St Mildred, Poultry, was a parish church in the
Cheap ward[1] of the
City of London dedicated to Anglo-Saxon
Saint Mildred.[2] It was rebuilt after the
Great Fire of London, and demolished in 1872. St Mildred in the Poultry was the burial place of the writer
Thomas Tusser. Some description of the church and its monuments is given in
John Stow's Survey of London.[3]
History
Medieval building
The church stood on the north side of
Poultry at its junction with
Mansion House Street. The first church can be traced back to 1175, in the reign of
Henry II;[4] by 1456 it had fallen into disrepair, and had to be taken down and rebuilt.[5]
Rebuilding after the Great Fire
The medieval building was destroyed in the
Great Fire of London in 1666. A new church was completed in 1676 to the designs of Sir
Christopher Wren, after which the parish was united with that of
St Mary Colechurch, which was not rebuilt.
George Godwin described the interior of the new church as "a simple room with a flat ceiling coved at the sides … remarkable for nothing but a strange want of symmetry apparent at the west end". It was 56 feet long, 42 feet wide and 36 feet high.[5] The most ornamented part of the exterior was the south side, towards Poultry, with a central pediment and
Ionicpilasters.[6] There was a 75-foot-high tower,[5] topped by a copper
weather vane in the form of a ship.[6]
An organ was provided in the mid-eighteenth century by
George England.
Demolition
The building was sold for £50,200 in 1871 under the
Union of Benefices Act 1860,[6][7] and demolished the following year.[8] A
City of London Corporation plaque now marks the site. The parish was united with that of
St Olave Old Jewry, and the church's weather vane sent there. The proceeds of the sale were used to build and endow the new church of St Paul, Goswell Road, which also received the City church's pulpit and woodwork.[6] When the parish of St Olave also ceased to be viable, the combined parishes were in turn united with
St Margaret Lothbury.[9]
^History of the church of St Mildred the Virgin in Poultry in the City of London: John Russell Smith, London, 1872
^Hibbert, C.; Weinreb, D.; Keay, J., The London Encyclopaedia. London: Pan Macmillan, 1983 (rev. 1993, 2008)
ISBN978-1405049245
^Papers relating to the proposed union of the rectory of St Margaret Lothbury MS 08905, cited in Hallows, A., ed., City of London Parish Registers Guide 4. London: Guildhall Library Research, 1974
ISBN0900422300.