St. Michael Paternoster Royal

St. Michael’s is dedicated to the Archangel and first mentioned in the early 12^th century. It is located on the corner of College Hill and College Street. The streets have had different names over time, including: Whittington College Lane, Paternoster Lane, and Rioll lane; and Paternoster Street and Vintry.

Paternoster may relate to rosary makers who worked in the area. A rosary included the large Paternoster (‘Lord’s Prayer’) bead. There are two theories regarding the suffix ‘Royal’. The church was in Vintry ward of the City, home to London’s wine importers, and it could be a corruption of La Reole, a town in Bordeaux from where they imported wine. Further north along Paternoster Street was La Ryole. According to the Tudor-era historian John Stow, in the 14^th century it had been a well-defended royal palace and used for the Queen’s Wardrobe, known as the Tower Royal. It was later used for stabling for royal horses, he says, and by the 16^th century let out as tenements.

Sir Richard Whittington, four times Lord Mayor, lived on College Hill and in 1409 paid for the church to be rebuilt. He was buried in 1423 on the south side of the altar, as was his wife Alice FitzWaryn. He founded a college of priests there, hence the inclusion of ‘college’ in the street names. Stow said of it:

…the fair parish church of St. Michael called Paternoster Church in the Royal. This church was new built, and made a college of St. Spirit and St. Michael, founded by Richard Whittington, mercer, four times mayor…

Whittington also established almshouses on the north side of the church (later the site of the Mercers’ School before it moved to Highgate). The rules of the college and almshouses were that when residents rose from their bed each morning they should kneel, “say a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria with special and herty commendacion-making of the forsaid Richard Whittington and Alice, to God and our blessed lady Maidyn Mary”. Stow continues:

This Richard Whittington was in this church three times buried: first by his executors under a fair monument; then in the reign of Edward VI., the parson of that church, thinking some great riches, as he said, to be buried with him, caused his monument to be broken, his body to be spoiled of his leaden sheet, and again the second time to be buried; and in the reign of Queen Mary the parishioners were forced to take him up, to lap him in lead as afore, to bury him the third time, and to place his monument, or the like, over him again, which remaineth, and so he resteth.

Sadly, there is no surviving trace of Whittington’s tomb.

Following damage during the Great Fire, St. Michael’s was rebuilt by the master mason Edward Strong between 1686 and 1694 under the supervision of Christopher Wren. It was one of the last of Wren’s City churches. The graceful octagonal steeple, of three stages, with eight columns at the angles, was added in around 1713, possibly by Nicholas Hawksmoor. It has a similarity to the steeple of the nearby St. James Garlickhythe, and also St. Stephen Walbrook. The exterior walls are mostly stone-faced, with round-headed windows, featuring cherubs heads as keystones. The interior was rearranged by William Butterfield in the mid-19^th century, with a stained-glass window to commemorate Whittington, and blue-painted ceiling.

The church was largely hidden from view until the Second World War, when it was severely damaged by a flying V1 rocket in July 1944, leaving just the walls and tower. The area between College Street and Upper Thames Street has since been laid out as Whittington Garden by the City of London Corporation, providing a view of the south wall of St. Michael’s. Nevertheless, my favourite view of St. Michael’s is looking south down College Hill, which gives a sense of old London.

The building remained in a patched-up condition, largely closed throughout the 1950s. Full restoration work began in 1966 under Elidir L.W. Davies, the last of the City churches to be rebuilt. New stained-glass windows were created by John Hayward, including a replacement of the earlier Whittington window. When it was rebuilt it was slightly shortened to provide office space. The fine reredos, with stone figures of Moses and Aaron came from All Hallows the Great, which was demolished in 1894.

St. Michael’s ceased to be a parish church but after the completion of restoration in 1968 continued as a chapel and offices for the Mission for Seafarers, a Church of England voluntary society, under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London. Its parish was amalgamated into that of St. James Garlickhythe. The Mission for Seafarers vacated the church in 2021 and it is no longer used for worship. In 2024 the Diocese of London offered for sale a 125-year lease on the building.