ST. MARY WOOLNOTH
“The church was founded by Wulfnuth, son of Earl Godwin, about the time of the Confessor. This name was corrupted into Woolnoth” (Rev. J. M. S. Brooke, Rector). It was rebuilt, according to Newcourt, from its very foundations about 1438. Though damaged by the Great Fire, it was not destroyed, and Wren repaired and rebuilt various parts in 1677. In 1716 the building was pulled down and the present church, the work of Nicholas Hawksmoor, was commenced and finished in 1727. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1252.
The patronage of the church, before 1252, was in the hands of: The Prioress and Convent of St. Helen’s, London; then Henry VIII., who seized it and granted it to Sir Martin Bowes, Alderman and Mayor of London, whose son and heir, Thomas Bowes, sold it to William Pelham, December 19, 1571; Robert Viner Miles, and several other persons, the last being Sir George Broke-Middleton, who presented to it in 1883.
Houseling people in 1548 were 300.
The interior of the church is almost square. It contains twelve Corinthian columns, placed at the angles in groups of three, and supporting an entablature prolonged to the walls by means of pilasters. There is a clerestory above, pierced on its four sides by semicircular windows. The tower, which rises at the west, contains the doorway in its basement story; the cornice is surmounted by a pedestal supporting composite columns, and the summit is divided into two turrets with balustrades above. The north front has three niches, each enclosing two Ionic columns on pedestals; the south front is plain.
Chantries were founded here by: Gregory de Rokeslie, Mayor of London, 1275-81, for himself and Amicia his wife, to which John de Pory was admitted chaplain, July 15, 1333; Thomas Noket, for himself and for Alice, wife of Gregory de Norton, called atte Shire, at the Altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Anne, in the south side of the church, to which William Weston was admitted chaplain, January 28, 1400-1401; the endowment fetched £13 : 6 : 8 in 1548, when William Wentors, or Ventrys, and Richard Browne were chaplains; Henry Brige, Knt., whose endowment yielded £13: 13 : 4 in 1548, when John Meres was priest.
Sir Hugh Brice, keeper of the King’s Exchange under Henry VII., was buried in this church; he built a chapel here called the “Channel”; also Sir Thomas Ramsey, Lord Mayor in 1577; William Hilton, Merchant Taylor and Taylor to Henry VIII., and Sir Martin Bowes, patron of the church for over thirty years.
Among the later monuments, Stow records one in memory of Sir William Phipps, who discovered a sunken Spanish ship in 1687 containing silver to the value of £300,000 sterling, and one commemorating Sir Thomas Vyner, goldsmith, and Mayor of London, who died in 1665.
The list of legacies and bequests was too long for insertion, Stow says, but was to be seen by any one in the Parish Book. He records a gift of £1 : 6s. per annum from Sir Nicholas Rainton, and one of £3 : 15 : 8 paid by the Merchant Taylors.
Richard Rawlins (d. 1536), Bishop of St. David’s, was rector here; also John Newton, author of “Olney Hymns.”
King William Street contains few associations of interest, having been built, as its name implies, in the reign of the fourth monarch of that name, whose statue on a pedestal, which outrivals every other in the City on the score of weight alone, stands at the south end. This is the work of W. Nixon and was set up in December 1844. The figure is 15 feet 3 inches high, and the whole statue weighs 20 tons. Special arrangements had to be made for carrying the Metropolitan Railway beneath it. The statue is on the site of the Boar’s Head Tavern, noted in old days as a famous rendezvous, and familiar to readers of Shakespeare from Falstaff’s frequent resort thither. Goldsmith and Washington Irvine have written on the Boar’s Head Tavern, which rose again after the Fire; the sign of the later house is preserved in the Guildhall Museum.
King William Street was cut through various lanes, which are now dealt with. At the north end in Gresham Place is Gresham Club, which was built in 1844; the architect was Henry Flower. It is for merchants and City men; the entrance fee is twenty guineas, annual subscription eight guineas, and the membership is limited to 500. It is a grey stone building with triangular stone pediments projecting over the upper windows.
Pictorial Agency.
ST. MARY WOOLNOTH
St. Clement’s Lane leads to St. Clement’s Church. I find a reference to rents in Clement’s Lane in 1322. In 1371 the “good folk” of Candelwyke Street and Clement’s Lane petitioned the mayor against certain plumbers who proposed to melt their lead in a place hard by called the Woodhaugh; they said that the vapours were noxious and even fatal to human life, that trustworthy people would depose to the mischief caused by inhaling these fumes, and that the shaft of the furnace was too low. In the end the plumbers were allowed to go on with their work, provided that they raised the shaft. In the lane was the bank in which Samuel Rogers was a partner.
In Church Court, we come to the ancient graveyard of St. Clement, a minute space with one great shapeless tomb in the centre of the asphalt and a few small erect tombstones in the little border running inside the railings.