St Martin Vintry was a parish church in the
Vintry
Vintry is one of the 25 wards of the City of London. Located within it is the City end of Southwark Bridge and, adjacent to that, the hall of the Worshipful Company of Vintners, the City livery company for the wine trade.
The ward's boundary is ...
ward of the
City of London
The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. It was destroyed in the
Great Fire of London
The Great Fire of London was a major conflagration that swept through central London from Sunday 2 September to Thursday 6 September 1666, gutting the medieval City of London inside the old Roman city wall, while also extending past the ...
in 1666 and never rebuilt.
History
The church stood at what is now the junction of Queen Street and
Upper Thames Street
Thames Street, divided into Lower and Upper Thames Street, is a road in the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. It forms part of the busy A3211 route (prior to being rebuilt as a major thoroughfare in the late 1960s, it ...
, just north of
Southwark Bridge
Southwark Bridge ( ) is an arch bridge in London, for traffic linking the district of Southwark and the City across the River Thames. Besides when others are closed for temporary repairs, it has the least traffic of the Thames bridges in Lond ...
. It was rebuilt in 1306, the choir at the cost of
Queen Margaret. The
Vintners' Company
The Worshipful Company of Vintners is one of the oldest Livery Companies of the City of London, England, thought to date back to the 12th century. It is one of the "Great Twelve" livery companies of London, and its motto is ''Vinum Exhilarat A ...
had an altar in the church dedicated to St Martin, who was their patron saint.
St Martin Vintry was one of 86 parish churches destroyed in the Great Fire of London. In 1670, a Rebuilding Act was passed and a committee set up under the stewardship of
Sir Christopher Wren
Sir Christopher Wren PRS FRS (; – ) was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches ...
to decide which would be rebuilt. Fifty-one were chosen, but St Martin Vintry was not among them.
[''The City of London Churches'' Betjeman, J. Andover, Pitkin, 1967 (rpnt 1992) ] Instead its parish was united with that of
St Michael Paternoster Royal
St Michael Paternoster Royal is a church in the City of London. The original building, which was first recorded in the 13th century, was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The church was rebuilt under the aegis of Sir Christopher Wr ...
.
References
Further reading
* ''Transcripts of parish registers, vol. 61'' (St Martin in the Vintry, 1613–1754). Challen, W. H.London: Mitchell Hughes and Clarke, 1927.
Churches destroyed in the Great Fire of London and not rebuilt
Churches in the City of London
Former buildings and structures in the City of London
1666 disestablishments in England
{{London-church-stub