St Vedast, Foster Lane

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PAIR SALT SPOON STERLING SILVER KINGS PATTERN LONDON 1893 ALDWINKLE AND SLATER
10 Sep 2011 at 5:58am
US $110.00
End Date: Tuesday Feb-07-2012 3:03:55 PST
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Arthur H. Beavan continued his survey of City of London Churches in Imperial London, 1901, with this look at St Vedast:

St Vedast, Foster Lane, at the back of the 1900 General Post Office, destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt by Wren, was one of the thirty-four churches which, marked out for destruction by the Union of Benefices Act, escaped the spoiler in consequence of a petition presented to the House of Commons by the Institute of Architects, who held a meeting at the top of St. Paul's to determine which of the various towers and steeples spread beneath them in wonderful confusion, should be spared.

St Vedast, it appears, was a native of Perigord, and Bishop of Arras, in France, and died A.D.540.

According to the Rev. W. S. Simpson, D.D., who seems to have expended much erudition in his researches into the history of this Saint, the dedication to St. Vedast is one of the rarest in England.

Over the west door of the church is a curious old allegorical bas-relief representing "Religion and Charity."

The interior of the building was interesting and worth exploring; while the oak altar-piece would repay close examination; the unique feature, however, of St. Vedast was its clock, the only one in any London church without a face, a small shrill bell, supernumerary to the peal of six, proclaiming the passing hours; the works were there, but the dial had never recorded "the inaudible and remorseless footfall of time."

Ecclesiastical associations surround Vedast, and the three great piles of buildings which now comprise the Metropolitan "Temple of Letters."

The old Post Office was built upon the site of the sanctuary of St. Martin's-le-Grand, and within a hundred yards of it were grouped the plain brick meeting-house-looking church of St. Botolph Without, Aldersgate, and the unpretentious structure with the long quaint name, "St Anne and St. Agnes with St. John Zachary."

Next: City of London Churches: St Mary-Le-Bow Cheapside