ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE LESS
This church served as the Hospital chapel in monastic times, and has been used as a parish church for those within the Hospital precincts since the dissolution of the priory. In 1789 the interior of the tower was remodelled by the younger Dance, but in 1823 the church was practically rebuilt by Thomas Hardwick. It has since been restored, and the only trace of the old work is to be found in the vestibule beneath the tower. The date of the first custodian was 1223. The date of the first vicar was 1532.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Priors of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, up to 1532; the Governors of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.
The interior was remodelled on an octagonal plan by Dance in 1789; this shape is obtained by means of clustered columns and arches although the area enclosed by the walls is almost square. Above the arches there is a clerestory pierced by windows. The ceiling is groined.
No chantries are recorded to have been founded here.
Pictorial Agency.
GENERAL POST OFFICE
The old church contained a large number of monuments and a few have been preserved. The most ancient is one in memory of William Markeley, who died in 1439. There is a tablet erected by Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, to his wife Anne. Sir Ralph Winwood, James I.’s ambassador to Holland and Secretary of State, was buried here; also James Heath, author. In 1573 Inigo Jones was baptized in this church. His father was a clothworker living in or near Cloth Fair.
No charitable gifts or bequests are recorded by Stow.
Bartholomew Close is a curious place with many ramifications. Beginning at the south end, in the bit adjoining Westmoreland Buildings, there is nothing of especial interest. The old house at the end facing westward is used for offices, the remainder containing printing, publishing, and manufacturing premises. The great wide space, Bartholomew Close proper, has been to a very great extent rebuilt. On the east there are plain substantial business houses. At the corner of the entrance from Little Britain there is a large eighteenth-century house in excellent repair. This has a line of no less than nine windows across its breadth and is four stories in height. It has evidently been at one time a single dwelling-house. It is now cut up into three numbers, and contains many offices. On the north side of the Close there is a row of houses of the Georgian period which occupy the site of the Frater of the Monastery. These stand back a little from the line of the street. One has a small garden, and the others covered entries or one-storied offices before them.
The next arm of the Close, running up to the passage to the church, contains also a long line of old houses on the west. Many of these have small shops on the ground-floor; some possess the slightly bowed windows in fashion at the time they were built.