In Hand Alley, on the western side of Bishopsgate Without, stood a large Presbyterian meeting-house. On the site had been a plague pit, and when it was proposed to be built upon it, the bodies, some not entirely decomposed, 2,000 in number, were carted away and buried in another pit, over which is a passage to Rose Alley. The chapel was built soon after Bartholomew Day for Thomas Vincent, famous for his labours amongst the poor during the plague of 1665, who held the pastorate until his death in 1678. After the fire of 1666, his chapel was seized by the clergyman of a City parish, who performed service there until his church was rebuilt. After him came a succession of popular ministers, until the beginning of the 18th century, when the congregation, a wealthy body, removed with their minister, Dr. John Evans, author of "A Discourse on Temper," to a new chapel, which they built in 1727, in New Broad Street, when the old chapel was pulled down.
A Particular Baptist Church, in Great St. Helens, existed during the time of the civil war, when the famous Hansard Knollys was the pastor. He was a Lincolnshire man of great oratorical talent, and gathered about him a congregation of a thousand hearers. His doctrines, however, were deemed irregular and unsound by the Presbyterians, and he was summoned before the Westminster assembly of divines, who prohibited him from preaching. This prohibition appears, however, to have been withdrawn afterwards, as from 1645 to 1691, he preached the doctrines in Curriers' Hall. He was author of "The Smoke of the Temple," "An Exposition of the Book of Revelations," and some other works, including an autobiography written in 1672. His death occurred in 1691, at the age of 93, when he was buried in Bunhill Fields. Portrait in Wilson's "History of the Dissenting Church."
The Society of Friends have a large meeting-house in Bishopsgate Street, which is the head quarters of the society, where the annual meetings are held, when Friends from all parts of England assemble here, giving quite a picturesque aspect to the street, when it is thronged by them in their somewhat grotesque costume. Their first meeting-house was in Bull and Mouth Street, Aldersgate, which was destroyed by the fire of '66, rebuilt and occupied till 1744, when they removed to White Hart Court, Gracechurch Street. Many of the members of this meeting were the originators of some of the most eminent banking firms of Lombard Street, such as the Gurneys, the Barclays, the Hoares, the Hanburys, the Lloyds, the Mastermans, the Jansons, the Osgoods, the Dimsdales, and others; and it was from there that the remains of George Fox were carried to Bunhill Fields for burial, followed by 3,000 Friends. This chapel becoming too small for the congregation, a new one, that now existing, was erected in Bishopsgate Street on the site of the Dolphin Inn.
In 1838 a Jews' synagogue was built in Great St. Helens. It is the largest in London in the Italian style, with a splendid interior.
The Wesleyan Centenary Hall stands in a commanding position opposite the end of Threadneedle Street, with a fine pedimented range of columns.
We have, in our historical retrospect, seen Bishopsgate under various aspects. In the Roman era, when it was a suburb of aristocratic residences, with all the appliances of Roman civilisation, and all the beauties of Roman art; in the Saxon and Norman periods, with its mean habitations and monastic establishments, with cowled monks, and bare-footed friars, conspicuous amongst the wayfarers as they passed along the thoroughfare ankle deep in mud, or blinded by the clouds of dust from the unpaved roads; in the days of the Tudors and Stuarts, when it was lined with picturesque gabled houses, with overhanging upper floors, cross timberings, and latticed windows; with quaint old hostelries and their galleried courtyards, frequently occupied by fashionable crowds of spectators, witnessing the performances of the actors of the Elizabethan drama; and with the noble mansions of the City magnates and merchant princes. In addition to these, there was the City gate and a conduit at each end of the street, one to the north, just within the gate, erected by Lord Mayor Knesworth in 1505; the other at the south end, at its junction with the streets of Cornhill, Leadenhall, and Gracious Church. The street was rendered more passable for pedestrians and vehicles by being paved in 1543, and the sloughs of despond, previously so characteristic of London thoroughfares, and so impedimental to locomotion, got rid of. After this followed the Georgian or dark age of architecture, when the quaint old houses of the past were replaced by the hideous abortions of the last and beginning of the present century.
Now for the third time we see Bishopsgate Street again gradually assuming an aspect of architectural grandeur, which will make it in another fifty years one of the finest streets in London or any other city. Within the last few years there have been erected several blocks of buildings of a palatial character, and this process of transformation is still going on with great rapidity. Among the more notable we may mention the National and Provincial Bank of England, one of the finest buildings of Modern London; the Royal Bank Buildings, the London and Lancashire Life Office, the Capital and Counties Bank, the South Sea Chambers, the Palmerston Buildings, the Devonshire Chambers, the Royal Bank of Scotland, and the block of offices at the rear of St. Botolph's Church.