St. Andrew by the Wardrobe
St. Andrew by the Wardrobe church near Blackfriars was established in the medieval period. It is now the parish church of that part of the City of London.
St. Andrew by the Wardrobe can be seen on ‘S. Andrewes hyll’ in Civitas Londinum (the ‘Agas map’) from about 1561.
St. Andrew’s was first mentioned in 1244 and originally known as St. Andrea de Costello, referring to the nearby Norman-era Baynard’s Castle. From 1361 until 1666 royal costumes and belongings were kept at the King’s Great Wardrobe, a short distance to the south-west of St. Paul’s Cathedral and close to the church, so St. Andrew’s took on that name.
The medieval building was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, as was the King’s Wardrobe. It was a poor area of the City and the parishioners could ill-afford to pay for the rebuilding of their church, which had to be funded by the Coal Tax. It was therefore the last, and cheapest, of the City churches, rebuilt in red brick under Sir Christopher Wren, and completed in 1695.
St. Andrew’s stands higher than the surrounding streets. It can be accessed up steps from both Queen Victoria Street or from beside the 18th century rectory on St. Andrew’s Hill on the north side. At the time it was rebuilt it was hemmed in by other buildings, but the subsequent laying out of Queen Victoria Street in the 19th century provided a prominent view of the south side of the church. It was badly damaged in December 1940 during the Second World War, leaving only the walls and tower. It was subsequently restored by Marshall Sisson to Wren’s original plans, completed in 1961. There are galleries on three sides and the ceiling is barrel-vaulted.
As other surrounding churches were destroyed, demolished, or ceased to be parish churches, their parishes were amalgamated into that of St. Andrew’s. It now incorporates the parishes of St Ann Blackfriars, St. Mary Mounthaw, St. Peter Paul’s Wharf, St. Nicholas Olave (all destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt), St. Mary Somerset (demolished in 1871), St. Benet Paul’s Wharf (a Welsh-language church since 1879), St. Nicholas Cole Abbey (ceased to be a parish church after WW2), and St. Katharine Cree (a Guild church without its own parish after 1952).
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- St. Andrew Undershaft in the 1920s.
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- St. Andrew Undershaft in the 1920s.
Sources include:
- Stephen Millar ‘London’s City Churches’
- R.G. Ellen ‘A London Steeplechase’
- Tony Tucker ‘City of London Churches’
- Paul Rabbitts ‘Sir Christopher Wren’
