It was changed to the present style after the Fire. In 1888 the underground “Mansion House” station ousted all the houses on the south side of the lane; but Jack’s Alley was a right-of-way into Keen’s mustard factory—its loss had to be made good, and hence the iron bridge which crosses the station from the lane to the factory: really it is an alley suspended in mid-air.
Great St. Thomas Apostle was an important street in old days. It was so-called from the Church of St. Thomas the Apostle.
At St. Paul’s Cathedral is a document of 1170 relating to St. Thomas-the-Apostle; that is the earliest reference. In 1181 the book of Dean Ralph de Diceto describes it as “Ecclesia Sancti Thomae,” a church with burial-ground belonging. The Cathedral canons collated to it, and one Stephen was then priest. The name at that time is simply written “St. Thomas”; it was the only church of the name in the City. A few years later the church dedicated to St. Thomas à Becket was founded in Cheapside and styled St. Thomas of Acres: after that, necessity of distinction caused the earlier church to be known as “St. Thomas-ye-Apostle.” Of the building, scant information exists. Roesia de Burford erected upon the south side a new chapel shortly before 1329.[[4]] At about the same time a partial or complete rebuilding of the church took place: John Bernes, mercer, Lord Mayor 1371, was a substantial contributor to the new work, and a coat-of-arms existing in the stone work and the windows until Stow’s time (1598) was believed to attest his munificence. A Fraternity of St. Eligius, or Eloy, Bishop of Noyon, had quarters here, and there was an altar to their saint. In the years 1629-1630 the building was “well repaired and finely varnished” at a cost of nearly £300. Then in 1666 came the trial by fire, and the church succumbed. The parish was united to St. Mary Aldermary, and the Dean and Chapter, as patrons of St. Thomas, were allotted alternate presentation to the united living. The sites of the church and rectory were thrown into Queen Street, cut from Cheapside to Thames Street soon after the Fire. Some small portion of the churchyard remained, east and west of the new thoroughfare. Part of the western space was shortly built upon; the very houses still stand, with the tree-planted churchyard as a garden entrance: beneath the garden are the vaults, once used as a last resting-place for deceased parishioners, now as a wine store. The western space still contained some remains of the church until plastered over in 1828. The ground was curtailed by the widening of Queen Street and the allotment of a rectory site for St. Mary Aldermary in 1851. Thus it has been reduced to a tiny and flagged square. On the north wall a tablet bears this inscription: “Near this spot stood the church of St. Thomas the Apostle, destroyed in the Great Fire of London, September 1666: the burial ground belonging to which, extending 55 feet northward of Cloak Lane, and 20 feet on an average eastward of Queen Street, was circumscribed to the space here enclosed a.d. 1851, when by virtue of an Act of Parliament 10 and 11 Vict. cap. CCLXXX, the remnant of the ground was taken to widen Queen Street and Cloak Lane. All remains of mortality which could be discovered were carefully collected and deposited within the vault beneath this stone. H. B. Wilson DD, rector: Matthew T. Bishop: John Pollock: churchwardens.” The earliest date of an incumbent is 1365.
The patronage of the church has always been in the hands of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, and was given to them in the twelfth century by Wicelonis the priest and Gervasius his nephew.
Houseling people in 1548 were 298.
Chantries were founded here: By Thomas Romayn, whose will was dated December 21, 1312, for himself and Juliana his wife, to which John Wariner, priest, was admitted chaplain, April 20, 1368; by Roger atte Wine, whose endowment fetched £2 : 13 : 4 in 1548; by William Champneys, to which Walter Badewynde de Canterbury dio was admitted chaplain, June 12, 1368—the endowment fetched £5 : 6 : 7 in 1548 (the above three were consolidated and united in January 9, 1400-1401, when Thomas Jordan was admitted chaplain); by Richard Chawry, who gave to the Salters Company certain lands, etc., to find a priest, which were valued at £6 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when Sir George Walpole was chaplain; by William Brampton, who endowed it with lands, etc., which fetched £6 : 13 : 4 in 1548, when Sir John Barnes was chaplain.
Very few monuments of special interest are recorded by Stow. John Foy, citizen and Merchant Taylor, was buried here in 1625; he was a benefactor of the parish.
The charitable gifts belonging to this parish were few and small: £13 : 0 : 4 the gift of Mr. Hinman; £2 : 12s. the gift of Mr. Beeston; and others to the amount of £5.
Two almshouses for the poor of the Salters Company belonging to St. Mary Aldermary.
John Walker (d. 1741), Archdeacon of Hereford, was rector here; also Thomas Cartwright (1634-1689), Bishop of Chester.