We all have some idea of the devastation caused by the Great Fire of London in 1666. It destroyed 80% of the City including over 13,000 houses, making 100,000 homeless.
It also destroyed 87 churches.
But a silver lining to this devastation was that the task of rebuilding public buildings – including churches – was given to the great architect Sir Christopher Wren, and many of these wonderful buildings ornament the City today.
He rebuilt 52 churches. Some of them can still be seen today, some were destroyed in the Blitz during World War II, some were demolished,
ONE was picked up and moved.
The population of the City of London had declined dramatically from its peak of the late middle ages, due to the population moving out to the suburbs around the City (even if they commuted back there to work).
This decline accelerated even more as transport improved, particularly with the arrival of the railways and London Underground during the 19th century.
By the middle of the 19th century, the empty churches in the City had become a burden on the Church of England, as they were restricting its ability to build new churches in the suburbs, where people were now actually living.
The main challenge was that closing churches required an Act of Parliament.
This was eventually passed in 1860 (the Union of Benefices Act), allowing parishes in London to be combined and some churches de-consecrated.
This led to 23 City churches being fully or partially demolished. Often the funds raised would be used to build a church in the suburbs, an early example being St. Olave Jewry being united with St Margaret Lothbury, sold off and partially demolished (the tower is part of a law office today) and the funds used to build St Olave’s Manor House in North London.
As more churches were destroyed, a conservation movement arose.
By the early 20th Century, when the closure process arrived at the Wren classic of All Hallows Lombard Street, they were determined to prevent its complete destruction.
A pamphlet entitled “Should All Hallows Lombard Street be destroyed: the case for preservation” was published, a pioneering document in the history of the preservation movement in London.
Eventually a compromise was reached and in 1937 the tower was deconstructed by hand and moved, along with many of the internal fittings, to Twickenham to form part of the new church of All Hallows there, ready to serve the people of this fast growing suburb in South West London. Construction of the new church began in 1939 and it was consecrated in 1940 against the dramatic backdrop of the Blitz that was busy destroying many more of Wrens churches back in the City.
A visit to this church by anyone interested in Wren or the history of the City of London is fascinating. The tower and the many internal monuments to City dignitaries of the 18th and 19th centuries are wonderfully incongruous in its suburban location next to the A316.
The City site was sold and is now mostly office blocks but some of the old parish boundary markers have been re-sited on these new buildings, a reminder of the City’s complicated history.
Mark
