The City Churches of Old London

St. Michael, Cornhill, 1912

It was these murky glass slides of City churches (and a few nearby), taken for the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society a century ago and held in the collection at the Bishopsgate Institute, that inspired me to go out and take my own pictures of these same buildings last winter. Yet revisiting the old photographs, after I have taken my own, makes me acutely aware of how the cityscape around these curious architectural masterpieces has changed.

As shabby old residents that have survived from another age, the churches speak eloquently of an earlier world when the City of London was densely populated and dozens of places of worship were required to serve all the tiny parishes crowded up beside each other. Yet in spite of the encroachment of towers around them, these intricately wrought structures stubbornly hold their own against newcomers today.

In the process of getting to know them, I acquired a literary companion – John Betjeman, who knew these churches as well as anyone and was refreshingly candid in his opinions. While grieving the loss of seven Wren designs to the German bombers in World War II, he managed to find a silver lining.“They did us a favour in blowing out much bad Victorian glass,” he declared with unapologetic prejudice.

Yet I could not but concur with his estimation of the contemporary significance of these churches when he wrote – “As the impersonal slabs of cellular offices rise higher into the sky, so do the churches which remain in the City of London today become more valuable to us. They maintain a human scale…” And that was in 1965, before most of the financial towers were built.

St Mary le Bow, Cheapside, 1910

St Augustine, Watling St, 1921 – now part of St Paul’s School

St Andrew Undershaft, St Mary Axe, c. 1910

St Mary Abchurch, c. 1910

St Margaret Patterns, Eastcheap, 1920

St Mary Woolnoth, Lombard St & Bank Tube station, c. 1920

St Stephen Walbrook, 1917

St Clement Danes, c. 1910

St Alban, Wood St, c. 1875 – only the tower remains

St Clement Danes, c. 1900

St Margaret, Lothbury, 1908

St George the Martyr, Borough, 1910

St. Katherine Coleman, Magpie Alley, c. 1910 – demolished in 1926

St. Magnus the Martyr, c. 1910

St Magnus the Martyr & the Monument from the Thames, c. 1920

St Dunstan in the East, 1910

St Dunstan in the East, 1910

St Dunstan in the West, Fleet St, c. 1910

St. Michael Paternoster Royal, 1922

St. Michael Paternoster Royal, 1922

St. Michael Paternoster Royal, 1922

St Bride, Fleet St, 1922

St Dunstan in the East, 1911

St Mary Le Strand

Images copyright © Bishopsgate Institute

You may also like to take a look at my pictures of

and these other glass slides of Old London

The Nights of Old London

The Ghosts of Old London

The Dogs of Old London

The Signs of Old London

The Markets of Old London

The Pubs of Old London

The Doors of Old London

The Staircases of Old London

The High Days & Holidays of Old London

The Dinners of Old London

The Shops of Old London

The Streets of Old London

The Fogs & Smogs of Old London

The Chambers of Old London

The Tombs of Old London

The Bridges of Old London

The Forgotten Corners of Old London

The Thames of Old London

The Statues & Effigies of Old London