St Olave's Mark Lane

In the north-west corner of Trinity Square is Catherine Court, guarded at the entrance by a fine old iron gate of the Renaissance period, leading into Seething Lane which takes one to Hart Street, Mark Lane, where is St. Olave's, one of the churches that escaped the Great Fire. Its interior is quaint, and full of monuments, including those of Pepys and his wife who were both buried there.

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Pepys was a parishioner and worshipped at St. Olave's, no doubt looking about him most of the time in search of pretty faces.

It is said that after the Great Plague, the number of additional graves in the churchyard sorely disturbed his equanimity.

This churchyard still retains over its gateway the representations of grinning skulls and hideous cross-bones, so prominent a feature in old churches.

St. Olave's is a valuable living, and a wag once wrote of its late rector with more pungency than poetry:

"This is the church where Povah Holds that rich living over
Two thousand pounds a year. Himself no doubt most pleasant,
His services incessant, But still withal how dear!"

Next: City of London Churches in 1900: St Giles Cripplegate