St Olave's Church, Old Jewry, sometimes known as ''Upwell Old Jewry'', was a 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 f ...
located between the street called
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 ...
and
Ironmonger Lane
Ironmonger Lane is a narrow one-way street in the City of London running southbound between Gresham Street and Cheapside.
Ironmonger Lane has maintained the same name since at least the 12th century when it was recorded as Ismongerelane; "isen" ...
. Destroyed in the
Great Fire of London in 1666, the church was rebuilt by the office 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 ...
. The church was demolished in 1887, except for the tower and west wall, which remain today.
History
St Olave, Old Jewry is dedicated to the 11th-century patron saint of Norway,
St Olaf.
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 ...
was the precinct of medieval London largely occupied and populated by
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
until their expulsion from
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 ...
in 1290. The church is also recorded as ''St Olave in Colechirchlane'' and ''St Olave, Upwell'', the latter appellation coming from a well under the east end of the church.
The earliest surviving reference is in a manuscript of c.1130, but excavations made during 1985 uncovered the foundations of a
Saxon predecessor, built between the 9th and 11th centuries, from
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
ish
ragstone
Rag-stone is a name given by some architectural writers to work done with stones that are quarried in thin pieces, such as Horsham Stone, sandstone, Yorkshire stone, and the slate stones, but this is more properly flag or slab work. Near London ...
and recycled
Roman bricks
Roman brick can refer either to a type of brick used in Ancient Roman architecture and spread by the Romans to the lands they conquered; or to a modern type inspired by the ancient prototypes. In both cases, it characteristically has longer and ...
.
After the church's destruction in the Great Fire, the parish was united with that of
St Martin Pomeroy, a tiny church that already shared the small churchyard of St Olave Old Jewry. The two pre-Fire churches were nearly adjacent. Rebuilding began in 1671, incorporating much of the medieval walls and foundations. The tower was built separately, projecting from the west of the church, and required the carpenter to build a timber platform below ground to support the rubble foundation. The church was completed in 1679 at a cost of £5,580, including £10 paid to the then still ruined
St Paul's Cathedral for rubble.
St Olave's was the burial place of
Robert Large
Robert Large (died 1441) was a London merchant, a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers, who was Mayor of London and a Member of Parliament.
He was served as one of the Mercers' four yearly wardens in 1427 and was Sheriff of London in 1 ...
,
Lord Mayor,
mercer
Mercer may refer to:
Business
* Mercer (car), a defunct American automobile manufacturer (1909–1925)
* Mercer (consulting firm), a large human resources consulting firm headquartered in New York City
* Mercer (occupation), a merchant or trader, ...
and master of
William Caxton
William Caxton ( – ) was an English merchant, diplomat and writer. He is thought to be the first person to introduce a printing press into England, in 1476, and as a printer to be the first English retailer of printed books.
His parentage a ...
, in 1440. A much later Lord Mayor, and publisher,
John Boydell
John Boydell (; 19 January 1720 (New Style) – 12 December 1804) was a British publisher noted for his reproductions of engravings. He helped alter the trade imbalance between Britain and France in engravings and initiated a British tradition i ...
was buried in the church in 1804. Boydell would visit the church pump (built atop the medieval well) at 5 am each morning, place his periwig on top and douse his head from the spout. His monument survives, transplanted to
St Margaret Lothbury. The memorial inscriptions of St Olave's were recorded and published by F.A. Crisp in 1887.
[F.A. Crisp, ''Monumental Inscriptions in the Church of St. Olave's, Jewry, London'' (Private, London 1887)]
view at Google
The
Master of the King's Music
Master of the King's Music (or Master of the Queen's Music, or earlier Master of the King's Musick) is a post in the Royal Household of the United Kingdom. The holder of the post originally served the monarch of England, directing the court orche ...
,
Maurice Greene, was buried in St Olave's in 1755. Upon the church's demolition, his remains were moved to
St. Paul's Cathedral.
Despite being restored in 1879, the body of the church was demolished in 1887 under the
Union of Benefices Act. The site was sold for £22,400 and the proceeds used to build
St Olave's Manor House
ST, St, or St. may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Stanza, in poetry
* Suicidal Tendencies, an American heavy metal/hardcore punk band
* Star Trek, a science-fiction media franchise
* Summa Theologica, a compendium of Catholic philosophy an ...
. The dead were disinterred and their remains moved to
City of London Cemetery,
Manor Park, the parish combined with that of St Margaret Lothbury, and the furnishings dispersed to several other churches. The
reredos, font cover and other wooden furnishings and plate went to St Margaret Lothbury; the royal arms went to
St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe; the clock went to
St Olave Hart Street; the
pulpit and
baptismal font went to St Olave's Manor House; and the organ went to Christchurch in
Penge
Penge () is a suburb of South East London, England, now in the London Borough of Bromley, west of Bromley, north east of Croydon and south east of Charing Cross.
History
Penge was once a small hamlet, which was recorded under the name Pence ...
. The tower, west wall and part of the north wall were kept and incorporated into a new building which included a rectory for St Margaret Lothbury. This was replaced in 1986 by an office building, in a sympathetic style, designed by the firm of architects Swanke, Hayden, Connell. The churchyard survives as the courtyard to the office building.
Architecture
In outline, the church was shaped like a wine bottle on its side, with the projecting west tower a truncated neck, the angular west front its shoulders, tapering towards a narrow base to the east. The main façade was on Old Jewry and featured a large
Venetian window
A Venetian window (also known as a Serlian window) is a large tripartite window which is a key element in Palladian architecture. Although Sebastiano Serlio (1475–1554) did not invent it, the window features largely in the work of the Italian ar ...
with columns and a full
entablature.
The tower is the only one built by Wren's office that is battered, i.e. is slightly wider at the bottom than the top. The door to the tower has a segmental pediment and is flanked by Doric columns. On top of the tower is a simple parapet with tall obelisks on each corner with balls on top. In the centre of the tower is a vane in the shape of a sailing ship, taken from
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 ...
.
The original clock, dated 1824, was sold with the rest of the church furnishings at the time of its demolition. The current clock was installed after 1972. The pediment which surrounds it is original and previously framed a window.
A description from the early 18th century describes the interior as extensively decorated with paintings to an extent unparalleled in other Wren churches, viz.,
# Of
Queen Elizabeth lying on a fine couch with her regalia, under an arched canopy, on which are placed her arms.
# Of
King Charles I.
# The figure of
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
, with wings displayed, a scythe in his right hand, and an hour glass in his left; at his foot is a
Cupid dormant, and under him a skeleton eight feet long.
[Cobb: 108–9.]
The remains of the church were designated a Grade I
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
on 4 January 1950.
See also
*
List of Christopher Wren churches in London
Sir Christopher Wren was 33 years old and near the beginning of his career as an architect when the Great Fire of London in 1666 destroyed many of the city's public buildings, including 88 of its parish churches. Wren's office was commissioned to ...
*
Notes
References
* Jeffery, Paul. ''The city churches of Sir Christopher Wren'', Hambledon Press, 1996
* Cobb, Gerald. ''London city churches'', B T Batsford Ltd., 1977
* Heulin, Gordon. ''Vanished churches of the City of London'', Guildhall Library Publications, 1996
* Weinreb, Ben & Hibbert, Christopher (eds.). ''The London encyclopedia'', Macmillan, 1992
{{DEFAULTSORT:Olave Old Jewry
Buildings and structures demolished in 1887
Christopher Wren church buildings in London
English Baroque church buildings
Churches in the City of London, of which only the tower remains
Churches rebuilt after the Great Fire of London but since demolished
Grade I listed churches in the City of London
Churches dedicated to Saint Olav in London