Bygone London

by Frederick Ross

The Saxons found it necessary to have another exit from the city northward between Aldgate and Aldersgate Street, and pierced the wall at the end of the street running from the river, whatever it may then have been called, and erected there a new gate. Erkenwald, Bishop of London, 679-97, has been credited with the work, but as this is only based upon the discovery, near by, of the statue of a mitred bishop, which it was presumed represented St. Erkenwald, the tradition may be doubted, but it was unquestionably this supposition which gave it the name of Bishops' Gate.

There are four churches in London dedicated to St. Botolph "the Briton," all situated by gates, Aldgate, Aldersgate, Billingsgate, and Bishopsgate. The latter lays claim to having been founded by the ancient British Christians, but, more probably, was built by the Saxons and dedicated to the British monk St. Botolph. It has been rebuilt no doubt several times since then. It escaped the ravages of the fire of 1666, but having become very much dilapidated, an Act of Parliament was obtained at the beginning of the last century for rebuilding it, by means of a rate of two shillings in the pound upon all household property in the parish, payable by the landlords, but this proving insufficient a parish rate was laid to supply the deficiency. It was commenced in 1725, and re-opened in 1728, having cost (there is nothing like precision) £10,444 1s. 8½d.

Tradition says that it was the burial-place of a brother of King Lud. The present building contains the tombs of Sir Paul Pinder; Edward Alleyn, the founder of Dulwich College; William, Earl of Devonshire, from whom Devonshire Square takes its name; and in the churchyard lies Hodges Shoughshware, "the chiefest servant of the King of Persia, who came from the King of Persia and died in his service, 1626, and Maghmote, his wife." The epitaph is in Persian, and entreats that all Persians who may read it will pray for their souls.

The Rev. Stephen Gorson, author of The School of Abuse, was rector of St. Botolph.

The venerable church of St. Helen is situated on the eastern side of the street, standing back and approached by an archway. Popular tradition ascribes its origin to the Emperor Constantine in honour of his mother, which is doubtless an error, but it unquestionably dates from the Saxon age, as in 1010 the relics of King Edmund the Martyr were temporarily deposited within its walls, when brought from East Anglia, to prevent their desecration at the hands of the Danes. In the twelfth century the advowson appears to have been held by one Ranulph, as in the reign of Henry II., circa 1180, he and his son, Robert Fitz-Ranulph, made a grant of it to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's Cathedral. About half a century later, circa 1212, William Fitz-William, a London goldsmith, and ancestor of the extant Earls Fitzwilliam, founded in connection with it a priory for nuns of the order of St. Benedict, which was dedicated to the Holy Cross and St. Helen, the prioress on her election to swear fealty to the Dean and Chapter, who transferred to the priory the advowson of the church.

The church seems originally to have had simply a chancel and nave, without transepts or aisles, but when the priory was attached, it was duplicated by building another nave, and thus presented the appearance of a double-aisled church without an intermediate nave. A wall of division ran along the middle, one of the aisles being appropriated to the parishioners and the other to the nuns. It is to be feared that the fair inmates of the nunnery were not always very strict in their devotional exercises and seclusion from the outer world, and were even sometimes so naughty as to be subjected to punishments, one of which was being shut up in the crypt, which still exists, with the gratings, through which they could hear the service of the church without being present. Reginald Kentwode, dean of St. Paul's, in his periodical visitations, found so many "defautes and excesses" that he felt constrained to draw up a fresh code of rules for the regulation of the house, the original of which is amongst the Cotton MSS. in the British Museum.

Willyam Basynge, Sheriff of London, 1309, added considerably to the buildings, and came to be regarded as the second founder.

The seal of the priory was an oval, representing the Empress Helena standing by the cross (which she found in the Holy Land and brought to Europe) with the nails in her hand, and on the opposite side worshippers in the act of adoration. An impression of it is pendant from a deed in the possession of the Leathersellers' Company, and an engraving of it is given in Malcolm's London Rediv., vol. iii., p. 548.

At the dissolution of the priory the site was given to Richard Williams, one of the visitors of the monasteries, in exchange for certain lands in Huntingdonshire. He assumed the name of Cromwell, being a kinsman of Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and was ancestor of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell. The dividing wall in the church was taken down and the whole of the space appropriated to the use of the parishioners. The Leathersellers purchased the nuns' hall, and made it the hall of their company. The priory buildings remained, but in a ruined state, until 1799, when they were cleared away, and St. Helen's Place built on the site. A view of the ruins is given in Wilkinson's Londina Illustrata, and a picturesque view of the church and the Leathersellers' Hall in Malcolm's London Rediv., 1803.

The church contained more "altar" tombs with recumbent and kneeling effigies than any other church in the City, but they suffered terrible mutilation from the iconoclastic zeal of the Puritans, many of them having been altogether destroyed. Sir Thomas Gresham had promised to build a tower, which unhappily he was prevented doing by death, and it was not until 1699, that it was furnished with a steeple. The church has undergone many repairs and restorations, notably by Inigo Jones, 1623-4, and frequently in the plaster and whitewash style of decoration. The last and most judicious restoration was carried out in 1867-8, and the venerable old church may now be seen, after weathering so many storms, with its graceful Gothic arches, its groupings of tombs and monuments, the nuns' grating in the crypt, its grotesque heads, and over one of the doors the black figure of St. Helena, for which hundreds of pounds have been offered by foreign Catholics, and refused; with many of the same features that were looked at by the Greshams, the Crosbys, and other old parishioners of the Norman, Plantagenet, and Tudor ages, with the addition of some modern stained windows and an organ built in 1742, and rebuilt in 1868. The rectory was sold by Queen Elizabeth to Michael and Edward Stanhope, with the proviso of paying a stipend of £20 per annum to a vicar. Amongst the tombs are those of Sir Thomas Gresham, a splendid monument; Sir John Crosby, in full armour, and his wife, one of the oldest remaining; Sir John Lawrence, the noble Lord Mayor of the Plague year; Sir John Spencer, "Rich Spencer," whose daughter and heiress eloped with her lover, Compton, in a baker's basket.