St. Nicholas Cole Abbey

St. Nicholas was one of three City churches (but the only survivor) dedicated to the 4^th century Greek bishop, the patron saint of sailors, children and toymakers, more famously known as ‘Santa Claus’. It was first mentioned in the early 12^th century. The reason for the suffix of Cole Abbey is unclear but seems to be a corruption rather than a reference to a monastery. It may refer to a medieval shelter for travellers known as Cold Harbour. During medieval times it was also known as St. Nicholas Coldaby. In his 1598 ‘Survey of London’ John Stow wrote:

Nicholas Cold Abbey… It has been called of many Golden Abbey, of some, Gold Abbey, or Cold Bey, and so hath the most ancient writings, as standing in a cold place, as Cold Harbour, and such like.

The Civitas Londinum (the ‘Agas map’) from about 1561 shows the proximity of St. Nicholas (marked ‘12’) to the Thames.

There were close connections with fishmongers from the time a fish market was established during the reign of Richard I, and Old Fish Street Hill runs on the east side of the church. Stow went on to say:

…a proper church, somewhat ancient, as appeareth by the ways raised thereabout, so that men are forced to descend into the body of the church… The steeple or tall tower of this church, with the south aisle, have been of a later building: to wit, the 1^st [year of the reign of] Richard II., when it was meant the whole church should have been new built, as appeareth by the arching begun on the east side of the steeple, under the which, in the stone work, the arms of one Buckland, esquire, and his wife, daughter to Beaupere, are cut in stone, and also are in the glass windows, whereby it appeareth he was the builder of the steeple and repairer of the residue. The 26^th [year of the reign of] Edward III., An. Aubrey being mayor, T. Frere, fishmonger, gave one piece of ground to the said parish church of St. Nicholas, containing eighty-six feet in length, and forty-three feet at the other, in breadth, for a cemetery or churchyard. The 20^th [year of the reign of] Richard II., Thomas Barnard Castle, clerk, John Sonderash, clerk, and John Nouncy, gave to the parson and churchwardens of the said church and their successors one messuage and one shop, with the appurtenances, in Distaffe Lane and Old Fish Street, for the reparation of the body of the said church, the belfry, and ornaments.

Stow lists the memorials of those buried in the church, who include various fishmongers.

On the north side of this church, in the wall thereof, was of late built a convenient cistern of stone and lead for receipt of Thames water, conveyed in pipes of lead to that place, for the ease and commodity of the fishmongers and other inhabitants in and about Old Fish Street. Barnard Randolph, common sergeant of the city of London, did in his lifetime deliver to the company of Fishmongers the sum of nine hundred pounds, to be employed towards the conducting of the said Thames water, and cisterning the same, &c. in the parishes of St. Mary Magdalen, and St. Nicholas Cold Abbey, near unto Fish Street, seven hundred pounds: and other two hundred pounds to charitable deeds. He deceased 1583, and shortly after his conduit with the other was made and finished.

An early 17^th century monument in the church read:

Leonard Smith, fishmonger, ended his days,
He feared the Lord and walked in his ways.
His body here in earth doth rest,
His soul with Christ in heaven is blest.

The 14^th day of May, Anno Dom. 1601

In the 16^th century the congregation was strongly Roman Catholic and it was the first to reintroduce Mass after Queen Mary I came to the throne. In the 17^th century it was a Puritan stronghold under the patronage of the Hacker family. Colonel Francis Hacker was the commander of the guard at the execution of Charles I, for which he was later hanged at Tyburn and buried in St. Nicholas. Ninety of its 120 parishioners During the Great Plague of 1665.

St. Nicholas was destroyed in the Great Fire. It was the first to be rebuilt under Wren, as a simple box-shape in a simple classical style. It has a flat ceiling, embellished with gilt Corinthian pilasters. It was completed in 1678. The exterior is in Portland stone with round-headed windows under straight hoods on brackets. The tower in the north-west is topped with a steeple of an inverted trumpet shape and an iron balcony near its top.

Queen Victoria Street was laid out in the 19^th century across what had been the churchyard, opening a view that had previously been hidden by surrounding buildings in narrow streets. At that time the church entrance was moved from the north side of the building in Distaff Lane to Queen Victoria Street on the south side, as happened at St. Andrew by the Wardrobe further along the street. The building was badly blackened during that period by smoke escaping through a chimney near the church from an underground railway and often referred to as ‘St. Nicholas Coal Hole Abbey’.

St. Nicholas was badly damaged in May 1941 during the Blitz. The interior was remodelled in 1962 in a plain style by Arthur Bailey, sympathetic to Wren’s design. The steeple is topped with a weathervane of a ship, which came from St. Michael Queenhithe, a church that was demolished in 1876. It is now a Guild church and its former parish was united with that of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe. It is still an active place of worship but is open as a café on weekdays.