Holy Trinity, Minories

Holy Trinity, Minories was a church outside the eastern boundaries of the City of London; but within the Liberties of the Tower of London. The liberty was incorporated in the Metropolitan Borough of Stepney in 1899, and today is within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

History

The district lay within the precincts of the Monastery of St Clare, founded by Edmund Crouchback, in 1293, for a group of Spanish nuns of the Order of St. Clare arriving with his wife.^[1] The nuns were also known as the Minoresses – which came to be adapted as the name for the district, Minories. The monastery was surrendered in 1539, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries^[1] and the buildings were used as an armory for the Tower of London, and later, as a workhouse. Later in the 16th century, the church was a Puritan stronghold, where both John Field and Thomas Wilcox preached.^[2]

The chapel became a parish church, known as St Clare without Aldgate^[3] It escaped the Great Fire of London ^[4] but fell into disrepair and was rebuilt in 1706, known as Holy Trinity, Minories – this dedication may derive from the cemetery chapel of Holy Trinity Priory, which was nearby. The new church was a plain brick structure, 63 feet long and twenty feet wide, with a low tower, built at a cost of £700. ^[5]

Until 1730, the church claimed the rights of a royal peculiar – including freedom from the authority of the Bishop of London; and the right to perform marriages 'without licence'.^[6]

In 1899, the parish was closed under the provisions of the Union of Benefices Act 1860^[7] and united with the parish of St Botolph's Aldgate.

The remains of the church were destroyed by aerial bombing during the Blitz in 1940.

The ancestors of President George Washington were buried here.

References