St. Nicholas Olave, destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt, its parish being annexed to that of St. Nicholas Cole Abbey. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1327.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of the Bishop of London, by whom it was given in 1172 to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, with whom it continued up to 1666, when the parish was annexed to St. Nicholas Cole Abbey.
Houseling people in 1548 were 163.
Thomas Lewen, sheriff in 1537, who died 1555, was buried here; also Blitheman, organist of the Queen’s Chapel, who died 1591; John Widnell, Master of the Merchant Taylors Company.
Stow says that the parish received no gifts for any purposes.
Hugh Weston (d. 1558), Dean of Westminster, was a rector here. The churchyard still remains.
Perhaps of all the many points of interest in Thames Street, that open dock or harbour called Queenhithe is the most interesting. It originally, as we have seen, belonged to one Edred, a Saxon, but fell into the hands of King Stephen, as valuable property had a way of falling into kings’ hands in those early days. After being held by an intermediate possessor, William de Ypres, who gave it to a convent, it came again to the Crown, and was given by King John to his mother, the Dowager Queen Eleanor. It was a valuable property by reason of the dues collected from the ships unlading here. King Henry VIII.
commanded the constables of the Tower of London to arrest the ships of the Cinque Ports on the River of Thames, and to compel them to bring their corn to no other place, but to the Queen’s Hithe only. In the eleventh of his reign he charged the said constable to distrain all fish offered to be sold in any place of this city, but at the Queen Hithe (Stow).
In pursuance of this order the larger ships, as well as the smaller ones, were compelled to come up beyond London Bridge, and were admitted by a drawbridge. In 1463 the “slackness” of the drawbridge impeded their progress, and Queenhithe suffered accordingly. At Queenhithe were delivered goods varying in quantity and quality, but the two great trades were in fish: for the fish-market, the principal one—Billingsgate not being then a free and open port—was at Old Fish Market; and grain, in memory whereof we may still see the vane on the top of St. Michael’s Church in the form of a ship made to contain exactly a bushel of corn. It was in Henry III.’s reign that the “farm” of Queenhithe was granted to the Lord Mayor and Commonalty of the City to be held by them, but the profits were soon “sore diminished,” partly by reason of the competition of Billingsgate.
St. Michael, Queenhithe, was situated on the north side of Upper Thames Street, and was sometimes called St. Michael, Cornhith. It was burnt down in the Great Fire, and rebuilt from the designs of Wren in 1677, when the parish of Trinity Church was annexed. In 1876 the building was pulled down. Several portions of the building and fittings were preserved; the font has been removed to St. Paul’s, as well as a number of the monuments, and the old oak pulpit to St. James’, Garlickhithe. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1150.