ST. CLEMENT, EASTCHEAP
The Church of St. Clement was destroyed by the Great Fire, but rebuilt by Wren in 1686, when St. Martin’s Orgar was annexed to it. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1309.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: The Abbot and Convent of Westminster, 1309; then Henry VIII., who seized it and gave it to the Bishop of Westminster in 1540; next the Bishop of London, by Mary, March 3, 1553-54, in whose successors it continues.
Houseling people in 1548 were 271.
The present building measures 64 feet in length, 40 feet in breadth, and 34 feet in height. It has one aisle on the south side, separated from the rest of the church by two high-based columns. The square tower at the south-west is built of brick, with stone dressings, and contains three stories, with a cornice and balustrade above. The total height is 88 feet.
Chantries were founded here: by John Chardeney for himself and Margaret his wife, to which William Hocchepound was admitted chaplain, July 23, 1371, at the Altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary; for William Ivery.
There were very few monuments in this church originally. In the west window is a memorial to Thomas Fuller, the church historian, Bishop Bryan Walton, and Bishop Pearson. Fuller and Pearson were lecturers here for some time; the preaching of Pearson on the Creed and Thirty-nine Articles made him famous. Walton, the compiler of the Polyglot Bible, was created Bishop of Chester, 1660. The stained-glass window on the southern side was erected in 1872 by the Clothworkers’ Company in memory of Samuel Middlemore, who died in 1628, leaving a charitable bequest to the parish. Henry Purcell and Jonathan Battishill, the musical composers, who were organists at the church, are commemorated by brass tablets.
There were several gifts belonging to the parish, but the names of the donors are not recorded by Stow.
Sir Thomas Gooch (1674-1754), Bishop of Bristol, of Norwich and of Ely, was rector here.
St. Nicholas Lane, also one of the most ancient lanes in London. In 1258 we find that one Ralph was chaplain in the Church of St. Nicholas Acon. In 1275 the church is endowed with a small rent; in 1279, a testator bequeaths his “Stone house” in the lane; and in many subsequent entries the lane is mentioned. The dedication of the church may possibly indicate the date of its foundation. It was in the eleventh century that the bones of St. Nicholas were brought from Myra in Asia Minor, then in the hands of the Mohammedans, to Bari on the Adriatic, where they still lie. There grew up quite suddenly an extraordinary belief in the power of this saint. Pilgrimages were instituted, in which thousands flocked to his tomb; miracles were multiplied at the sacred spot; the churches without end were dedicated to his name of Nicholas. In England 372 churches are said to be named after him. It would be interesting to learn the date of this dedication. May we, however, connect this saint of Italian pilgrimage with the coming of Italian merchants to London? St. Nicholas was the protector of sailors, virgins, and children. Cunningham calls him also the protector of merchants, but of merchants as sailors. His emblem was the three purses, round and filled with gold, or the three golden balls. We may therefore at least assume that this was the church of the “Lombards” and the financiers from Italy. The churchyard still remains, a square patch of ground, railed in, very similar to the generality of such quiet little spaces. It has asphalt paths running in and out of stunted evergreen bushes. Nicholas Passage runs on the south side, and near is the Acorn public-house, an old house, with its sign of a huge gilt acorn hanging over the door.
St. Nicholas Acon was situated on the west side of Nicholas Lane, near Lombard Street; it was burnt down in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to that of St. Edmund the King and Martyr, and its site turned into a burying-ground. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1250.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of Godwin: and Thurand his wife gave it in 1084 to the Abbot and Convent of Malmesbury; Henry VIII. seized it, 1542, and so it continued in the Crown up to 1666, when it was annexed to St. Edmund the King; since then the patronage is alternately in the Crown and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Houseling people in 1548 were 154.
Johanna Macany, who left large legacies to the parish about 1452, was buried in this church, also John Hall, Master of the Company of Drapers; he died in 1618.
No legacies or gifts are recorded by Stow except that of Johanna Macany, of which he gives full details.
Maurice Griffith, Bishop of Rochester in 1554, was rector here.
Of Birchin Lane Stow says it should be Birchover Lane. It is also spelt Berchernere and Borcherveres Lane. It is frequently mentioned in the Calendar of Wills. In 1260 there is “land” in the lane; in 1285 there is a mansion house; there are a bakehouse and shops in 1319; in 1326, a tenement; twenty years later, other tenements; in 1358, a place called “la Belle”; in 1363, lands and a tenement; and in 1372, tenements in “Berchers” Lane. In 1386 and the following century we have it spelled Birchin Lane. In 1348, Riley quotes the name as Bercherners Lane.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the lane was inhabited by “fripperers,” i.e. old-clothes men. Here was Tom’s Coffee-house, frequented by Garrick. Chatterton wrote a letter to his sister from this house. In a court leading out of Birchin Lane is the George and Vulture, a well-known tavern, which still preserves the custom of serving chops and steaks on pewter.
Abchurch Lane gives its name to the church of St. Mary Abchurch, which, according to Stow, is also Upchurch (see below). The parish of Abchurch or Abbechurch is mentioned as early as 1272 and 1282, and tenements in Abbechurch Lane are devised by a testator of the year 1297.
ST. MARY ABCHURCH
The additional name signifies “Up-church,” and is accounted for by the position of the edifice on rising ground. The church was burnt down by the Great Fire and rebuilt in 1686 from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, when the parish of St. Lawrence Pountney was annexed. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1323.
Pictorial Agency.
ALTAR OF ST. MARY ABCHURCH
The patronage of the church was in the hands of the Prior and Convent of St. Mary Overy, Southwark, who exchanged it to the Master and Wardens of Corpus Christi College near St. Lawrence Pountney, 1448; Henry VIII., who seized it in 1540, and so continued in the Crown till Elizabeth, in 1568, granted it to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, with whom it continued. Elizabeth’s grant was procured by Archbishop Parker, who gave her the rectory of Penshurst in Kent, in order that he might make over the patronage of a London living to his old college.
Houseling people in 1548 were 368.
The church is almost square, measuring 63 feet in length and 60 feet in breadth, and is surmounted by a cupola 51 feet in height supported by pendentives attached to the walls; the latter is decorated with painting by Sir James Thornhill. The altar-piece is adorned with carving, which is considered to be some of Gibbon’s finest work. The steeple consists of a tower of four stories, finished by a cornice, and surmounted by a cupola, lantern, and lead-covered spire, with ball and cross; the total height is about 140 feet. The building is of red brick with Portland stone dressings.
Chantries were founded here: By and for Simon de Wynchecombe, citizen and armourer, in the chapel of Holy Trinity, to which Robert de Bruysor Chesterson was admitted, November 18, 1401—a licence was granted by the King to found this, July 26, 1359; by John Lyttelton; by Simon Wryght.
The church formerly contained monuments to Sir James Hawes and Sir John Branch, mayors in 1574 and 1580; and to Master Roger Mountague, “illustrious Precedent of Bounty and pious Industry.” Against the eastern wall, there is a large monument to Sir Patience Ward, mayor in 1680, and senior member for the City of London in the Convention Parliament of 1688-89.
The parish had no legacies or charitable gifts of any considerable amount. Mrs. Hyde gave £3 : 18s. for bread. The Merchant Taylors Company (the gift of several benefactors) gave £16 : 19 : 6 for coal.
Sherborne Lane.—Stow asserts that originally Langbourn Water, “breaking out of the ground in Fenchurch Street, ran down the same street, Lombard Street, to the west end of St. Mary Woolnoth’s church, where, turning south and breaking into small shares, rills, or streams, it left the name of Share-borne Lane,” or as he had also read it, South-borne Lane, “because it ran south to the river Thames.” Wheatley thinks that Scrieburne, from scir, a share (sciran, to divide), is the more likely etymology. This “long bourne of sweet water,” Stow further relates, “is long since stopped up at the head, and the rest of the course filled up and paved over, so that no sign thereof remaineth more than the names.” The existence of the stream indeed is more than problematical. The lane is narrow, and now occupied wholly by business premises more or less modern. The back of the City Carlton Club shows on the west side, and near the north end is the narrow way into St. Swithin’s Lane at the south end of the street (possibly Plough Alley); and the back way into the old General Post Office “by the sign of the Cock” (east side, north end), both shown in Strype’s 1754 map, have vanished. The former is built up; the latter is occupied by King William Street, which was cut clean through St. Mary Woolnoth’s churchyard and the old General Post Office (formerly the residence of Sir Robert Vyner, Lord Mayor, 1675). Before the Fire the General Postmaster lived “at his house in Sherburne Lane neere Abchurch,” and hither “The Carriers’ Cosmographie, by John Taylor, the Water Poet,” written in 1637, bids repair all who desired to send letters abroad or to various parts of the kingdom.
The name occurs as early as A.D. 1300, and is very frequently referred to in the Calendar of Wills, but under quite another form, viz. as “Shiteburn Lane.” Stow’s derivation of “Sharebone” or “Southbone” Lane will not, therefore, hold.
St. Swithin’s Lane.—Oxford Court in this lane was so called from John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford, who died here in 1562.
As early as 1277 we find houses in St. Swithin’s Lane. In 1310 we find turners of St. Swithin’s Lane.
The houses are of modern brick and stone, some of them are finished with polished granite piers. The great richly wrought iron gates before the courtyard of Salters’ Hall immediately attract attention. The hall itself, built in 1823, is painted and stuccoed, and has a fine Ionic portico. Salters’ Hall was used as a Presbyterian chapel in the reign of William III.