Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 6.djvu/320

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vi. MAY a, iwo.

THE MENACED CITY CHURCHES.

THERE is no necessity to adopt an extreme view either in favour of or against the removal of the nineteen City churches condemned by the Com- mission. Some of them, as it is impossible fully to utilize them in their present capacity, are bound to go. The destruction of some of these too, would really be no great loss.

Take St. Botolph's, Aldersgate, for instance. It is not a Wren church, and is quite common- place, as any one can see for himself. The cemented east end dates from 1831 only.

The other St. Botolph's in Aldgate is not much better rwith the exception of the tower and that is to be spared. The Church has been criticized as " bald even to brutality." .It is not a Wren church, and there is a better specimen of the work of its architect, the elder Dance, existing in St. Leonard's, Shoreditch.

St. Catherine Coleman, is not now in question. It had aleady been condemned. It is or was a miserable specimen of a church, so contemptible, that it is of no consequence who the architect was, except that it was not Wren.

Of St. Dunstan's in the East the tower only is by Wren, and that is to be left. The church itself is a good specimen of the bastard florid Gothic of a century ago, with execrable stained glass to match, " glaring and tawdry." The tower is excellent.

There are four churches here close together, St. Dunstan's, St. Mary-at-Hill, St. Clement's, Eastcheap, and St. Margaret Pattens. The first three have to go, and there is no doubt that St. Margaret Pattens is the one that should be spared. But at one time it too was threatened. The others have now to be sacrificed to save it, and this consideration reconciles one to their fate.

St. Mary-at-Hill is " the least interesting of

Wren's domed churches .... and it is doubtful

whether much of Wren's original work remains."

. The tower is not by W T ren ; it dates from 1780

only, and is " an ugly brick erection."

St. Clement's has been to a great extent spoilt by modernisation.

We now come to " the least interesting of all Wren's churches " St. Stephen's, Coleman Street. It has been restored and altered almost out of knowledge since his time, and is not worth retaining.

Another Wren church, St. Mary Aldermanbury, has also suffered the same fate, and now would not be much loss.

The same may be said of St. Michael's, Corn- Hill. The tower, one of Wren's few Gothic towers, is to remain, and one would like to save the church if one could remove all the Victorian stained glass from it, but it is so close to St. Peter's, Cornhill (which also has stained glass that wants removing) that it seems impossible to retain them both as churches.

Although All Hallows, London Wall, is not by Wren but by Dance the younger, one would regret the disappearance of this small but pic- turesque church.

All Hallows, Lombard Street, like some already mentioned, " has been considerably pulled aboul since the days of Wren," and this consideration helps to reconcile one to its removal, especially as

ts good south doorway, and excellent interior ittings can be set up elsewhere.

St. Dunstan's in the West is a creditable specimen of early nineteenth century Gothic, and ts beautiful lantern tower, one of the landmarks of London, is to be retained. It is perhaps a jity that the octagonal body of the church should lave to go, but as it is never open on week days and practically is only accessible to the small congregation that attends it on Sundays, it would not be much missed.

There remain of the condemned, six Wren
 * hurches and one other. Each of these will be a

distinct loss, to the City, to architecture and tc* aistory. St. Mary Woolnoth is of a very original design, by Hawksmoor, and for that reason, and ior its striking appearance, and position another City landmark worth preservation.

Of the six Wren churches, three, St. Magnus, London Bridge, St. Michael Royal and St. Vedast, are to leave us their beautiful towers as- memorials. But towers of churches without bodies to them are like those well-bound books that one sometimes takes down from the shelves- of the libraries of country houses, which have lettering on their backs intimating that they are well-known histories or biographies, but turn out to be merely chess-boards, and leave one with a feeling of loss and disappointment.

St. Nicholas Cole Abbey seems at present full of life and character, and SS. Anne and Agnes has " a very beautiful interior." St. Alban's, Wood Street should be preserved as one of the few specimens of Wren's Gothic.

All the quotations I have made are from a small book called The City Churches,' by Margaret E. Tabor, but I have myself verified by personal inspection everything she has said about them except in the last instance, SS. Anne and Agnes, into which church I never succeeded in entering it was always the wrong day or the wrong hour-

PENRY LEWIS.

to

EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' " Adver- tisements and Business Letters to " The Pub- lishers" at the Office, Printing House Square, London, E.C.4.

A SEVENTEENTH CENTCRY CHARM (12 S. vi. 201). DIEGO writes : "A document resembling this was the occasion of correspondence in 1896. See 8 S. ix. 202, 291, 374, 451." MR. J. B. WAINEWRIGHT writes : " Is not Isunday to be identified with Isayndre, a parish in Cardigan- shire, one mile to the east of Aberystwyth ? "

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