Four hundred years before the Conqueror laid the foundation stones of the White Tower, a cluster of cottages on the edge of Tower Hill, and lying not far from the Ald-gate of the old walls of London, constituted the germ of the present parish, and stood within sight of the earlier church. What the history of the church was then we have no means of knowing, but as it would be the first building of importance that Danish invaders came upon during their onslaughts on London, it must have passed through exciting times in those old days of raid and turmoil.

Erkenwald, a seventh-century Bishop of London, founded the convent at Barking, in Essex. Of this convent his sister, St. Ethelburga, became first abbess, and the abbesses of Barking were not only mitred, but were in after days peeresses of the realm. Erkenwald made over certain rights of the land, upon which the parish is now spread, to this convent of Barking, and, in return, a priest was supplied from the community to serve the religious needs of the parishioners. It was thus the surname Barking was acquired. It is, however, a surname that is somewhat misleading, as printers, even to this present day, have an awkward habit of placing a comma between “Allhallows” and “Barking” and so send many who would visit the church on an empty quest into Essex. But the poor printer is not altogether to blame. The people here have a way of calling themselves “Barking people” and of referring to the parish as “Barking parish.” This leads to unnecessary confusion. The only alternative would be to retain the term on Tower Hill and ask the good folk of the Essex town to adopt some other name! As it is improbable that either of these suggestions will be taken seriously, a return to the ancient title, “Berkyngechurch by the Tower,” might solve the difficulty.

The parish system in England took its rise under Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, A.D. 668, and the number and boundaries of the parishes as we know them to-day agree very nearly with the parochial divisions in Doomsday Book. The ground now included in Allhallows parish was undoubtedly included in Roman London, which extended from Tower Hill to Dowgate Hill, the present Fenchurch and Lombard Streets forming the line of its northern boundary. Eastward of the parish lay marsh and forest—the great forest of Essex, of which so wide and unspoilt a portion remains to us in Epping Forest.

A True and Exact Draught of the TOWER LIBERTIES, furvey in the Year 1597 by GULIELMUS HAIWARD and J. GASCOYNE.

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In 1087, when a great fire devastated the city, a church in the Norman style took the place of the Saxon building, and the nave pillars of Allhallows date from that time. Of these pillars the one that shows its great age more than the others—which, after successive cleanings, look almost new—is that westernmost pillar on the north side which stands within the choir practice-room.

To this Norman building Richard I. added, either where the chancel portion of the north aisle now stands, or near at hand, a Chantry Chapel known as Capella Beatae Mariae de Berkinge juxta Turrim. This was, for some time, the most famous shrine in connection with the building, and became the care of the kings of England. In this Chantry was placed, by Edward I., a statue of the Virgin, in accordance with a command received by him in a vision, before his father’s death, in which he was assured that he should subdue Wales and Scotland, and would be victorious while this Berkinge Chapel was kept in repair. Tradition asserts that the heart of the Lion-hearted Richard was placed under the altar of the chapel here, but others maintain that after its removal from Fontevrault, where the king was buried, it was sent to Rouen. Yet in the time of the first Edward, an Indulgence of forty days was obtained for all penitents worshipping at the shrine of the Virgin at Berkinge Chapel, and in that instrument prayer is especially asked for the soul of the founder, Richard I., “whose heart is buried beneath the high altar.”

A little later in the history of the church and its chapels we come upon the names of John Tiptoft and Sir John Croke, both of whom, famous in their generations, took especial interest in Allhallows. The former was brought into touch with the place upon his appointment as Constable of the Tower. He was created Earl of Worcester by Henry VI., was the friend and supporter of Caxton, and has been called “the nursing father of English printing.” A man of great learning, he had studied under Guarino at Ferrara, had occupied a professor’s chair at Padua, was termed by Walpole “one of the noble authors of England,” is remembered as a good, but ruthless, soldier, lawyer, and politician, and was, in the end, by the influence of Warwick, the king-maker, disgraced and beheaded on Tower Hill. Tiptoft founded a confraternity or guild at Berkinge Chapel, and of this guild elected Sir John Croke to be one of the first Wardens. Of Tiptoft, who was buried at Blackfriars monastery, no memorial remains here, but Croke’s tomb we shall come upon, later, as we go through the church.