Another in the  series on City of London buildings that survived the Great Fire of 1666, and that still survive to this day …

The church of All Hallows Staining was originally built  in around 1177, and rebuilt in the fourteenth  or fifteenth century (sources differ).  It was undamaged   in the Great Fire.  However,  most  of the church   fell down in 1671, due to undermining of the foundations by – Plague – burials,   and it had to be rebuilt in 1674-5, before being substantially demolished in 1870, when the parish was merged with St Olave Hart Street.

The  fourteenth- or fifteenth- century tower still stands, thanks to the initiative of the Clothworkers’ Company, who were also responsible for restoring it in 1873.  The foundations are  original, twelfth-century.  The crypt is also twelfth-century, although it has been transported from its original location in the chapel of St James-in-the-Wall.  Two sword-rests salvaged from the church can be seen in St Olave Hart Street, a third in St Andrew Undershaft.