St Michael, Cornhill

St Michael, Cornhill

View of church from St Michael's Alley
Country United Kingdom
Denomination Church of England
Architecture
Architect(s) Sir Christopher Wren, Nicholas Hawksmoor
Style Neo-Gothic
Clergy
Rector Revd Peter Mullen

St Michael, Cornhill is a medieval parish church in the City of London with pre-Norman Conquest parochial foundation. The medieval structure was lost in the Great Fire of London and the current church was designed by Sir Christopher Wren between 1670-1677.[1]

Contents

History

The church of St Michael was in existence by 1133. The patronage was in the possession of the Abbot and convent of Evesham until 1503, when it was settled on the Drapers Company. A new tower was built in 1421, possibly after a fire.

The medieval church, except for the tower, was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and the present building, by Christopher Wren was begun in 1672. His design was for a church 83 feet long and 67 feet wide, divided into nave and aisles by Doric columns, with a groined ceiling. There was an organ at the west end, and a [reredos] with paintings of Moses and Aaron. The walls, George Godwin noted, did not form right-angles, indicating the re-use of the medieval foundations.

The tower, having proved unstable was replaced some years later, the 130-foot high replacement being completed in 1721. In contrast to the main body of the church, the tower was built in a Gothic style, in imitation of that of Magdalene College, Cambridge.[2] It was nominally by Wren, who was 90 at the time, but bears a strong resemblance to the work of Wren's apprentice Nicholas Hawksmoor,[3] who would create similar towers on Westminster Abbey's West End.

In the late 1850s, the Drapers Company, motivated by legislation that would have forced them to hand certain funds over to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners if they were not spent on St Michael’s, decided to fund a lavish scheme of embellishment, and asked George Gilbert Scott to carry out the work.[4]

Scott added an elaborate Gothic porch (1858–1860) facing Cornhill.[5]It is decorated with carving by John Birnie Philip, which includes a high-relief tympanum sculpture depicting "St Michael disputing with Satan".[6] Scott inserted Gothic tracery to the circular clerestory windows, and into the plain round-headed windows on the south side of the church. New side windows were created in the chancel, and an elaborate stone reredos, incorporating the paintings of Moses and Aaron from its predecessor, was constructed in an Italian Gothic style. A contemporary account of the work explained that this was appropriate since “the classical feeling which pervades the Italian school of Gothic art enabled the architect to bring the classical features of the building into harmony with the Gothic treatment which our present sympathies demand“. The chancel walls were lined with panels of coloured marble. up to the level of the top of the reredos columns, and richly painted above this point.[4]

Stained glass by Clayton and Bell was installed, with a representation of Christ in Glory in the large circular east window. Its splays were enriched with inlaid and carved marble, with four heads in high relief enclosed in medallions. The other windows contained a series of stained glass images illustrating the life of Christ, with the crucifixion at the west end. [4]

A further campaign of medievalising decoration was carried out in the late 1860s by Herbert Williams, who had worked with Scott on the earlier scheme. Williams built a three bay cloister-like passage, with plaster vaults, on the south side of the building, and in the body of the church added richly painted decoration to Wren's columns and capitals. The reredos was enriched with inlaid marble, and the chancel was given new white marble steps and a mosaic floor of Minton’s tesserae and tiles. In what the Building News described as a "startling novelty" a circular opening was cut in the vault of each aisle bay and filled with stained glass, and skylights installed above. [7]

Few original furnishings were retained its Victorian re-imagining, but the 1672 font given by James Paul survived, although a new balustrade was added.[8]

The church escaped serious damage in World War II and was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.[9]

A new ring of twelve bells, cast by Taylors of Loughborough was installed in the tower in April 2011[10]

The current Rector is the Revd Dr Peter Mullen. The Lay Curate is Rupert Meacher. The Parish Clerk, John Gaze, died in August 2011 and the post is currently vacant. The Beadle is Nicholas Dixon. The PCC includes Alderman Sir David Howard (formerly Lord Mayor of London). The Patrons of the living are (and have been since 1503) the Worshipful Company of Drapers.

The church has one of the oldest sets of churchwarden's records in the City of London, which are now kept in the Guildhall Library.

Rectors

  • Sperling the Priest 1133
  • John de Merham 1287
  • William de Wyholakesford 1321-1322
  • Henry de Makeseye 1330-1331
  • John de Wendland ????-1345
  • Thomas de Wallingford 1345
  • Richard Savage 1351-1357/8
  • Hugh de Denton 1366-1368
  • Richard Mitford ???? – 1371
  • Richard Atfelde 1371-1393
  • John Haseley 1393-1400
  • Thomas Whithede 1400-1407
  • William Bright 1407-1414
  • Peter Heynewick 1421-1426
  • Henry Woodchurch 1426-1432
  • Thomas Liseux 1432-1447
  • William Lyeff 1447-1454
  • William Wytham 1454
  • Thomas Bolton 1472-1474
  • Henry Best 1474-1477
  • Peter Hussye 1477-1482
  • Martin Joynour 1482-1485
  • John Moore 1485-1503
  • John Wardroper 1503-1515
  • Peter Drayton 1515-1517
  • Rowland Phillips 1517-1538
  • Edward Stepham 1538-1545
  • John Willoughby 1545-1554
  • John Philpot 1562/3-1567
  • Richard Mathew 1567-1587
  • William Ashbold 1587-1622
  • George Carew 1622-1624/5
  • William Brough 1625-1642
  • Thomas Holl 1642/3-1645
  • Anthony Harford 1645-1646
  • John Wall 1646-1652
  • Peter Vincke 1652-1660
  • William Brough 1660-1664
  • John Meriton 1664-1704
  • Samuel Baker 1705-1749
  • Arnold King 1749-1771
  • Robert Poole Finch 1771-1784
  • Arthur Dawes 1784-1793
  • Thomas Robert Wrench 1793-1836
  • Thomas William Wrench 1836-1875
  • William Hunt 1875-1887
  • Alfred Earle 1888-1896
  • George Charles Bell 1896-1913
  • John Henry Joshua Ellison 1913-1945
  • George Frederick Saywell 1945-1956
  • Norman Charles Stanley Motley 1956-1980
  • John Scott 1981-1985
  • David Burton Evans 1986-1996
  • Gordon Reid 1997-1998
  • Peter John Mullen 1998-current

Notable parishioners

Organ

The organ, which includes historic pipework by Renatus Harris, Green, Robson, Bryceson, Hill and Rushworth and Dreaper, and was in 2010 restored by Nicholson & Co (Worcester) Ltd, has been awarded a Historic Organ Certificate of Recognition by the British Institute of Organ Studies. A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.

List of organists

List of assistant organists

Notes

  1. ^ "A Dictionary of London" Harben,H: London, Herbert Jenkins, 1918
  2. ^ Godwin, George; John Britton (1839). [http://books.google.co.uk/books? id=AtI9AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover The Churches of London: A History and Description of the Ecclesiastical Edifices of the Metropolis]. London: C. Tilt. http://books.google.co.uk/books? id=AtI9AAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 19 September 2011. 
  3. ^ "London:the City Churches” Pevsner,N/Bradley,S New Haven, Yale, 1998 ISBN 0300096550
  4. ^ a b c Cox, H. (1867). Modern churches: church furniture and decoration url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=sX5ZAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false. London: Horace Cox. pp. 31–2. 
  5. ^ "The Visitors Guide to the City of London Churches" Tucker,T: London, Friends of the City Churches, 2006 ISBN 0955394503
  6. ^ Ward- Jackson, Philip. Public sculpture of the city of London, 2003, p.89
  7. ^ "St Michael's Church,Cornhill". The Building News and Engineering Journal 16 (12 March): 219. 1869. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QZVHAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover. Retrieved 14 October 2011. 
  8. ^ "The Old Churches of London" Cobb,G: London, Batsford, 1942
  9. ^ Details from listed building database (199400) . Images of England. English Heritage. accessed 23 January 2009
  10. ^ http://www.london.anglican.org/NewsShow_14424 Retrieved 15 April 2011

See also

External links

Gallery