Christ Church Greyfriars
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Christ Church Greyfriars, also known as Christ Church Newgate, was an Anglican church located on Newgate Street, opposite St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. The church was destroyed in the Second World War and the ruins are now a public garden.
The first church on the site was built between 1306 and 1327 as the conventual church of the Franciscan monastery which stood there. The Franciscans were known as the Greyfriars due to the grey habits they wore. This church was in the gothic style, measuring about 300 feet long, 89 feet across and 64 feet from pavement to roof. It had at least 11 altars. Extensive royal patronage helped it prosper. Benefactors included Marguerite of France, second wife of King Edward I. She was buried at the church; the heart of Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III, was interred there as well. The church was the principal place of worship for the students of Christ's Hospital school, located just to the north.
Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, in 1538, King Henry VIII gifted the church to the City. The neighbouring monastery buildings were later used by Christ's Hospital.
The church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt on a smaller scale under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, in the neo-classical style that came to be known as the English Baroque. The unused space became the churchyard.
After ten years of work, the new church and tower were completed in 1687, at a total cost of 11,778 pounds, 9 shillings and 7 ¼ pence, according to the book The City Churches of Sir Christopher Wren. It measured 113 feet long and had two rows of five columns running east to west, with pilasters on the east and west walls. Pews were said to have been made from the timbers of a wrecked Spanish galleon. The east end had trinity windows and a large wooden altar screen. The organ, located on the west wall, was built by Renatus Harris in 1690, according to a pre-war guide to the church. The steeple, standing about one hundred sixty feet tall, was finished in 1704 at an additional cost of 1,963 pounds, 8 shillings and 3 ½ pence. It is an ornate series of receding squares, with decorative urns at one of its stages. A vestry house was built flush against the facade’s south side and part of the south wall.
Over the course of the church’s life, significant modifications were made-—a stainglass window depicting Christ with the children was installed in the centre trinity window to replace the original clear ones. Rooms were built in the north and south aisles.
The church functioned as an important centre of City of London society and music. The Lord Mayor attended an annual service to hear the Ancient Spital Sermon, placing his ceremonial sword in a special holder. The Christ's Hospital boys continued to attend services at the church, sitting in galleries over the north and south aisles. According to a pre-war guide book to the church, these students included the young Samuel Coleridge and Charles Lamb. Felix Mendelssohn played Bach’s A minor fugue and other works on the organ in 1837. Samuel Wesley also performed at the church.
Around the turn of the 20th Century, Christ's Hospital moved out of the City to Horsham, West Sussex, ending the Sunday influx of schoolboys. A new vicar, T.R. Hine-Haycock, took over in 1912. A July 1922 Christ Church newsletter preserved at Guildhall Library shows that at that time it had an 8:30 a.m. Holy Communion service every Sunday, and musical services at 11 a.m. every first and third Sunday. The church was open daily for private prayer from noon to 3 p.m. In its final years, the congregation continued to drop in size, a common trend for City churches as people relocated to outlying neighborhoods of London. Parish records at the Guildhall Library show there were 112 members in April 1933, most of them residents of places outside the parish boundaries. Many of those living in the parish were "housekeepers," living in and looking after commercial buildings. In April 1937, the membership had dropped to 77.
The church was severely damaged in the Blitz on December 29, 1940, during the Second World War, in one of the fiercest air raids of the war. A bomb struck the roof, according to the book "Christ Church, Newgate Street: Its History and Architecture." Much of the surrounding neighborhood was set alight—-a total of eight Wren churches burned that night. A finely carved wooden font cover was the only fitting saved at Christ Church, recovered by an unknown postman who ran inside as the flames raged. A photograph from the time shows fire brigade members hosing down smouldering ruins in the light of the following day.
In 1949, in a reorganization of the Anglican Church in London, authorities decided not to rebuild Christ Church. In 1954, its parish was merged with that of the nearby St Sepulchre-without-Newgate. The spire, still standing after the wartime fire but weakened, was disassembled in 1960 and put back together using modern construction methods. The surviving east wall was demolished in 1962 to make way for a widening of King Edward Street. The ruins of the nave became a public garden and memorial; a repaired vestry house and the tower became commercial space.
In 2002, the financial firm Merrill Lynch completed a regional headquarters complex on land abutting to the north and the west. In conjunction with that project, the Christ Church site got a major renovation and archeological examination. King Edward Street was put back to its former course so that the site regained its original footprint. The churchyard was spruced up, its metal railings restored. In 2006, work was completed to convert the tower and spire into a modern twelve-level private residence. The nave area continues as a memorial; the wooden font cover, topped by a carved angel, can today be seen in the porch of St. Sepulchre’s.
