[This is the first of 10 articles briefly describing the 39
functioning historic Anglican churches in the City of London]
The City Churches are one of the glories of England
and it is a miracle that so many of them have survived given the onslaught of
Fire, Blitz, Mammon and Property Developers. Many are really quite modest
places, but they have devoted guardians, and are part of that vibrant thread of
living history which so animates England.
There were 97 churches before the Fire devastated the City;
a handful were unscathed and Sir Christopher Wren and his team designed almost
50 restorations. A few more were built in the 18th century. By
Victorian times the population of the City had fallen sharply from its peak of
80,000 and is now about 7,000. The railways brought the suburban commuter and
now about 350,000 make the daily journey to work in the City. The Victorians
unified benefices reducing the number of parishes; redundant churches were sold
or demolished. The Blitz destroyed four completely but severely damaged almost
all the rest; extensive rebuilding work continued into the 1960s. The creation
of Guild Churches in 1952 (open only on weekdays and usually sponsoring a
favoured cause) stopped more churches being declared redundant, although the
financial strain on the Church of England is severe.
St Peter’s upon
Cornhill occupies the highest point of the City, but that is not saying
much. The Romans had their central temple here but the notion that this became
an early Christian church is thought fanciful. But the church site is old
(probably 7th century). The medieval building was destroyed in the
Great Fire and the present church was designed by Wren and rebuilt 1667-87.
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| St Peter's Cornhill |
Like many earlier City churches, St Peter’s is hemmed in by
shops but it boasts a cheerful Wren tower. An alley-way (the City here is a
place of alleys) takes you round to the main church door and there is a quiet
garden where City workers sit out and eat sandwiches. The interior is
interesting but public access is limited as the church is currently a satellite
of Great St Helens and is used as a training place for new clergy.
A few steps down the road take you to St Michael Cornhill, a favourite for memorial services, where
departed City veterans are eulogised and their memory burnished. Its recent
Rector, Peter Mullen, a controversial but charming chap, had some mordant
comments to make about the hypocrisy of such proceedings.
St Michael is odd architecturally. A Classic Wren interior
of 1670 was supplemented by a fine tower of 1724, inexplicably in the Gothic
style, by Hawksmoor. The interior was heavily Gothicised in Victorian times by
Sir George Gilbert Scott and its gloomy stained glass has mercifully been
lightened. A 1775 eye-catchingly large stone pelican, a symbol of plenty, feeds
its young by the font. The church is happily conservative - still using the
Authorised Version and the Book of Common Prayer.
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| Richly carved Tympanum at St Michael |
Round the corner and just off King William Street stands St Clement, Eastcheap, easily
overlooked amid the hurly-burly of banks and no longer in Eastcheap itself. Of
ancient foundation, it was rebuilt toWren’s designs in 1687. It has fine
woodwork, notably a spectacular pulpit wreathed in cherubs.
.JPG) |
| The reredos at St Clement, Eastcheap |
A punitive
restoration by Tractarian enthusiast William Butterfield (he of brash Keble
College, Oxford) in 1872 left a legacy of raised choir, stained glass,
reorganised furnishings and polychrome tiled floors. A 1933 restoration by John
Betjeman’s admired Sir Ninian Comper moved the furnishings yet again and
included the beautifying of the Reredos in a slightly incongruous gold and
blue.
Half-way down Lombard
Street takes us to St Edmund, King and Martyr, a handsome Portland Stone church with Lombard Street
frontage which must be worth millions if property development was on the Church
of England’s agenda, which it is not.
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| St Edmund King and Martyr |
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| St Edmund, "Centre for Spirituality" |
St Edmund was a 9th century Saxon king in East Anglia, duly martyred by the Norsemen; When the Italian Lombards displaced the Jews as the tolerated money-lenders in the 13th century, St Edmund was known for a while as “the bankers’ church”; this early church was destroyed in the Great Fire and Wren’s replacement of 1679 is unusual in that the altar is at the North end rather than the liturgically conventional East end. There is a certain clumsiness about St Edmund, despite its fine tower, which is untypical of Wren – his friend and assistant Robert Hooke organised the interior.
St Edmund was underused for many years after the war and is
now “The London Centre for Spirituality” mainly dedicated to a religious
bookshop, although it still looks like a church.
SMD
2.03.13
Text copyright © Sidney Donald 2013
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