Returning to Holborn, from whence we have deviated, we come across Bartlett's Buildings, described by Strype as a very handsome, spacious place very well inhabited.
Thavie's Inn bears the name of the vanished Inn of Chancery. Here was originally the house of an armourer called John Thavie, who, by will dated 1348, devised it with three shops for the repair and maintenance of St. Andrew's Church. It was bought for an Inn of Chancery by Lincoln's Inn in the reign of Edward III. It is curious how persistently the old names have adhered to these places. It was sold by Lincoln's Inn in 1771, and afterwards burnt down. The houses here are chiefly inhabited by jewellers, opticians, and earthenware merchants. There are a couple of private hotels.
In St. Andrew's Street are the Rectory and Court-house, rebuilt from the designs of S. S. Teulon in yellow brick. The buildings form a quadrangle, with a wall and one side of the church enclosing a small garden. In the Court-house is a handsome oak overmantle, black with age, which was brought here from the old Court-house in St. Andrew's Court, pulled down in the construction of St. Andrew's Street and Holborn Viaduct in 1869.
Holborn Circus was formed in connection with the approaches to the Viaduct. In the centre there is an equestrian statue of the Prince Consort in bronze, by C. Bacon. This was presented by an anonymous donor, and the Corporation voted £2,000 for erecting a suitable pedestal for it. The whole was put up in 1874, two years after the completion of the Circus. On the north and south sides are bas-reliefs, and on the east and west statues of draped female figures seated.
Holborn Viaduct was finished in 1869. It is 1,400 feet in length, and is carried by a series of arches over the streets in the valleys below. The main arch is over Farringdon Road, the bed of the Fleet or Holbourne Stream, and is supported by polished granite columns of immense solidity. At the four corners of this there are four buildings enclosing staircases communicating with the lower level, and in niches are respectively statues of Sir William Walworth, Sir Hugh Myddleton, Sir Thomas Gresham, and Sir Henry Fitz-Alwyn, with dates of birth and death. On the parapets of the Viaduct are four erect draped female figures, representative of Fine Art, Science, Agriculture, and Commerce. Holborn Viaduct is a favourite locality for bicycle shops.
The City Temple (Congregational) and St. Andrew's Church are near neighbours, and conspicuous objects on the Viaduct just above Shoe Lane. The City Temple is a very solid mass of masonry with a cupola and a frontage of two stories in two orders of columns.
The parish of St. Andrew was formerly of much greater extent than at present, embracing not only Hatton Garden, Saffron Hill, but also St. George the Martyr, these are now separate parishes.
The original Church of St. Andrew was of great antiquity. Malcolm, who gives a very full account of it in "Londinium Redivivum," says that it was given "very many centuries past" to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, and the Abbot and Convent of St. Saviour, Bermondsey, by Gladerinus, a priest, on condition that the Abbot and Convent paid the Dean and the Chapter 12s. per annum. We also hear that there was a grammar-school attached to it, one of Henry VI.'s foundations, and that there had been previously an alien priory, a cell to the House of Cluny, suppressed by Henry V. The church continued in a flourishing condition. Various chantries were bestowed upon it from time to time, and in the will of the Rector, date 1447, it is stated that there were four altars within the church. In Henry VIII.'s time the principals of the four inns or houses in the parish paid a mark apiece to the church, apparently for the maintenance of a chantry priest. In Elizabeth's reign the tombs were despoiled: the churchwardens sold the brasses that had so far escaped destruction, and proceeded to demolish the monuments, until an order from the Queen put a stop to this vandalism.
In 1665 Stillingfleet (Bishop of Worcester) was made Rector. The church was rebuilt by Wren in 1686 "in a neat, plain manner." The ancient tower remained, and was recased in 1704. The building is large, light, and airy, and is in the florid, handsome style we are accustomed to associate with Wren. At the west end is a fine late-pointed arch, communicating with the tower, in which there is a similar window. This arch was blocked up and hidden by Wren, but was re-opened by the late Rector, the Rev. Henry Blunt, who also thoroughly restored and renovated the building some thirty years ago.
The most interesting of the interior fittings is a porphyry altar, placed by Sacheverell, who was Rector from 1713 to 1724, and who is buried beneath it. A marble font, at which Disraeli was baptized at the age of twelve, is also interesting, and the pulpit of richly-carved wood, attributed to Grinling Gibbons, is very handsome. On the west wall is a marble slab, in memory of William Marsden, M.D., founder of the Royal Free and Cancer Hospitals. It was put up by the Cordwainers' Company in 1901.