St. Botolph Aldersgate
St. Botolph Aldersgate is one of four churches in London that were dedicated to the patron saint of travellers, each located adjacent to one of the old gates of London.
Botolph of Thorney was a 7th century Benedictine monk who founded a monastery in Suffolk and became the patron saint of travellers. St. Botolph Aldersgate was one of four churches dedicated to the saint, each located at gates to the City. Those at Bishopsgate and Aldgate remain but the riverside St. Botolph Billingsgate was not rebuilt after the Great Fire. St. Botolph Aldersgate stood outside the City gate of the old Roman road leading north to Islington and, beyond that, to the north of England as the Great North Road.
St. Botolph stood immediately outside Aldersgate, as shown in Civitas Londinum (the ‘Agas map’) from about 1561.
The original church building was probably built during Saxon times, perhaps at the time of Edward the Confessor, but it was first mentioned in the early 12th century. It was rebuilt in the early 17th century. The church stands at a point where the Great Fire only just reached before being extinguished, so the building was scorched but repaired. It nevertheless became ruinous so was rebuilt in the late 18th century in brown brick by City Surveyor Nathaniel Wright.
In around 1831 Aldersgate Street was widened. St. Botolph’s was reduced in size, with a cream stucco classical façade added, fronting onto Aldersgate Street, with Ionic columns and pediment. The church has a tower at the west end with a wooden bell turret on a square dome. The interior is elegant late Georgian, with an elaborate ceiling, redecorated in 1968, that is lit by high lunette windows, similar to All Hallows London Wall. The nave is barrel-vaulted. With a plasterwork design of rosettes. There are galleries on three sides. The impressive stained-glass transparency in the east window dates from 1788. The four Victorian windows in the south aisle show the life of Christ.
In 1880 the former churchyard of St. Botolph, which was shared with St. Leonard Foster and Christ Church Newgate Street, was laid out as a garden. The London General Post Office was previously located nearby and the garden became known as Postman’s Park. It contains the Watt’s Cloister to commemorate unsung heroes who died while saving the life of another.
St. Botolph Aldersgate is now a Guild church without its own parish. Its former parish was united with that of St. Bartholomew the Great, with the two churches each standing at either end of the medieval lane Little Britain.
Sources include:
- Stephan Millar ‘London’s City churches’
- R. G. Ellen ‘A London Steeplechase’
- Tony Tucker ‘City of London Churches’
