting it to be open on a Saturday. Our nervous but erudite guide, Talking History stalwart Keith, allowed a few minutes from the itinery so that the Time Team Forum Friends could take a look around the City's most Victorianised church. And Victorian it very much is, which is either good or bad depending on one's own aesthetic tastes.

The church was a Saxon foundation, patronised by the Abbot of Evesham from 1055 to 1503 when responsibility fell to the Draper's Company. In his 'Survey', Stow wrote extensively about the church, more extensively than any other church he described, and this is probably for sentimental reasons - his father and grandfather, both of whom were named Thomas, were buried in the churchyard, and so was his godmother Margaret Dickson (an alderman named Robert Fabyan, who chronicled a history of England and France, was interred somewhere within the building). He complained about the north side of the building being obscured by tenements (presumably Cornhill was narrower in Tudor times), and related a marvellous anecdote about the effect of a lightning strike on the bellringers:

'..upon St James' night, certain men in the loft next under the bells, ringing of a peal, a tempest of thunder and lightning did arise, an ugly shapen sight appeared to them, coming in at the south window, and lighted on the north, for fear whereof they all lay down, and lay as dead for the time, letting the bells ring and cease of their own accord. When the ringers came to themselves, they found certain stones of the north window to be razed and scratched, as if they had been so much butter, printed with a lion's claw. The same stones were fastened there again, and so remain till this day. I have seen them oft, and have put a feather or small stick into the holes where the claws had entered three or four inches deep... one of the ringers lived in my youth, whom I have oft heard to verify the same to be true.'

The 1666 conflagration carried away St Michael's with the exception of the tower, and arguments are still continuing today over who rebuilt it. Wren's influence seems apparent, but the rebuilding was begun very soon after the fire and some believe his influence was minor. The tower, however, was remodelled in 1722 by Hawksmoor, built to resemble Magdalen's tower in Oxford, and its Gothic style is probably the inspiration for the extent of the Victorian refitting of the interior. Hawksmoor, a pupil of Wren and a famous architect in his own right, seemed to have no problem with the incongruity of a Classical church with a Gothic tower.

Between the rebuilding and the Victorian period, St Michael's witnessed some passing historic events. Thomas Gray, famous for his poem 'Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard', was christened here and the church today owns and displays his walking stick. One of the City's first coffee houses, precursor to today's Lloyds, was set up in a tent in the churchyard. Today the site is occupied by the 19th century Jamaica Wine House, situated in one of a maze of alleys behind the church which gives one a feel of how the City used to be. Another nearby pub, the George and Vulture, achieved fame by being featured by Dickens in 'The Pickwick Papers'.

In the 1850's the Victorian architect George Gilbert Scott was let loose on the church, and today it bears his mark more than it did Wren or Hawksmoor. One cannot deny the splendour of his north entrance, fabulously ornate and accompanied by a statue of St Michael himself. What he did to the interior, however, meets with a mixed reception. Earlier relics remain, such as the reredos and the 18th century pelican feeding her young, and Scott's pews, with small doors at their ends, were an expensive but interesting indulgence, but the proliferation of stained glass - impressive though it is - darkened the church to the point of perpetual gloom and would have horrified Wren. The windows, 'Lombardised' by Scott, also accomodate the Victorian mania for neo-Gothic. A renovation in the 1960's removed some of this glass in an effort to lighten the interior, but too little was done - probably because Victoriana is nowadays just as historically important as Jacobean.

The contrast between the interior's opulence and its general gloom was commented upon (by me, talking to a Dutch friend who was probably feigning more interest than she actually felt!) during our visit. Wren believed in clear windows; the best of his remaining churches bear witness to this. The first words spoken by God in 'Genesis' were 'Let there be Light', and Wren took this seriously. His churches were simply not designed for stained glass.

Be that as it may, the church is undeniably Victorianised, and enough of Wren's work remains in the City for us to allow Scott's indulgence. Considering how many fine Wren churches were demolished during that 'progressive' period, we should magnanimously accept the lesser of two evils. St Michael is Scott's monument these days, and unique in its own way. The current Rector, Peter Mullen, is a well known figure - he is Chaplain to the Stock Exchange (bet he was busy on Black Wednesday), and writes a thoughtful column for 'The Times'.

One last comment should be St Michael's connection with music. The tradition of lunchtime recitals, which take place every day at various churches across the City, was begun here in 1916 by the composer Harold Darke. Over the next 50 years he undertook 1800 performances. So if you ever wander into a City church to find someone happily banging away on a piano, you'll know where it started