St. Anne & St. Agnes church

St. Anne and St. Agnes can be seen just inside the city wall in Civitas Londinum (the ‘Agas map’) from about 1561.

During the medieval period this church was known as either St. Anne, St. Agnes, St. Anne by Aldersgate or St. Anne by the Willows. Since the 15^th century it has had the double dedication, the only such one in the City. St. Anne was the grandmother of Jesus, and mother of Mary. St. Agnes is a more obscure saint who was martyred by the Romans in 304AD when only 13 years old.

The church was first recorded in 1150. It stood immediately south of the city wall, just inside of Aldersgate. It was separated by its churchyard from a narrow lane known throughout the medieval period as Pope’s Lane, and after the Reformation as St. Anne’s Lane. Its parish covered the area inside Aldersgate and the city wall, at the northern end of St. Martin’s Lane (now St. Martin Le Grand). The church was destroyed by fire in 1548 and rebuilt. In 1624 it was “richly and very worthily beautified”. Soon after, the steeple was repaired and a new turret added for the saints’ bell.

St. Anne’s was destroyed in the Great Fire. After the formation of a Commission to rebuild the City churches following the Great Fire, it was initially decided that St. Anne & St. Agnes would be one of the first fifteen to be rebuilt. However, there was so much pressure from vestries of other churches that the decision was rescinded. In the meantime, a temporary tabernacle was erected for worship to continue, while its parishioners raised a loan to the Commission for work to begin. Authorisation to begin was given in 1677 following a site visit by Robert Hooke the previous year, one of several he made during the rebuilding.

Although the church was largely destroyed, much of the tower remained, so it was simply repaired. The very plain, stuccoed tower of today, with its small weatherboarded bell turret, thus incorporates the first two stages of the 14^th century tower and appears to be of a different building.

The pre-Fire church was roughly rectangular but with a small section missing in the south-east corner where there was access to the rectory. The east wall was out of alignment with the other sides. It consisted of a nave, separated from the north and south aisles by rows of columns. In 1677 the Commissioners asked the former Lord Mayor Sir Thomas Bludworth and the lawyer Sir Thomas Exton to agree with the rector a reasonable sum as compensation to relinquish his claim to the rectory site. The rebuilt church could thus be slightly larger and a more regular shape.

St. Anne’s is one of several Wren and Hooke churches with the internal design of a Greek Cross in a square. Its intersecting barrel-vaulted ceiling is supported on four wooden Corinthian columns, similar to St. Martin Ludgate and St. Mary-at-Hill, standing on wainscoted pedestals.

The exterior walls are of Dutch-style red brick with brick quoins. Very little stone was used. A steeple was added in around 1687.

In the mid-19^th century Gresham Street was created by joining and widening two streets to the south of the Guildhall, named after the Tudor financier Sir Thomas Gresham. In the 1870s Gresham Street was extended westwards to meet St. Martin Le Grand. St. Anne’s is thus now on the corner of Gresham Street and Noble Street.

The building was renovated several times during the 19^th century, notably in 1820 by Charles Tyrell. The south entrance was rebuilt in stone. Further alterations were made in the 1830s and 1880s.

Photo by Cecil Beaton.

St. Anne and St. Agnes was badly damaged in December 1940 during the Blitz, on the same night as at least eight City churches. Many of the internal fittings were lost. Restoration, by Braddock & Martin Smith for the Lutheran church to Wren’s designs, only took place in 1966 and was used until 2013 by their Estonian and Latvian communities. Until the Second World War it was hemmed in by other buildings. It is now quite visible behind its former churchyard, which has been converted into a small park.

Following the war, St. Anne’s ceased to be a parocial church. Its parish was united with that of St. Vedast alias Foster. There are various furnishings from ‘lost’ City churches, including two early 18^th century paintings.It has now returned to being an Anglican church but used for vocal music.