St Olave Old Jewry

Last updated
St. Olave Old Jewry
St. Olave Old Jewry.JPG
Tower and west wall of St. Olave Old Jewry
Country United Kingdom
Denomination Roman Catholic, Anglican
Architecture
Architect(s) Sir Christopher Wren
Style Baroque

St Olave, Old Jewry sometimes known as Upwell Old Jewry [1] was a church in the City of London located between the street called Old Jewry and Ironmonger Lane. Destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, the church was rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher Wren. [2] The church was demolished in 1887, except for the tower and west wall, which remain today.

City of London City and county in United Kingdom

The City of London is a city and county that contains the historic centre and the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London from its settlement by the Romans in the 1st century AD to the Middle Ages, but the agglomeration has since grown far beyond the City's borders. The City is now only a tiny part of the metropolis of London, though it remains a notable part of central London. Administratively, it forms one of the 33 local authority districts of Greater London; however, the City of London is not a London borough, a status reserved for the other 32 districts. It is also a separate county of England, being an enclave surrounded by Greater London. It is the smallest county in the United Kingdom.

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.

Ironmonger Lane street in the City of London

Ironmonger Lane is a narrow one-way street in the City of London running southbound between Gresham Street and Cheapside.

Contents

History

St Olave, Old Jewry is dedicated to the 11th-century patron saint of Norway, St Olaf. Old Jewry was the precinct of medieval London largely occupied and populated by Jews until their expulsion from England 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.

Olaf II of Norway king of Norway

Olaf II Haraldsson, later known as St. Olaf, was King of Norway from 1015 to 1028. He was posthumously given the title Rex Perpetuus Norvegiae and canonised at Nidaros (Trondheim) by Bishop Grimkell, one year after his death in the Battle of Stiklestad on 29 July 1030. His remains were enshrined in Nidaros Cathedral, built over his burial site. His sainthood encouraged the widespread adoption of the Christian religion among the Vikings / Norsemen in Scandinavia.

Jews ancient nation and ethnoreligious group from the Levant

Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and a nation, originating from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish people, while its observance varies from strict observance to complete nonobservance.

England Country in north-west Europe, part of the United Kingdom

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to the west and Scotland to the north-northwest. The Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south. The country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, and includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight.

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 Kentish ragstone and recycled Roman bricks.

Anglo-Saxons Germanic tribes who started to inhabit parts of Great Britain from the 5th century onwards

The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited Great Britain from the 5th century, and the direct ancestors of the majority of the modern British people. They comprise people from Germanic tribes who migrated to the island from continental Europe, their descendants, and indigenous British groups who adopted many aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture and language; the cultural foundations laid by the Anglo-Saxons are the foundation of the modern English legal system and of many aspects of English society; the modern English language owes over half its words – including the most common words of everyday speech – to the language of the Anglo-Saxons. Historically, the Anglo-Saxon period denotes the period in Britain between about 450 and 1066, after their initial settlement and up until the Norman conquest. The early Anglo-Saxon period includes the creation of an English nation, with many of the aspects that survive today, including regional government of shires and hundreds. During this period, Christianity was established and there was a flowering of literature and language. Charters and law were also established. The term Anglo-Saxon is popularly used for the language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons in England and eastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century. In scholarly use, it is more commonly called Old English.

Kent County of England

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. The county also shares borders with Essex along the estuary of the River Thames, and with the French department of Pas-de-Calais through the Channel Tunnel. The county town is Maidstone.

Roman Britain part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire

Roman Britain was the area of the island of Great Britain that was governed by the Roman Empire, from 43 to 410 AD. It comprised almost the whole of England and Wales and, for a short period, southern Scotland.

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 16 feet (4.9 m) 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 Pauls Cathedral Church in London

St Paul's Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church of the Diocese of London. It sits on Ludgate Hill at the highest point of the City of London and is a Grade I listed building. Its dedication to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church on this site, founded in AD 604. The present cathedral, dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its construction, completed in Wren's lifetime, was part of a major rebuilding programme in the City after the Great Fire of London. The cathedral building largely destroyed in the Great Fire, now often referred to as Old St Paul's Cathedral, was a central focus for medieval and early modern London, including Paul's walk and St. Paul's Churchyard being the site of St. Paul's Cross.

St Olave's was the burial place of Robert Large, Lord Mayor, mercer and master of William Caxton, in 1440. A much later Lord Mayor, and publisher, John Boydell 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.

Robert Large was a London merchant, a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers, who was Mayor of London and a Member of Parliament.

The Master Mercers have been:

William Caxton English merchant, diplomat, writer and printer

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 was the first English retailer of printed books.

The Master of the King's Music, Maurice Greene, was buried in St Olave's in 1755. Upon the church’s demolition, his remains were moved to St. Paul's Cathedral.

Maurice Greene (composer) English composer and organist

Maurice Greene was an English composer and organist.

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. 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. [3] 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 with columns and a full entablature.

The 88-foot (27 m) tower is the only one built by Wren’s office that is battered, i.e. is slightly wider at the bottom than the top. [4] 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.

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.

  1. Of Queen Elizabeth lying on a fine couch with her regalia, under an arched canopy, on which are placed her arms.
  2. Of King Charles I.
  3. The figure of Time, 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. [5]

The remains of the church were designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950. [6]

Notes

  1. "The London Encyclopaedia" Hibbert,Christopher;Weinreb, Ben; Keay,John: London, Pan Macmillan, 1983 (rev 1993,2008) ISBN   978-1-4050-4924-5
  2. "A Dictionary of London" Harben,H: London, Herbert Jenkins, 1918
  3. Weinreb, Ben, and Hibbert, Christopher (1992). The London Encyclopaedia (reprint ed.). Macmillan. p. 774.CS1 maint: Uses authors parameter (link)
  4. "London:the City Churches” Pevsner,N/Bradley,S New Haven, Yale, 1998 ISBN   0-300-09655-0
  5. Cobb: 108–9.
  6. Historic England. "Details from image database (199551)". Images of England . Retrieved 23 January 2009.

See also

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The Mortality Bill for the year 1665, published by the Parish Clerk’s Company, shows 97 parishes within the City of London. By September 6 the city lay in ruins, 86 churches having been destroyed in the Fire of London. In 1670 a Rebuilding Act was passed and a committee set up under the stewardship of Sir Christopher Wren to decide which would be rebuilt. Fifty-one were chosen, but not St Nicholas Olave. Its unusual dedication refers to the earlier amalgamation between two parishes: St Nicholas and St Olave Bradestrat, which was removed by the Austin Friars for the erection of their monastic buildings. Described by John Stow as a “convenient church” the parish had strong connections with the Fishmongers, many of whom were buried in the churchyard. Its eminent organist William Blitheman also lay here. Following the fire it was united with St Nicholas Cole Abbey and partial records survive and are available in the International Genealogical Index.

References

Coordinates: 51°30′52.15″N0°5′28.70″W / 51.5144861°N 0.0913056°W / 51.5144861; -0.0913056