News from Friends of the City Churches

September marks four poignant anniversaries in the history of London and the City churches. The Great Fire began on September 2, 1666, World War II on September 3, 1939, and the Blitz on September 7, 1940; September 1945 was the first month of peace in six long years, although it would be over 20 years again until the last of the war-damaged City churches was restored.

The first bombs fell on London on August 24, as wayward payload from a raid destined for Thameshaven; the medieval church of St. Giles Cripplegate received a direct hit. The Blitz began in earnest two weeks later, and lasted for seven months, but it was the raid of December 29/30 that truly devastated the City. Under conditions eerily like those that fanned the Great Fire, a ’fire blitz’ of small but lethal incendiary bombs found tinder by the mile in the old town. Had there been more firewatchers, the damage might have been much less, for even ordinary householders had by then learned how to smother incendiaries before fires took hold. St. Paul’s was prepared and, after one hair-raising episode, survived with little damage, but the churches were largely left to their fate. Seventeen – including four that had survived 1666 – were badly damaged, three beyond hope of restoration.

St. Mary-le-Bow was gutted in the raid of May 10, 1941, the last of the Blitz if not of the war; St. Michael Paternoster Royal was hit by flying bombs in July 1944. By VE Day, virtually every church in the City had sustained some damage, if only the loss of stained glass that some purists now regard as a blessing in disguise. Three within the City were destroyed – St. Mildred Bread Street, St. Stephen Coleman Street and St. Swithun London Stone – as well as Holy Trinity Minories and St. Mary Whitechapel, just outside. The ruins of Christ Church Newgate and St. Dunstan in the East now shelter City gardens; a garden alone remains of St. Mary Aldermanbury, now rebuilt 4000 miles away in Fulton, Missouri. Of St. Alban Wood Street and St. Augustine Watling Street, only the towers survive (the latter, within St. Paul’s Choir School).

In 1945, the architect Cecil Brown – who went on to restore St. Lawrence Jewry – produced the extraordinary panorama Devastated London, a record in minute detail of standing remains from St. Bride’s to St. Giles (available from Guildhall Bookshop). Equally enthralling are Mollie Panter-Downes’ London War Notes, Leonard Mosley’s Backs to the Wall, and David Johnson’s The City Ablaze, sobering reminders of why the friends of the City churches continue to cherish them.

Friends of the City Churches, St Magnus the Martyr, Lower Thames Street, London EC3R 6DN tel 020 7626 1555

e-mail      www.london-city-churches.org.uk