‘It is observed, and is true, in the late fire of London, that the fire burned just as many parish churches as there were hours from the beginning to the end of the fire; and next that there were just as many churches left standing as there were taverns left standing in the rest of the City that was not burned, being, I think, thirteen in all of each: which is pretty to observe.’
There has been much dispute as to whether or not Wren repaired S. Sepulchre’s Church. Mr. Elmes and others declare that he repaired it in 1671, but Mr. Hoby, one of its churchwardens, who made a careful study of all the parchments and papers belonging to S. Sepulchre’s, gives it as his deliberate opinion that—
‘The church was not destroyed, but very much injured, by the Fire of London, in 1666. The inhabitants would not wait until Sir C. Wren could attend to them, but repaired their own church, and did it so badly that a long time elapsed before he would grant the certificate necessary to enable them to obtain the money from the commissioners.’[126]
As has been said, such unauthorised building and patching took place pretty frequently, and all that recent researches have brought to light goes to prove that Wren had very little to do with S. Sepulchre’s.
S. MARY LE BOW.
S. Mary le Bow, with its proverbial bells,[127] was begun in this year and finished five years later, on a very old foundation. The first S. Mary’s was built by William the Conqueror,[128] on marshy land, and stood upon arches of stone, whence the church took the name of S. Maria de Arcubus or le Bow. The ‘great bell of Bow’ was, in 1469, ordered by the common council to be rung at nine o’clock every evening, and money was left for this object; when the church was burnt in the Great Fire it had twelve very melodious bells hung in its steeple. When Sir Christopher came to rebuild the church he found an older foundation to work upon than even that in 1100. In clearing the ground he came upon a foundation firm enough to build upon, which on examination proved to be the ‘walls, with windows and pavement, of a Roman temple.’ Upon these walls he built the body of the church, but for its beautiful steeple it was necessary to buy the site of an old house and to advance about forty feet to the line of the street. Here the workmen dug through about eighteen feet of made earth, and then, to Wren’s surprise and their own, came to a Roman causeway of rough stone firmly cemented, about four feet thick, underneath which lay the London clay.
With this foundation Wren was content and built up what has ever ranked as one of his finest churches. A good judge of architecture has pronounced that the steeple is ‘beyond all doubt the most elegant building of its class erected since the Reformation ... there is a play of light and shade, a variety of outline, and an elegance of detail, which it would be very difficult to match in any other steeple.’[129]
The Arches Court of Canterbury derived its name from this church, where, until the fire, its sittings were held. The court then sat at Exeter House in the Strand, then at Doctors’ Commons, and finally in Westminster Hall.
The vane which completes the spire is the City dragon, with a cross on either wing, curiously chased in gilt copper.
The ancient Church of S. Christopher le Stocks in Threadneedle Street suffered severely in the Fire, only the mere shell of the building remaining; it had been made a storehouse for a quantity of papers hastily rescued from some merchant’s office and placed in S. Christopher’s, where they perished and greatly damaged the church. It had been lately repaired and was endowed with 20l. in trust ‘for a minister to read divine service there daily at 6 o’clock in the morning for ever. 50s. each yearly to the clerk and the sexton for their attendance, and 5l. yearly to provide for lights in winter time.’ In 1671, Wren finished the repairs of the church, carefully preserving its pinnacled Gothic tower; in 1696 he further adorned the interior. It is curious that the first church which came under Wren’s hands should have been one dedicated to his patron saint; curious also that this should have been the first of the churches destroyed by those who should have been their guardians. S. Christopher’s was literally sacrificed to Mammon; it was destroyed for the enlargement of the Bank of England in 1781.