Another in the series on historic churches in the City of London …
By the time of the Great Fire of London in 1666, there were over a hundred parish churches and other places of Christian worship within and immediately without the walls of the City, despite a number having been closed down during the Reformation. To be precise, according to Parish Clerks’ records, there were 97 churches within the walls of the City, and 16 without, making a total of 113.
All Hallows Honey Lane (not shown on sixteenth-century “Agas” map/Map of Early Modern London) was originally built around the turn of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the oldest record of it being in a deed dating to between 1191 and 1212. By the early sixteenth century, the church was known for its Lutheran leanings, and in 1540, its curate, Thomas Garret or Gerrard, was burned at the stake at Smithfield for heresy. It was described by Stow in his “Survay of London” of 1598 as a “small parish church”, with “no monuments … worth the noting”. The church was subsequently burned down in the Great Fire of 1666, and never rebuilt, and the parish was merged with that of St Mary-le-Bow.
Only parish boundary markers survive at its former site. However, some “Anglo-Norman” structures were uncovered during post-fire redevelopment, and a twelfth-century column capital in the form of a serpent, possibly from the church, was salvaged, and may now be seen in the British Museum. Buried human remains were uncovered during archaeological excavations at No. 111 Cheapside in 1954-5.
The image of the bee is on Cheapside, and marks the site of Honey Lane. I’m afraid I don’t have an image of the “serpent” column capital from All Hallows. Sorry for the confusion.
No problem. Many thanks.
Honey Lane and the bumblebee in the first picture; are they related? Also what serpent? Are those meant to be serpent scales? I saw them as petals! I went to see if there was anything in your “Flower of all Cities” but it’s gone “missing” !!!