Holborn: St Andrew's Church

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W. J. Loftie, adding to the incomplete work of Sir Walter Besant, in The Fascination of London, published in 1903, continues his survey of Holborn with a look at St Andrew's Church:

The City Temple (Congregational) and St. Andrew's Church are near neighbours, and conspicuous objects on Holborn Viaduct just above Shoe Lane.

The City Temple is a very solid mass of masonry with a cupola and a frontage of two stories in two orders of columns.

The parish of St. Andrew was formerly of much greater extent than at present, embracing not only Hatton Garden, Saffron Hill, but also St. George the Martyr, these are now separate parishes.

The original Church of St. Andrew was of great antiquity.

Malcolm, who gives a very full account of it in "Londinium Redivivum," says that it was given "very many centuries past" to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, and the Abbot and Convent of St. Saviour, Bermondsey, by Gladerinus, a priest, on condition that the Abbot and Convent paid the Dean and the Chapter 12s. per annum.

We also hear that there was a grammar-school attached to it, one of Henry VI's foundations, and that there had been previously an alien priory, a cell to the House of Cluny, suppressed by Henry V.

The church continued in a flourishing condition. Various chantries were bestowed upon it from time to time, and in the will of the Rector, date 1447, it is stated that there were four altars within the church.

In Henry VIII's time the principals of the four inns or houses in the parish paid a mark apiece to the church, apparently for the maintenance of a chantry priest.

In Elizabeth I's reign the tombs were despoiled: the churchwardens sold the brasses that had so far escaped destruction, and proceeded to demolish the monuments, until an order from the Queen put a stop to this vandalism.

In 1665 Stillingfleet (Bishop of Worcester) was made Rector.

The church was rebuilt by Wren in 1686 "in a neat, plain manner."

The ancient tower remained, and was recased in 1704.

The building is large, light, and airy, and is in the florid, handsome style we are accustomed to associate with Wren. At the west end is a fine late-pointed arch, communicating with the tower, in which there is a similar window.

This arch was blocked up and hidden by Wren, but was re-opened by the late Rector, the Rev. Henry Blunt, who also thoroughly restored and renovated the building around 1870.

Next: Holborn: St Andrew's Churchyard