Daily entries from the 17th century London diary
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Wikipedia
St Olave Hart Street is a Church of England church in the City of London, located on the corner of Hart Street and Seething Lane near Fenchurch Street railway station.
John Betjeman described St Olave’s as “a country church in the world of Seething Lane."[1] The church is one of the smallest in the City and is one of only a handful of medieval City churches that escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666. In addition to being a local parish church, St Olave’s is the Ward Church of the Tower Ward of the City of London.[2]
[edit] History
The church is first recorded in the 13th century as St Olave-towards-the-Tower, a stone building replacing the earlier (presumably wooden) construction.[3] It is dedicated to the patron saint of Norway, King Olaf II of Norway, who fought alongside the Anglo-Saxon King Ethelred the Unready against the Danes in the Battle of London Bridge in 1014. He was canonised after his death and the church of St Olave's was built apparently on the site of the battle.[citation needed] The Norwegian connection was reinforced during the Second World War when King Haakon VII of Norway worshipped there while in exile.
Saint Olave's was rebuilt in the 13th century and then again in the 15th century. The present building dates from around 1450. According to John Stow’s Survey of London (1603), a major benefactor of the church in the late 15th century was wool merchant Richard Cely Sr. (d. 1482), who held the advowson on the church (inherited by his son, Richard Cely, Jr.). On his death, Cely bequeathed money for making the steeple and an altar in the church. The merchant mark of the Cely family was carved in two of the corbels in the nave (and were extant until the bombing of World War II). No memorial to the Celys now remains in the church.[4]
Saint Olave's survived the Great Fire thanks to the efforts of Sir William Penn, the father of the more famous William Penn who founded Pennsylvania.[citation needed] The flames came within 100 meters or so of the building, but then the wind changed direction, saving the church and a number of other churches on the eastern side of the City.[2]
However, it was gutted by German bombs in 1941 during the London Blitz[5]. and was restored in 1954, with King Haakon returning to preside over the rededication ceremony, during which he laid a stone from Trondheim Cathedral in front of the sanctuary.
[edit] Architecture
St Olave's has a modest exterior in the Perpendicular Gothic style.[6] with a somewhat squat square tower of stone and brick, the latter added in 1732. It is deservedly famous for the macabre 1658 entrance arch to the churchyard, which is decorated with grinning skulls[7]. The novelist Charles Dickens was so taken with this that he included the church in his Uncommon Traveller, renaming it "St Ghastly Grim".
The church was a favourite of the diarist Samuel Pepys, who worked in the nearby Navy Office and worshipped regularly at St Olave's. He referred to it affectionately in his diary as "our own church"[8] and both he and his wife are buried there, in the nave.
The interior of St Olave's only partially survived the wartime bombing; much of it dates from the restoration of the 1950s. It is nearly square, with three bays separated by columns of Purbeck limestone supporting pointed arches. The roof is a simple oak structure with bosses. Most of the church fittings are modern, but there are some significant survivals, such as the monument to Elizabeth Pepys[9] and the pulpit, said to be the work of Grinling Gibbons. Following the destruction of the organ in the blitz, the John Compton Organ Company built a new instrument in the West Gallery, fronted by a large wooden grille; this organ, and the Rectory behind, is ingeniously structured between church and tower.
Perhaps the oddest "person" said to be buried here is the "Pantomime character" Mother Goose. Church documents record her interment on September 14, 1586. A plaque on the outside commemorates the event. The churchyard is also said to contain the grave of one Mary Ramsay, popularly believed to be the woman who brought the Black Death to London in the 17th Century.[10]
The church tower contains 8 bells. These are rung by the University of London Society of Change Ringers. The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.[11] St Olave's has retained long and historic links with Trinity House and the Clothworkers' Company.
[edit] Notable people associated with the church
- Samuel Pepys, diarist: buried 1703
- King Haakon VII of Norway: worshipped here 1940-1945
[edit] Notes
- ^ Betjeman, John (1993). City of London Churches. Pitkin Publishing. ISBN 978-0-85372-565-7.
- ^ a b St. Olave's Church Website. Retrieved on 2009-12-11.
- ^ “The Churches of the City of London” Reynolds,H.: London, Bodley Head, 1922
- ^ Hanham, Alison (2002). The Celys and Their World: An English Merchant Family of the Fifteenth Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521520126. , pp. 7 and 318.
- ^ "The Old Churches of London" Cobb,G: London, Batsford, 1942
- ^ “The City of London Churches” Betjeman,J Andover, Pikin, 1967 ISBN 0853721122
- ^ "London:the City Churches” Pevsner,N/Bradley,S New Haven, Yale, 1998 ISBN 0300096550
- ^ "Pepys: the unequalled self" Tomalin,C: London, Viking, 2002 ISBN 0670885681
- ^ "The Visitors Guide to the City of London Churches" Tucker,T: London, Friends of the City Churches, 2006 ISBN 0955394503
- ^ Cambridgeshire Collection - History On The Net
- ^ Images of England — details from listed building database (199509) accessed 23 January 2009
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
Coordinates: 51°30′39.04″N 0°4′46.88″W / 51.5108444°N 0.0796889°W / 51.5108444; -0.0796889
Annotations
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St. Olave’s Hart Street —
one of the medieval churches that survived the Great Fire; heavily damaged in the blitz, but subsequently restored.
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The Rocque Map reference:
http://www.motco.com/Map/81002/SeriesSearchPlatesFulla.asp?mode=query&artist=384&other=321&x=11&y=11
Best guess is that the church is across Seething Lane from their home.
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more resources for the the visitor
http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/london2002/april2002/25apr2002b/
http://www.londontaxitour.com/london-taxi-tour-sights-churches-st-olave-hart-street.htm
http://www.london-footprints.co.uk/peopepys.htmhttp://www.moodmapper.com/idx_result.asp?mood_id=349&place_ID=223
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Brief information from about 60 years later, in 1722.
http://www.londonancestor.com/stow/stow-church-122.htm
There are 220 houses in the parish, which is absolutely tiny, so the population density here must have returned to that which existed before the Great Fire of 1666.
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About two centuries after the Diary, Charles Dickens wrote a whimsical account of St Olave’s in “The Uncommercial Traveller” as follows:
“When I think I deserve particularly well of myself, and have earned the right to enjoy a little treat, I stroll from Covent-garden into the City of London, after business-hours there, on a Saturday, or - better yet - on a Sunday, and roam about its deserted nooks and corners. It is necessary to the full enjoyment of these journeys that they should be made in summer-time, for then the retired spots that I love to haunt, are at their idlest and dullest. A gentle fall of rain is not objectionable, and a warm mist sets off my favourite retreats to decided advantage.
Among these, City Churchyards hold a high place”“One of my best beloved churchyards, I call the churchyard of Saint Ghastly Grim; touching what men in general call it, I have no information. It lies at the heart of the City, and the Blackwall Railway shrieks at it daily. It is a small small churchyard, with a ferocious, strong, spiked iron gate, like a jail. This gate is ornamented with skulls and cross-bones, larger than the life, wrought in stone; but it likewise came into the mind of Saint Ghastly Grim, that to stick iron spikes a-top of the stone skulls, as though they were impaled, would be a pleasant device. Therefore the skulls grin aloft horribly, thrust through and through with iron spears. Hence, there is attraction of repulsion for me in Saint Ghastly Grim, and, having often contemplated it in the daylight and the dark, I once felt drawn towards it in a thunderstorm at midnight. ‘Why not?’ I said, in self-excuse. ‘I have been to see the Colosseum by the light of the moon; is it worse to go to see Saint Ghastly Grim by the light of the lightning?’ I repaired to the Saint in a hackney cab, and found the skulls most effective, having the air of a public execution, and seeming, as the lightning flashed, to wink and grin with the pain of the spikes. Having no other person to whom to impart my satisfaction, I communicated it to the driver. So far from being responsive, he surveyed me - he was naturally a bottled-nosed, red-faced man - with a blanched countenance. And as he drove me back, he ever and again glanced in over his shoulder through the little front window of his carriage, as mistrusting that I was a fare originally from a grave in the churchyard of Saint Ghastly Grim, who might have flitted home again without paying.”
Here’s a recent photograph:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/57351475@N00/19684301/in/photostream/
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Panorama of inside St Olave Church…
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Detailed current description of architecture, monuments, furnishings, etc.
Buildings of England: London I, The City Yale UP, 1999. (rev ed.) pp 253-255
References in the diary
- 1660
-
Aug: 19, 24, 26, 29
Sep: 9, 23, 26, 30
Oct: 21
Nov: 4, 11, 18, 25
Dec: 2, 16, 23, 25
- 1661
-
Jan: 6, 13, 20, 27
Mar: 3, 10, 17, 24, 31
May: 26
Jun: 2, 23, 30
Jul: 28
Aug: 11, 18, 25
Sep: 1, 8, 15, 29
Oct: 6, 20, 27
Nov: 10, 17
Dec: 1, 15, 22, 25
- 1662
-
Jan: 5, 12, 19, 26, 30
Feb: 2, 16
Mar: 2, 9, 23, 30
May: 11, 25
Jun: 1, 8, 15, 29
Jul: 6, 13, 27
Aug: 31
Sep: 14, 28
Oct: 5, 26
Nov: 2, 16, 23, 30
Dec: 7, 14, 21, 28
- 1663
-
Jan: 4, 11, 18, 30
Feb: 1, 15
Mar: 15, 22, 29
Apr: 5, 12, 19, 26
May: 3, 17, 24, 31
Jun: 7, 14, 21
Jul: 5, 19
Aug: 9, 16, 23
Sep: 27
Oct: 4, 18, 25
Nov: 1, 8, 22, 29
Dec: 6, 13, 20, 25, 27
- 1664
-
Feb: 7, 14
Mar: 6
Apr: 17
May: 8
Jun: 26
Jul: 31
Aug: 2, 28
Sep: 11
Oct: 9, 23, 30
Nov: 6, 13, 27
Dec: 4, 18, 25
- 1665
-
Jan: 15, 22
Feb: 26
Apr: 9
May: 7, 14
Jun: 18, 20
Sep: 3
- 1666
-
Jan: 30
Feb: 4, 11
Mar: 11, 18
Apr: 29
May: 6, 20, 27
Jun: 3, 6
Jul: 8, 15, 29
Sep: 9, 30
Oct: 7, 14, 21, 28
Nov: 4, 11, 20
Dec: 2, 23, 25, 30
- 1667
-
Jan: 6, 13, 20
Feb: 10, 24
Mar: 3