St. Martin’s Outwich, at the south east angle of Threadneedle street, in Broad street ward, owes its additional epithet to William and John de Oteswich, who were some time the proprietors thereof. The patronage of this church was indeed anciently in the family of the Earls of Surry; but afterwards coming to the de Oteswiches, they conferred it upon the company of Merchant Taylors, in whom it still remains. The Rector receives only 40l. a year in tithes. Maitland.
This is one of those few churches that escaped the fire in 1666, and with some repairs has stood ever since, and may stand much longer, though it is already above 220 years old.
This edifice is an old Gothic structure of the meaner style; it is sixty-six feet long, and forty-two broad; the height of the roof is thirty-one feet, and the height of the steeple, sixty-five feet. The body is of brick, strengthened at the corners by a massy rustic: the windows, which are large, are of the coarse Gothic kind, and the top is surrounded with plain square battlements. From the tower, which is extremely plain and simple, rises a turret, that is open, arched, and supported by four piers; and from the dome rises a ball and fane.
The New View of London has the following epitaph in this church.
In memory of John Wright, anno sal. 1633, aged 24.
Reader, thou may’st forbear to put thine eyes
To charge for tears, to mourn these obsequies;
Such charitable drops would best be given
To those who late, or never come to heav’n.
But here you would, by weeping on this dust,