St Sepulchre-without-Newgate

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St Sepulchre Church

Newgate Execution Bell

St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, also known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (Holborn), is an Anglican church in the City of London. It is located on Holborn Viaduct, almost opposite the Old Bailey. In medieval times it stood just outside ("without") the now-demolished old city wall, near the Newgate.

The original Saxon church on the site was dedicated to St Edmund the King and Martyr. During the Crusades in the 12th century the church was renamed St Edmund and the Holy Sepulchre, in reference to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The name eventually became contracted to St Sepulchre.

The church is today the largest parish church in the City. It was completely rebuilt in the 15th century but was gutted by the Great Fire of London in 1666, which left only the outer walls, the tower and the porch standing. Modified in the 18th century, the church underwent extensive restoration in 1878. It narrowly avoided destruction in the Second World War, although the 18th-century watch-house in its churchyard (erected to deter grave-robbers) was completely destroyed and had to be rebuilt.

The interior of the church is a wide, roomy space with a coffered ceiling installed in 1834. The north aisle is dominated by a splendid organ built by Renatus Harris in 1670.

The interior of St Sepulchre

During the reign of Mary I in 1555, St Sepulchre's vicar, John Rogers, was burned as a heretic.

St Sepulchre is one of the "Cockney bells" of London, named in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons as the "bells of Old Bailey". Traditionally, the great bell would be rung to mark the execution of a prisoner at the nearby gallows at Newgate. The clerk of St Sepulchre's was also responsible for ringing a handbell outside the condemned man's cell in Newgate Prison to inform him of his impending execution. This handbell, known as the Execution Bell, now resides in a glass case to the south of the nave.

The church has been the official musicians' church for many years and is associated with many famous musicians. The conductor Sir Henry Wood, a former organist at St Sepulchre's, is buried there. He is commemorated by one of four windows; the other three commemorate the composer John Ireland, the singer Dame Nellie Melba and Walter Carroll.

This church also holds the regimental chapel of the Royal Fusiliers (City of London Regiment), and its gardens are a memorial garden to that regiment.

[edit] Famous people associated with the church

John Smith, governor of Virginia and associate of Pocahontas: buried 1631.
Sir Henry Wood, who "at the age of fourteen, learned to play the organ at the 'Musicians' Church' St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, the largest parish church in the City of London, where his ashes now are".[1].
Austin Osman Spare attended the church school, now a physiotherapy centre, behind the church in Snowhill Lane.