St Mary Colechurch was a parish church in 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 ...

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 not rebuilt.

History

The church was situated at the junction of Poultry and the south end of

Old Jewry Old Jewry is a one-way street in the City of London, the historic and financial centre of London. It is located within Coleman Street ward and links Poultry to Gresham Street. The street now contains mainly offices for financial companies. The ...

. Named after its first benefactor, it was a prosperous parish able to support a grammar school, which was

rebuilt ''Rebuilt'' is the second and final studio album by the American girl group Girlicious. The album was released on November 22, 2010, by Universal Music Canada. The album draws from the dance-pop genre while infusing hints of R&B. Production init ...

on the site after the

fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...

and continued in that locality until 1787. The Great Fire of London of 1666 destroyed 86 of the 97 parish churches in the City of London. By 1670 a Rebuilding Act had been passed and a committee set up under 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 plan the new parishes. Fifty-one were chosen, but St Mary Colechurch was one of the minority not to be rebuilt. The parish was united with

St Mildred, Poultry St Mildred, Poultry, was a parish church in the Cheap ward of the City of London dedicated to Anglo-Saxon Saint Mildred. It was rebuilt after the Great Fire of London, and demolished in 1872. St Mildred in the Poultry was the burial place of th ...

, although the parishioners objected on the grounds that

This was a noisy, crowded parish perpetually disturbed by carts and coaches, and wants sufficient place for burials.

When St Mildred's too was deemed surplus to requirements, following the passing of the 1860 Union of Benefices Act, it passed successively through partnerships with St Olave Jewry and

St Margaret Lothbury St Margaret Lothbury is a Church of England parish church on Lothbury in the City of London; it spans the boundary between Coleman Street Ward and Broad Street Ward. Recorded since the 12th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of ...

. C. W. Pearce notes that the last traces of any building vanished in 1839 although a Parish Boundary Mark inside the Mercers’ Hall still exists.Premier Livery Company
/ref> St Mary Colechurch Plaque

St Mary Colechurch & St Mildred Poultry Map

St Mary Colechurch & St Martin Pomeroy copy

A plaque commemorates the church on the southwest corner of Old Jewry. The site is currently occupied by the

Alliance & Leicester Alliance & Leicester plc was a British bank and former building society, formed by the merger in 1985 of the Alliance Building Society and the Leicester Building Society. The business demutualised in the middle of 1997, when it was floated o ...

at 82 Cheapside.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Mary Colechurch Former buildings and structures in the City of London Churches destroyed in the Great Fire of London and not rebuilt Churches in the City of London 10th-century establishments in England 1666 disestablishments in England