In this church Thomas Hind and Hugh Acton, benefactors to the parish, were buried. There was also a monument to William Daunsey, mercer and alderman of the City.
Some of the donors of gifts and charities were: the Mercers and Drapers, of £6 respectively; Sir William Craven and William Parker, £100, to which £118 were added by the parishioners, for establishing a daily lecture. There were a considerable number of charities in this parish.
Among the rectors of this church were William Colwyn, who made a recantation at St. Paul’s Cross, Advent 1541, and Thomas Lamplugh (1615-91), Archbishop of York.
On the opposite side of the street extends for some way a really old brick building, evidently built immediately after the Fire. Over a centre window is a curved pediment of brickwork. Beneath, an opening leads into a yard, and the building is used by Stationers. The west side of the lane is modern.
St. Pancras Lane was formerly Needlers’ Lane. The church, the parish, the chantries and endowments, and the parishioners are mentioned frequently in the Calendar of Wills. The earliest entry there is of A.D. 1273, where John Hervy bequeaths to Juliana his daughter his mansion in the parish of St. Pancras, and to his daughter Johanna his shop in the parish of Colechurch. The Lane, except that it contained two parish churches, was of little importance.
Pancras Lane is an open space, once the graveyard of St. Pancras, Soper Lane. The houses are dull brick and stucco. The graveyard bears a great similarity to all that is left of the others; it is covered with dingy gravel and decorated by blackened evergreens. The iron gate bears a little shield telling that it was erected in 1886. There are one or two tombs still left.
The Church of St. Pancras, Soper Lane, stood near a street called Soper Lane, but since the Fire called Queen Street. It was repaired 1621, and in 1624 Thomas Chapman the younger built a porch to it. The building was destroyed by the Great Fire, when its parish was annexed to that of St. Mary-le-Bow. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1312.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of the Prior and Convent of Christ Church, Canterbury, who granted it, April 25, 1365, to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in whose successors it continued up to 1666, when the church was destroyed in the Great Fire and the parish annexed to St. Mary-le-Bow.
Houseling people in 1548 were 146.
Chantries were founded here by: John Causton at the Altar of St. Anne, which was augmented by Simon Rice and Lettice his wife, before 1356, to which William de la Temple was presented by the King, January 10, 1374-75—the endowment was valued at £13 in 1548, when Adam Arnolde was priest; Margaret Reynolds, who bequeathed £233 : 6 : 8, which the Mercers had, and guaranteed a rent charge of £8 : 13 : 4 for the same to find a priest.