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St Mary-le-Bow 

St. Mary-le-Bow
Interior of St. Mary-le-Bow
Interior of St. Mary-le-Bow
Information
Denomination Church of England, earlier Roman Catholic
Location
Country United Kingdom

Christianity Portal

St Mary-le-Bow is an historic church in the City of London[1], off Cheapside. The current building was built to the designs of Christopher Wren, 1671-1673, steeple completed 1680, after the Great Fire of London burnt the previous church on the site down. The mason-contractor was Thomas Cartwright[2], one of the leading London mason-contractors and carvers of his generation. The last church had been there since before the Normans arrived, and under that name. Its steeple had been a landmark before the Fire, and Wren fittingly provided it with a unique replacement. The Bow bells were once used to signal a curfew in the City of London. Before modern traffic noise, they could be heard as far away as Hackney Marshes.

Contents

History

According to tradition, a true Cockney must be born within earshot of the sound of the church's bells. The bells are also credited with having persuaded Dick Whittington to turn back from Highgate and remain in London to become Lord Mayor (three times in the story but four times in reality).[3] The church is also immortalised in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons. Traditionally distances by road from London have been measured from the London Stone, or the "Standard" in Cornhill, but on the road from London to Lewes the mileage is taken from the church door of St Mary-le-Bow. To emphasise the difference, mileposts along the way are marked with a cast-iron depiction of a bow and four bells.

A medieval version of the church had been destroyed in 1091 by one of the earliest recorded (and one of the most violent) tornadoes in Britain, the London Tornado of 1091.[4]

A Recording of the Bow Bells made in 1926 has been used by the BBC World Service as an interval signal for the English Language broadcasts since the early 1940s. It is still used today preceding some English broadcasts. Much of the current building was destroyed by a German bomb on 10 May 1941 and the bells crashed to the ground. Restoration under the direction of Laurence King[5] was begun in 1956 (with internal fittings made by Faith-Craft, part of the Society of the Faith), and the bells only rang again in 1961 to produce a new generation of Cockneys.

St Mary-le-Bow has no parishioners and no Sunday services: its role today is to minister to the financial industry and livery companies of the City of London.[6]

Image gallery

West door

Tower

Interior

The crypt chapel

A "Bow Bells" milepost on the London to Lewes road

See also

References

  1. ^ Mentioned in Pepys diary Samuel "Pepys-The Shorter Pepys" Latham,R(Ed) p484: Harmondsworth,1985 ISBN 0140094180
  2. ^ "London:the City Churches” Pevsner,N/Bradley,S New Haven, Yale, 1998 ISBN 0300096550
  3. ^ The bells that made cockneys Howse, Christopher, Daily Telegraph 2007-09-22, accessed 2007-10-30
  4. ^ "Stormy weather". Daily Telegraph (2006-12-08). Retrieved on 2007-10-31.
  5. ^ "The Visitors Guide to the City of London Churches" Tucker,T: London, Friends of the City Churches, 2006 ISBN 0955394503
  6. ^ Church's historic home in the City Byrne, Michael and Bush, G.R. Times Online 26 October 2007, accessed 2007-10-30

Further reading

  • Howard Colvin, Biographical Dictionary of British Architects
  • Michael Byrne and George R.Bush (eds), St Mary-le-Bow: A History (Privately published, 2007).

External links

Anglicanism portal


Coordinates: 51°30′50″N 0°05′37″W / 51.51389, -0.09361
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