The patronage of the church was in the hands of Godwin: and Thurand his wife gave it in 1084 to the Abbot and Convent of Malmesbury; Henry VIII. seized it, 1542, and so it continued in the Crown up to 1666, when it was annexed to St. Edmund the King; since then the patronage is alternately in the Crown and the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Houseling people in 1548 were 154.
Johanna Macany, who left large legacies to the parish about 1452, was buried in this church, also John Hall, Master of the Company of Drapers; he died in 1618.
No legacies or gifts are recorded by Stow except that of Johanna Macany, of which he gives full details.
Maurice Griffith, Bishop of Rochester in 1554, was rector here.
Of Birchin Lane Stow says it should be Birchover Lane. It is also spelt Berchernere and Borcherveres Lane. It is frequently mentioned in the Calendar of Wills. In 1260 there is “land” in the lane; in 1285 there is a mansion house; there are a bakehouse and shops in 1319; in 1326, a tenement; twenty years later, other tenements; in 1358, a place called “la Belle”; in 1363, lands and a tenement; and in 1372, tenements in “Berchers” Lane. In 1386 and the following century we have it spelled Birchin Lane. In 1348, Riley quotes the name as Bercherners Lane.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the lane was inhabited by “fripperers,” i.e. old-clothes men. Here was Tom’s Coffee-house, frequented by Garrick. Chatterton wrote a letter to his sister from this house. In a court leading out of Birchin Lane is the George and Vulture, a well-known tavern, which still preserves the custom of serving chops and steaks on pewter.
Abchurch Lane gives its name to the church of St. Mary Abchurch, which, according to Stow, is also Upchurch (see below). The parish of Abchurch or Abbechurch is mentioned as early as 1272 and 1282, and tenements in Abbechurch Lane are devised by a testator of the year 1297.
ST. MARY ABCHURCH
The additional name signifies “Up-church,” and is accounted for by the position of the edifice on rising ground. The church was burnt down by the Great Fire and rebuilt in 1686 from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, when the parish of St. Lawrence Pountney was annexed. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1323.