Claiming (as worthily it may) this room,
Among those many monuments his quill
Has so reviv’d, helping now to fill
A place (with those) in his Survey; in which
He has a monument, more fair, more rich
Than polish’d stones could make him, where he lies,
Though dead, still living, and in that ne’er dies.
St. Stephen’s Hospital, situated in the Woolstaple at Westminster, was founded by Henry VIII. in the year 1544, for eight maimed soldiers, who have each a convenient room, and an allowance of 5l. per annum out of the Exchequer.
St. Stephen’s Walbrook, behind the Mansion-house of the Lord Mayor, in Walbrook ward. We read of a church near the same spot dedicated to the same patron so early as the year 1135; but it then stood on the other side of the street. However about the year 1428, Robert Chichely, Mayor of London, purchased the ground of the present church and cemetry of the Grocers company, and the first stone of the new structure was laid in 1429; but the work advanced so slowly, that it was not finished, till the year 1439.
The old structure was destroyed by the fire of London in the year 1666, and the present noble edifice was erected in its place by the great Sir Christopher Wren. The steeple rises square to a considerable height, and is then surrounded with a balustrade, within which rises a very light and elegant tower in two stages, the first adorned with Corinthian, and the second with Composite columns, and covered with a dome, whence rises the vane.