The church was originally built in the twelfth century and dedicated to
St Lawrence; the weathervane of the present church is in the form of his instrument of martyrdom, the gridiron.[2] The church is near the former medieval
Jewishghetto,[3] which was centred on the street named
Old Jewry.[4] From 1280 it was an
advowson held by
Balliol College, Oxford.
It is thought that the unusual alignment of the church may be because it was built on the site of the
London Roman Amphitheatre, which was rediscovered as recently as 1988. Its remains can now be visited beneath the
Guildhall Art Gallery.
Sir
Thomas More preached in the old church on this site.[5]
17th century
In 1618 the church was repaired, and all the windows filled with stained glass paid for by individual donors.[6]
The medieval church was destroyed in the
Great Fire of London[7] and built anew by
Christopher Wren between 1670 and 1677.[8] The parish was united with that of
St Mary Magdalen, Milk Street, which was not rebuilt.[6] The church is entirely faced in stone, with a grand east front, on which four attached Corinthian columns, raised on a basement, support a pediment placed against a high attic.[8]George Godwin, writing in 1839, described the details of this facade as displaying " a purity of feeling almost Grecian", while pointing out that Wren's pediment acts only as a superficial adornment to the wall, rather than, as in Classical architecture, forming an extension of the roof.[6]
Inside, Wren's church has an aisle on the north side only, divided from the nave by
Corinthian columns, carrying an
entablature that continues around the walls of the main body of the church, where it is supported on pilasters.[9] The ceiling is divided into sunken panels, ornamented with wreaths and branches.[6] The church is 81 feet long and 68 feet wide.[10]
20th century
The church suffered extensive damage during
the Blitz on 29 December 1940,[11] and after the war the
City of London Corporation agreed to restore it as
Balliol College had no funds to do so. It was restored in 1957 by the architect Cecil Brown to Wren's original design. It is now a
guild church which does not have its own
parish and is not responsible to the parish authorities in its locality; it does not have to hold Sunday services.[12][13]
^"The City Churches" Tabor, M. p. 76:London; The Swarthmore Press Ltd; 1917
^
abBradley, Simon; Pevsner, Nikolaus (1998). London: the City Churches. The Buildings of England. London: Penguin Books. pp. 995–6.
ISBN0-14-071100-7.
^"The City of London Churches: monuments of another age" Quantrill, E; Quantrill, M p. 64: London; Quartet; 1975