ST. BOTOLPH, BISHOPSGATE
This church escaped the Great Fire of 1666, but was rebuilt in 1725-29 by James Gold. In 1615 the City gave the parishioners additional ground on the west for burial purposes. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1323.
The patronage of the church has always been in the hands of the bishops of London since 1323.
Houseling people in 1548 were 650.
The building includes two aisles, separated from the main body by composite columns. There are galleries on the north, south, and west. The steeple rises at the east end, and the chancel, therefore, is formed beneath the tower. It is built of stone and consists of three stories, the third of which is completed by a small composite temple surrounded by a balustrade and surmounted by an urn. The remainder of the exterior is of red brick with stone dressings.
Pictorial Agency.
ST. BOTOLPH, BISHOPSGATE
Sir Paul Pindar, a great benefactor to the church, who acted as James I.’s Turkish Ambassador in 1611, was buried in this church, and a monument was erected to his memory. Close to this, also in the chancel, is a brass plate in memory of Sir William Blizard, President of the Royal College of Surgeons, who died in 1835. John Keats was baptized here in 1795, and Edward Alleyn, founder of Dulwich College, in 1566. Here also Archibald Campbell, 7th Earl of Argyll and father of the celebrated first marquis, was married in 1609.
There were a considerable number of small charitable gifts belonging to this parish. Of the larger, Ralph Pindar was a donor of £60; Nicholas Reive, of £406 : 5s. in 1626; William, Earl of Devonshire, of £100.
There was one charity school for twenty-five boys and twenty-five girls, who were taught and made apprentices by subscription and legacies. Also almshouses in Lamb’s Court for the poor of the parish, maintained by Dulwich College, and three almshouses by the pesthouse for three poor widows, the gift of Lady Lumley.
Some of the notable rectors were: Alfred Earle, Bishop of Marlborough, in 1888; Charles James Blomfield (1786-1857), Bishop of Chester; John Lake (1624-89), Bishop of Chichester.
On the site of Spital Square, Bishopsgate Street Without, stood the ancient house called St. Mary Spital, for an account of which see Mediæval London, vol. ii. p. 322.
Bishopsgate Street Without is a curious mixture of old houses, some with grotesque features, and modern buildings presenting only a strip of much-ornamented stone or brick frontage. After the Great Eastern Hotel on the west, the frontage of the station presents a very long row of uniform buildings in new red brick with stone dressings and ornamental gable ends. The famous old house named Paul Pindar’s was pulled down to make way for these.
Paul Pindar (b. 1565) was the son of Ralph Pindar, alderman’s deputy for the ward of Bishopsgate. At sixteen he was apprenticed to one Parvish, an Italian merchant who sent him to Venice as his factor, and he stayed there many years. In 1615 he was sent to Turkey as Ambassador by request of the Turkey Company, and he remained there for nine years. He returned in 1623, and was knighted. The King offered him also the Lieutenancy of the Tower, which he declined. Charles thereupon made him Farmer of Customs.
In 1639 he possessed £236,000, out of which he gave large sums to the King. He died August 22, 1650. The row of houses that now stand on the site of his house have fairly good shops on the ground-floors, and there are one or two archway entrances into the station premises near the north end. The Black Raven public-house is one of these. Acorn Street, Skinner Street, and Primrose Street need very little comment. They are chiefly composed of the sides of houses fronting Bishopsgate, and some ordinary modern brick buildings.
Nos. 131-2-3 are old plaster houses, and No. 120, beyond Acorn Street, has a projecting bay window carried up two stories. This is also an old house. These are all on the west side. On the east, beginning again from the south end, the first building to attract attention is the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Station, erected 1885. It is an improvement on the monstrosities continually perpetrated in the name of the Fire Brigade. The Bishopsgate Institute is near Brushfield Street. It fronts Bishopsgate with an elaborate yellow terra-cotta façade, and has an open entry. The entrance to the Bishopsgate Chapel is under an old stuccoed house, and the chapel itself is a large stuccoed building. Beyond this, after a Great Northern Receiving Office, are some very old houses, plastered with rough stucco in imitation of stone. These are Nos. 82 to 84. One of them has wooden rusticated work from above the first story to the top of the gable end. The date 1590 is stated to have been visible on one of them within the memory of man. On the corner house of Spital Street is a tablet noting the point of the City Bounds. This was placed here in 1846.