ST. AUGUSTINE
At the corner of Old Change and Watling Street stands St. Augustine’s Church.
It was burnt down by the Great Fire and rebuilt by Wren in 1682, and the parish of St. Faith’s annexed to it. The steeple, however, was not completed till 1695. As it possessed no proper burying-ground of its own, a portion of the crypt of St. Paul’s was used for the interment of parishioners. The earliest date of an incumbent was 1148.
The patronage of the church was always in the hands of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, who granted it to Edward, the priest, in 1148.
Houseling people in 1548 were 360.
The present church measures about 51 feet in length, 30 feet in height, and 45 feet in breadth; it is divided into a nave and side aisles by six Ionic columns and four pilasters. The steeple rises at the south-west, consisting of a tower, lantern, and spire. It is 20 feet square at the base, and has three stories. The lantern is very slender. The total altitude is 140 feet. No chantries are recorded to have been founded here. The ancient church contained few monuments of note. The present building has a tablet to the memory of Judith (died 1705), the first wife of the eminent lawyer William Cowper.
Some of the benefactors were: Thomas Holbech, rector of the parish, 1662, who gave £100 towards finishing the church; Dame Margaret Ayloff, £100. After the parish of St. Faith’s was annexed, gifts to the amount of £700 were received from various sources.
William Fleetwood (1656-1723), Bishop of St. Asaph, was rector here; also John Douglas (1721-1807), Bishop of Carlisle and of Sarum, and Richard H. Barham (1788-1845), author of The Ingoldsby Legends.
With this we end the first section of the City.