There is nothing to be seen of an historic old church in narrow Cornhill Street, so hemmed in is it, except a tower above the roofs topped by a windvane in the shape of a great key. Yet this church of St. Peter's, which has been here since 1681, is most interesting, for the claim is set up that it stands on the earliest consecrated ground in England. In the vestry a tablet tells of how it was "originally founded in 179 A. D. by Lucius, the first Christian King of this land, then called Britaine."
The house where Thomas Gray, the writer of the "Elegy written in a Country Churchyard," was born, used to be where the building numbered 41 Cornhill now stands.
A carved doorway of quaint design, between two shop windows, and a tower above the housetops, are all that may be seen of the church of St. Michael's in narrow Cornhill. This church was built by Wren when he was 90 years old.
[FOUR]
By Way of the Tower and London Bridge
In a passageway leading out of Brick Lane at No. 120 is still to be seen the large room, pleasantly and airily situated at the top of a safe and commodious ladder, where, in "Pickwick Papers," Dickens located "The Brick Lane Branch of the United Grand Junction Ebenezer Temperance Association." It is as Dickens pictured it, except that now the Mission Hall is below at the foot of the ladder, and the former mission room at the top is now a shop. It was here that Brother Tadger stumbled up the ladder with Mr. Stiggins, and in the room above Sam Weller and his father found the ladies drinking tea "until such time as they considered it expedient to leave off." And if they are still in England it is safe to say that they have never left off but are still drinking tea.
In Commercial Street, Whitechapel, at the corner of Flower and Dean Street, is a dull and superior looking four story clothier's wareroom. Though it does not seem it, this building has a history, for years ago and until 1882 it was a cooking depot for the workers of this neighbourhood, conducted upon the co-operative system. Dickens, in the "Uncommercial Traveller" paper called "The Boiled Beef of New England," gives an account of the workings and merits of this establishment.