City of London Churches in 1900

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Nearly all the City churches are worth seeing, and as many of them were in 1900 open throughout the day, they could readily be inspected.

The following are a few of those possessing features of special interest to the antiquarian and historian.

In Lombard Street, was St. Edmund's (the King and Martyr), rebuilt by Wren.

It had some paintings by Etty, some carvings, and a few good stained-glass windows, and a renovated old organ of beautiful tone.

On the same side of the street, below George Yard and approached through a narrow alley, lay All Hallows, hidden away behind offices; a little-known, but beautiful church, with modern stained-glass windows, a remarkable white marble font, and wonderful figures in wood of Death and Time, and a wooden carving representing a curtain, so cunningly designed that it gave the impression of having foliage behind it.

Doles of bread were still given at this church, and on certain occasions rows of loaves might be seen in the inner porch awaiting the recipients of this ancient charity.

In Cornhill was St. Michael's (Wren's) with a noble Gothic tower, and beautiful porch and door by Sir Gilbert Scott.

The abundant parochial funds had been so lavished upon its interior that hardly a square foot remained to gild or adorn.

Beyond, on the same side of Cornhill, was St. Peter's Church, rebuilt by Wren, with a wind-vane on its tower in the form of a big key.

Ugly inside and out, it claimed to stand upon the earliest piece of consecrated ground in England, the tradition being that the ancient Britons had a church there.

Off Bishopsgate Street stood Great St. Helen's, in a quiet square of the same name composed of old houses, once private residences, but converted into offices.

This church, formerly attached to the Nunnery of St. Helen's, consisted of two wide aisles and two chantry chapels, and there were many monuments, chiefly of City Magnates (Sir John Crosbie, Sir Thomas Gresham, etc).

Midway between the aisles of this picturesque church, was a tomb containing the embalmed body of Francis Bancroft (founder of the Mile End Road Almshouses), placed in an unfastened coffin.

It was said that by the terms of his will, the tomb had to be opened once every year and the condition of the mummy noted.

At the bottom of Fish Street Hill was St. Magnus, with a remarkable spire.

On St. Dunstan's Hill, off Great Tower Street, and down Harp Lane, was St. Dunstan's-in-the-East, one of Wren's restorations, with a remarkably graceful spire resting on four flying buttresses.

The interior, with its three aisles divided by clustered columns and pointed arches, was not particularly interesting.

If not the smallest of the City churches, St. Ethelburga, Bishopsgate Street, had certainly the narrowest approach, flanked by two shops the most diminutive in London.

It was one of the oldest churches, having escaped the Great Fire, and retained some fragments of Early English masonry.

For years it was notorious for its extremely ritualistic services, and was the scene of many disturbances and much unseemly brawling.

At St. Katherine Cree, an unassuming little church standing sideways to Leadenhall Street, near Aldgate, was preached every 16th of October, the "Lion Sermon."

The founder of the custom was a Lord Mayor of London named Sir John Gayer, who while travelling in the East, two hundred and fifty years previously, was, in answer to his personal supplication, miraculously saved from being eaten by a lion.

On his return home, he founded certain charities in honour of the event, and endowed an annual sermon.

This was one of the first churches to establish what are called "Flower Services."

In Cannon Street, opposite the railway-station, was St. Swithin's, with the London Stone outside it.

It was worth peeping into, and looked wonderfully "cosy," if such a term could be applied to an ecclesiastical building.

(This church was badly damaged during World War II and was demolished in 1962.)

Christ Church, Newgate, further east, near the General Post Office, was built by Wren on the site of a portion of the Grey Friars' Church destroyed by the Great Fire.

At its west end a long gallery is reserved for the boys of Christ's Hospital adjoining.

At Easter the Spital sermons are preached here before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, when the Blue-coat boys in their distinctive dress, with the words, "He is Risen," attached to the left shoulder, form part of the civic procession at the service.

Lastly - for all the City churches can hardly be explored in a day - is St. Mary Aldermary, in Bow Lane, opposite the Mansion House station.

It is a striking Gothic church (renewed by Wren), and built of stone which, for London, is remarkably white and well preserved.

Its cloistered columns, ornate ceilings, and east window are very effective, and here Milton was married for the third time.

Every one must at one time or another have been struck by the extraordinary number of churches crowded together in the City, and must have wondered where in the world the congregations could come from to fill them.

But the City of London in Pepys' time, and even towards the end of George IV's reign, was a residential quarter; merchants and tradesmen lived on their business premises, and the population was therefore considerably greater than at present, and there were not too many churches for the number of worshippers.

So valuable were the sites of these old churches, that whenever it is possible on the plea of decay or disuse, they were, under certain Acts of Parliament, sold and demolished; and thus they were slowly, but surely, disappearing, and by the next century there might be very few left to explore.

As an example, take the church of St. Michael's Bassishaw, situated just behind the Guildhall, which was demolished in merciful anticipation of a threatened collapse arising from weakness of the foundations.

The site was sold to the Common Council for no less than £36,000, or £7 per square foot.

But a strange thing happened last year when the old church was in the hands of the housebreakers - or rather the churchbreakers.

The work of demolition, which had been proceeding noisily, suddenly stopped, and a silence deep as death reigned throughout aisle, broken tower and mutilated chancel, while there appeared in writing over the dismantled walls, the following legend: "Workmen waiting for their wages."

It was not often that workmen had to wait for their wage in the City of London; the wage-payer had to wait for the workmen.

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