A large number of monuments are recorded by Stow, some of the most notable of which were in memory of: William of Kingston; Margery Clopton, widow of Robert Clopton; Sir Christopher Morice, Master Gunner of England to Henry VIII.; Sir Henry Huberthorne, Merchant Taylor, and Lord Mayor of the City; Francis Breerewood, Treasurer of Christ’s Hospital; Sir William Bowyer. John Carpenter, the famous Town Clerk of London and compiler of the Liber Albus, was also buried here. In the vestry is an interesting tablet copy of one hanging in St. Paul’s Cathedral from A.D. 1300, and preserved from the Great Fire, to the effect that this church was the first founded in London, and that it was erected by King Lucius in 179—a legend which Stow himself appears not to have believed. There is here, also, the old key-board and organ-stops used by Mendelssohn when he played in St. Peter’s in 1840 and 1842. The portraits of Bishop Beveridge and Bishop Waugh, both of whom were rectors here for some years, hang on the walls. A fine manuscript Vulgate, with illuminations, written for the Altar of the Holy Trinity in St. Peter’s, is also preserved in the vestry.
Drawn by G. Shepherd.
ST. PETER’S, CORNHILL
Among the most important charities were those of: Laurence Thompson, 1601, who left £100 in trust for tea, coal, and bread for the poor of the parish. William Walthal, 1606, who left £246 : 13 : 4, £200 of which was to be lent to the struggling shopkeepers of the parish, the interest to be distributed in bread and coal. The Robert Warden (1609) bequest for Ash Wednesday sermons and Sunday bread to be administered through the Poulterers Company. The Lucy Edge (1630) bequest for the weekly lecture. Sir Benjamin Thorowgood’s (1682) bequest of three shops at the west end of the church for the maintenance of the organ and organist; and the Gibbs’ bequest (1864). Of these, all, with the exception of the Lucy Edge and Gibbs’ bequests, which provide for the Thursday lecturer, and part of the Robert Warden bequest, which provides for the Ash Wednesday sermon before the Poulterers Company, have been appropriated, with other endowments, by the City Parochial Charities, out of which common fund a yearly allowance is made for the upkeep of the Church.
John Hodgkin, Bishop of Bedford, 1537, was rector here; also John Taylor (d. 1554), Bishop of Lincoln; Francis White (d. 1638), Bishop of Ely; William Beveridge (1637-1708), Bishop of St. Asaph; John Waugh, Bishop of Carlisle, 1723—he is buried in front of the present altar.
Next door to the church is another of the exceptions in the street, a well-designed terra-cotta building. The building is in a late Perpendicular or Tudor style, and is appropriately named Tudor Chambers. St. Peter’s Alley leads to the graveyard at the back of the church, which is cut in two by an abnormally broad sweeping way up to the centre door. Plainly built chambers of many stories look down on the dusty evergreens of the churchyard. The next object of interest is the deeply recessed and beautifully ornamented porch of St. Michael, which stands back a little from the line of the street. By the side of the church is St. Michael’s Alley, which leads us to the graveyard. In this a small cloister or entry with vaulted roof leads through to the churchyard, a space of newly turned soil with a fringe of the inevitable evergreen bushes.
The great London coffee-house was set up in St. Michael’s Alley in 1652 by one Pasqua Rosee.
ST. MICHAEL, CORNHILL
The body of St. Michael’s Church was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt by Wren in 1672; the tower was injured and pulled down in 1722, when the present tower, also the work of Wren, was erected. In 1858 it was greatly altered by Sir Gilbert Scott. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1287.
The patronage of the church was in the hands of: Alnoth the priest, before 1133, who granted it to the Abbot and Convent of Evesham, who gave it in 1133 to Sparling the priest; the Abbot and Convent of Evesham, who granted it in 1505 to Simon Hogan, who bequeathed it to the Drapers’ Company, who presented to it in 1515, and in whose successors it continued.