History of London — 12 - Lessons 28 - 29: The London Churches, and The Streets

28. THE LONDON CHURCHES.

Before the Great Fire of London there were 126 churches and parishes in the City.

Most of these were destroyed by the Fire, and many were never rebuilt at all.

Two or even three and four parishes were united in one church.

Of late years there has been a destruction of City churches almost as disastrous as that of the Fire.

Those who have learned from this book, and elsewhere, to respect the monuments of the past and to desire their preservation, should do their utmost to prevent the demolition of these churches, in consideration of their history and their association with the past.

Looking at a picture of London after the Fire, you will certainly remark the great number of spires and towers.

London, in fact, was then, and much more so before the Fire, a city of churches.

Those which are here represented and those which now remain are nearly all the work of Christopher Wren, the architect of St. Paul's. Many of them are very beautiful internally; many have been decorated and adorned with the most splendid carved woodwork.

About many there cling the memories of dead men and great men who worshipped here and made gifts to the church and were buried here.

Let us show, by a few examples, how worthy these City churches are of preservation and respect.

First, many of them stand on the sites of the most ancient churches in the history of London.

Those about Thames Street, dedicated to St. Peter, St. Paul (the Cathedral), St. James, probably represent Christian temples of Roman London.

The church of St. Martin's, Ludgate Hill, was traditionally built by a British prince: that of St. Peter, Cornhill, by a Roman general.

The tradition proves at least the antiquity of the churches.

St. Augustine's preserves the memory of the preacher who converted the Saxons.

St. Olave's and St. Magnus mark the Danish rule: St. Dunstan's, St. Alphege, St. Ethelburga, St. Swithin, St. Botolph, commemorate Saxon saints.

Why, for instance, are there three churches all dedicated to St. Botolph just outside City gates?

Because this saint--after whom the Lincolnshire town of Icanhoe changed its name to Botolph's town, now Boston--was considered the special protector of travellers.

Then the names of churches still commemorate some fact in history.

St. Mary Woolnoth, marks the wool market: St. Osyth's--the name exists in Sise Lane, was changed into St. Bene't Shere Hog--or Skin-the-Pig--because the stream called Walbrook which ran close by was used for the purpose of assisting this operation.

St. Austin's was the chapel of Austin Friars Monastery.

St. Andrew's Undershaft tells that the City May Pole was hung up along its wall.

St. Andrew's-by-the-Wardrobe commemorates the existence of the Palace formerly called the King's Wardrobe.

In St. Michael's Bassishaw survives the name of an old City family--the Basings.

In St. Martin Orgar's--now destroyed--we have another old City name--Orgar.

Or, again, there are the people who are buried or were baptised in these churches.

In All Hallows, Bread Street, now pulled down, was baptised the greatest poet of our country, John Milton.

For this cause alone the church should never have been suffered to fall into decay.

It was wickedly and wantonly destroyed for the sake of the money its site would fetch in the year 1877. When you visit Bow Church, Cheapside, look for the tablet to the memory of Milton, now fixed in that church.

It belonged to All Hallows, Bread Street.

Three poets in three distant ages born, Greece, Italy, and England did adorn: The first in loftiness of thought surpassed, The next in majesty--in both the last.

The force of Nature could no further go;

To make a third she joined the other two.

Christ Church, Newgate, stands on part of the site once occupied by the splendid church of the Grey Friars.

Four Queens lie buried here, and an immense number of princes and great soldiers and nobles.

Very few people, of the thousands who daily walk up and down Fleet Street, know anything about the statue in the wall of St. Dunstan's Church.

This is the statue of Queen Elizabeth which formerly stood on the west side of Lud Gate.

This gate was taken down in the year 1760, and some time after the statue was placed here.

One of the sights of London before the old church was pulled down was a clock with the figure of a savage on each side who struck the hours and the quarters on a bell with clubs.

London has seldom been without some such show.

As long ago as the fifteenth century there was a clock with figures in Fleet Street.

Tyndal the Reformer, and Baxter the famous Nonconformist were preachers in this church.

St. Mary le Bow, was so called because it was the first church in the City built on arches--bows--of stone.

The church is most intimately connected with the life and history of the City.

Bow Bell rang for the closing of the shops.

If the ringer was late the prentice boys reminded him pretty plainly.

'Clarke of the Bow Bell with thy yellow lockes: In thy late ringing, thy head shall have knockes.'

To which the clerk replied: 'Children of Chepe, hold you all stille: For you shall have Bow Bell ring at your will.'

St. Mary's Woolnoth was for many years the church of the Rev. John Newton, once the poet Cowper's friend.

He began his life in the merchant service and was for many years engaged in the slave trade.

For these reasons--their antiquity, their history, their associations--the destruction of the City churches ought to be resisted with the utmost determination.

You who read this page may very possibly become parishioners of such a church.

Learn that, without the consent of the parishioners, no church can be destroyed.

A meeting of parishioners must be called: they must vote and decide.

Do not forget this privilege.

The time may come when your vote and your's alone, may retain for your posterity a church rich in history and venerable with the traditions of the past.

29. THE STREETS.

You have seen how the wall surrounded Roman London.

The same wall which defended and limited Augusta defended and limited Plantagenet London.

Outside the wall on the east there continued to extend wide marshes along the river; moorlands and forest on the north; marshes with rising ground on the west; marshes on the south.

Wapping was called Wapping in the Wose (Wash or Ouze), meaning in the Marsh: Bermondsey was Bermond's Island, standing in the marsh: Battersea was Batter's Island, or perhaps Island of Boats: Chelsea was the Island of Chesel or Shingle: Westminster Abbey was built on the Isle of Thorns.

The monasteries standing outside the wall attracted a certain number of serving people who built houses round them: some of the riverside folk--boat-builders, lightermen, and so forth--were living in the precinct of St. Katharine, just outside the Tower: all along the Strand were great men's houses, one of which, the Somerset House, still stands in altered form, and another, Northumberland House, was only pulled down a few years ago.

Southwark had a single main street with a few branches east and west: it also contained several great houses, and was provided with many Inns for the use of those who brought their goods from Kent and Surrey to London Market.

It was also admitted as a ward.

On either side of the High Street lay marshes.

The river was banked--hence the name Bank Side--but it is not known at what time.

That part of the wall fronting the river had long been pulled down, but the stairs were guarded with iron chains, and there was a river police which rowed about among the shipping at night.

[Illustration: CHEPE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

] The streets and lanes of London within the walls were very nearly the same as they are at present, except for the great thoroughfares constructed within the last thirty years.

That is to say, when one entered at Lud Gate and passed through Paul's Churchyard, he found himself in the broad street, the market place of the City, known as Chepe.

This continued to the place where the Royal Exchange now stands, where it broke off into two branches, Cornhill and Lombard Street.

These respectively led into Leadenhall Street and Fenchurch Street, which united again before Aldgate.

Another leading thoroughfare crossed the City from London Bridge to Bishopsgate, and another, Thames Street, by far the most important, because here the merchant adventurers--those who had ships and imported goods--met for the transaction of business.

The rough cobbled pavement of Thames Street was the Exchange of Whittington and the merchants of his time, who all had their houses on the rising ground, among the narrow lanes north of the street.

You have seen what splendid houses a London merchant loved to build.

What kind of house did the retailer and the craftsman occupy?

It was of stone in the lower parts, but the upper storey was generally of wood, and the roof was too often thatched.

The window was glazed in the upper part, but had open work and shutter for the lower half: this half, with the door, stood open during the greater part of the year.

The lower room was the living room, and sometimes the work room of the occupant.

The upper floor contained the bed rooms.

There was but one fireplace in the house--that in the living room.

At the back of the house was generally a small garden.

But, besides these houses, there were courts dark, narrow, noisome, where the huts were still 'wattle and daub,' that is, built with posts, the sides filled in with branches or sticks and clay or mud, the fire in the middle of the floor, the chimney overhead.

And still, as in Saxon times, the great danger to the City was from fire.

Men of the same trade still congregated together for convenience.

When all lived together the output would be regulated, prices maintained, and wages agreed upon.

Nothing was more hateful to the mediaeval trader than forestalling and regrating.

To forestall was to buy things before they arrived at market with intent to sell at a higher price.

To regrate was to buy up in the market and sell again in the same market at an advanced price.

To undersell your neighbour was then also an unpardonable crime.

You discover, therefore, that trade in Plantagenet London was not like trade in Victorian London.

Then, all men of the same trade stood by each other and were brothers: now, too often, men of the same trade are enemies.

The names of streets show the nature of the trades carried on in them.

Turners and makers of wooden cups and platters, Wood Street: ironmongers, in their Lane: poultry sellers, the Poultry: bakers, Bread Street: and so on.

Chepe was the great retail market of the City.

It was built over gradually, but in early times it was a broad market covered with stalls, like the market-place of Norwich, for instance; these stalls were ranged in lines and streets: churches stood about among the lines.

Then the stalls, which had been temporary wooden structures, were changed into permanent shops, which were also the houses of the tenants: the living room and kitchen were behind the shop: the master and his family slept above, and the prentices slept under the counter.

[Illustration: LARGE SHIP AND BOAT OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.

(_The mainsail of the ship has the Beauchamp arms, and the streamer the bear and ragged staff.

From the 'Life of Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick,' by John Rous; drawn about 1485. _)] 30 WHITTINGTON.