St Botolph's Aldersgate

St Botolph's-without-Aldersgate

Photo of the church
Country United Kingdom
Denomination Church of England

St Botolph's-without-Aldersgate is a Church of England church on Aldersgate Street in the City of London, dedicated to St Botolph. The church is renowned for its beautiful interior and historic organ.

The first church was built during the reign of Edward the Confessor[1] and was a Cluniac priory with attached hospital for the poor[2]. The buildings were located outside the city wall[2]. In the 15th century, Henry V seized the property on the grounds that it was not English and granted it to the parish of St. Botolph, but it again became a religious foundation when one William Bever founded a brotherhood of the Holy Trinity there[2]. Upon the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, the church, hospital and lands were granted to one of the king's heralds-at-arms, William Harvye or Somerset, in 1548[2].

The medieval church was a Gothic building, divided by arcades into nave and aisles. There were three gables at the east end. In 1627, the steeple was rebuilt in Portland stone, and the rest of the church repaired.

The church escaped the Great Fire of London, but, having become unsafe, was demolished [3] and rebuilt in 1788-91[4] under the supervision of Nathaniel Wright, Surveyor to the north district of the City of London.[5] The plain exterior is contrasted by an "exalting" succession of beautiful features inside.[6] The interior has wooden galleries supported on square panelled columns, Victorian stained glass windows, a semi-circular apse with a half dome, a highly decorative plasterwork ceiling, and the only 18th century stained glass window in the City, depicting The Agony in the Garden[7]

The façade towards Aldersgate Street is a screen wall, erected in 1831, executed in Roman cement, with a pediment and four attached Ionic columns standing on a high plinth, with a Palladian window between them.[3]

St Botolph's churchyard[8]. was combined with those of St Leonard, Foster Lane and Christchurch Newgate Street into Postman's Park[9], and this now contains the 1900s Watts memorial to civilian Londoners who died heroic deaths.

The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.[10]

Current use

Currently, the St Botolph's-without-Aldersgate building is used by London City Presbyterian Church, a congregation of the Free Church of Scotland, that meets there every Sunday. During the week, the building is also used for lunchtime services, under the auspices of St Helen’s, Bishopsgate, Church of England.

References

  1. ^ "The Visitors Guide to the City of London Churches" Tucker,T: London, Friends of the City Churches, 2006 ISBN 0955394503
  2. ^ a b c d British History Online 'Religious Houses: Hospitals', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 1: Physique, Archaeology, Domesday, Ecclesiastical Organization, The Jews, Religious Houses, Education of Working Classes to 1870, Private Education from Sixteenth Century (1969), pp. 204-212. Date accessed: 03 January 2008.
  3. ^ a b Godwin, George; John Britton (1839). 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. 
  4. ^ "The Old Churches of London" Cobb,G: London, Batsford,1942
  5. ^ 199275 Details from listed building database ( 199275) . Images of England. English Heritage.
  6. ^ The City of London Churches Betjeman,J Andover, Pikin, 1967 ISBN 0853721122
  7. ^ "The London Encyclopaedia" Hibbert,C;Weinreb,D;Keay,J: London, Pan Macmillan, 1983 (rev 1993,2008) ISBN 978-1-4050-4924-5
  8. ^ Now much reduced since the late nineteenth century when many bodies were disinterred and reburied at Brookwood Cemetery > "The Brookwood Necroplois Railway" Clarke,J.M: Oasdale, Usk, 2006 ISBN 9780853616559
  9. ^ "London:the City Churches" Pevsner,N/Bradley,S : New Haven, Yale, 1998 ISBN 0300096550
  10. ^ Details from listed building database (199275) . Images of England. English Heritage. accessed 23 January 2009

External links