St Sepulchre-without-Newgate is more
formally entitled The Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and is located
on the corner of Holborn Viaduct and Giltspur Street. It was built
on the site of a Saxon church which was dedicated to St Edmund and
which became known as St Edmund and the Holy Sepulchre during the
years 1103-1173, when it was in the care of Augustinian canons who
were Knights of the Holy Sepulchre. Later the name became
abbreviated to 'St Sepulchre'.
The church was rebuilt and greatly enlarged in
1450, when the present walls, tower and porch were built. Badly
damaged in the Great Fire, the interior was restored in 1670 by
Wren. The current layout dates to 1875, with interior remodelling
added in 1932. The church also contains the Regimental Chapel of the
Royal Fusiliers, who were founded in 1685, and the tower holds the
twelve bells of Old Bailey, featured in the nursery rhyme 'Oranges
and Lemons'.
St Bartholomew-the-Less was built within St
Bartholomew Spital, outside the Aldersgate. The first church here
was the Chapel of the Holy Cross, founded nearby in 1123 and moved
to the present site in 1184. It became the parish church for the
hospital during the Reformation, when the monasteries which cared
for the poor were closed and their hospitals had to be reorganised to
cater for the sudden increase in the destitute. This is when the
church was renamed.
In the fifteenth century, the church gained its
tower and west end. Two of its three bells date from 1380 and 1420
and reside within an original medieval bell frame which is believed
to be the oldest in the City. The octagonal interior which can be
glimpsed here was built by George Dance the Younger in 1793, and the
body was entirely rebuild in 1825 by Thomas Hardwick, including a
new iron roof. World War II bomb damage was repaired and the church
reopened by 1951.
St Bartholomew the Great is in West Smithfield,
across the square from St Bartholomew-the-Less. One of London's
oldest surviving churches, it was founded in 1123 within the bounds of the
Augustine Priory of St Bartholomew, outside the Aldersgate. It has
been a place of continuous worship since at least 1143. Dominican
friars were briefly introduced by Mary Tudor, before Elizabeth restored the status quo.
No work seems to have been undertaken on it until the 1860s.
The church managed to escape the Great Fire, but
became increasingly neglected, so much so that squatters moved in
during the eighteenth century. Restoration work began in the
mid-nineteenth century, and more was undertaken by Sir Aston Webb in
the 1880s and 1890s, although the church's Norman interior was
retained. Thankfully it avoided suffering any damage during the
Blitz. This is the church used in the final part
of Four Weddings and a Funeral.
St Botolph-without-Aldersgate stands on
the corner of St Martin's Le Grand and Little Britain, just outside
the former location of the Roman Aldersgate into the City. A church
has existed on the site for nearly a thousand years, with the first
being built during the reign of Edward the Confessor as a Cluniac
priory with an attached hospital for the poor. Henry V seized the church on the
grounds that it was not English and granted it to the parish as its
local church.
The present, mostly plain brick building dates to
1788-1791, when it replaced entirely the Late Saxon church. Its churchyard
was combined with those of St Leonard, Foster Lane and Christchurch Newgate
Street into the attractive Postman's Park which also contains the Watts
Memorial of 1900 to London's civilians who died heroic deaths. The church
is used by the London City Presbyterian Church, part of the Free Church
of Scotland.
St Anne & St Agnes Lutheran Church
is on Gresham Street and Noble Street. The first mention of a church
here dates to around 1150, although there was confusion over the
name, with both St Anne and St Agnes being used separately. For the
first century or so the church appears to have been called St Agnes,
but by 1467 the names had been combined. In 1322-1326 the parish had
300 communicants and in its Norman tower hung five great bells and
one small one.
The church was gutted by fire in 1548 but was
rebuilt soon after. Further work was carried out in 1624, and the
steeple was repaired five years later. All but the tower was
destroyed by the Great Fire, and it was the eleventh church to be
rebuilt by Wren, planned in the form of a Greek cross. An organ was
installed in 1782, gas lighting in 1862, and electric lighting in
1894. The church was severely damaged by incendiary bombs on 29-30
December 1940, but was restored by 1968.
Additional editing to one photo on this page by
Dana Grohol. Sound file from 'Bells on Sunday' on BBC Radio 4, 2009.
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