To this the clerk replies—
"Children of Chepe, hold you all still,
For you shall have Bow bell rung at your will."
In 1315 (Edward II.) William Copeland, churchwarden of Bow, gave a new bell to the church, or had the old one re-cast.
In 1512 (Henry VIII.) the upper part of the steeple was repaired, and the lanthorn and the stone arches forming the open coronet of the tower were finished with Caen stone. It was then proposed to glaze the five corner lanthorns and the top lanthorn, and light them up with torches or cressets at night, to serve as beacons for travellers on the northern roads to London; but the idea was never carried out.
THE SEAL OF BOW CHURCH
By the Great Fire of 1666, the old church was destroyed; and in 1671 the present edifice was commenced by Sir C. Wren. After it was erected the parish was united to two others, Allhallows, Honey Lane, and St. Pancras, Soper Lane. As the right of presentation to the latter of them is also vested in the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that of the former in the Grocers' Company, the Archbishop nominates twice consecutively, and the Grocers' Company once. We learn from the "Parentalia," that the former church had been mean and low. On digging out the ground, a foundation was discovered sufficiently firm for the intended fabric, which, on further examination, the account states, appeared to be the walls and pavement of a temple, or church, of Roman workmanship, entirely buried under the level of the present street. In reality, however (unless other remains were found below those since seen, which is not probable), this was nothing more than the crypt of the ancient Norman church, and it may still be examined in the vaults of the present building; for, as the account informs us, upon these walls was commenced the new church. The former building stood about forty feet backwards from Cheapside; and in order to bring the new steeple forward to the line of the street, the site of a house not yet rebuilt was purchased, and on it the excavations were commenced for the foundation of the tower. Here a Roman causeway was found, supposed to be the once northern boundary of the colony. The church was completed (chiefly at the expense of subscribers) in 1680. A certain Dame Dyonis Williamson, of Hale's Hall, in the county of Norfolk, gave £2,000 towards the rebuilding. Of the monuments in the church, that to the memory of Dr. Newton, Bishop of Bristol, and twenty-five years rector of Bow Church, is the most noticeable. In 1820 the spire was repaired by George Gwilt, architect, and the upper part of it taken down and rebuilt. There used to be a large building, called the Crown-sild, or shed, on the north side of the old church (now the site of houses in Cheapside), which was erected by Edward III., as a place from which the Royal Family might view tournaments and other entertainments thereafter occurring in Cheapside. Originally the King had nothing but a temporary wooden shed for the purpose, but this falling down, as already described (page 316), led to the erection of the Crown-sild.
"Without the north side of this church of St. Mary Bow," says Stow, "towards West Chepe, standeth one fair building of stone, called in record Seldam, a shed which greatly darkeneth the said church; for by means thereof all the windows and doors on that side are stopped up. King Edward caused this sild or shed to be made, and to be strongly built of stone, for himself, the queen, and other estates to stand in, there to behold the joustings and other shows at their pleasure. And this house for a long time after served for that use—viz., in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.; but in the year 1410 Henry IV. confirmed the said shed or building to Stephen Spilman, William Marchfield, and John Whateley, mercers, by the name of one New Seldam, shed, or building, with shops, cellars, and edifices whatsoever appertaining, called Crownside or Tamersilde, situate in the Mercery in West Chepe, and in the parish of St. Mary de Arcubus, in London, &c. Notwithstanding which grant the kings of England and other great estates, as well of foreign countries repairing to this realm, as inhabitants of the same, have usually repaired to this place, therein to behold the shows of this city passing through West Chepe—viz., the great watches accustomed in the night, on the even of St. John the Baptist and St. Peter at Midsummer, the example whereof were over long to recite, wherefore let it suffice briefly to touch one. In the year 1510, on St. John's even at night, King Henry VIII. came to this place, then called the King's Head in Chepe, in the livery of a yeoman of the guard, with a halbert on his shoulder, and there beholding the watch, departed privily when the watch was done, and was not known to any but whom it pleased him; but on St. Peter's night next following he and the queen came royally riding to the said place, and there with their nobles beheld the watch of the city, and returned in the morning."
The Builder, of 1845, gives a full account of the discovery of architectural remains beneath some houses in Bow Churchyard:—