Beneath St Michael’s lie the remains of the Roman Basilica – the great Forum built in the first century AD. Here (or nearby) in AD 179, King Lucius is said to have established the first Christian place of worship in London.
The church of St. Michael’s is known to have been in existence before the Norman Conquest, for it is recorded that in 1055 Alnothus the priest gave it to the abbot of Evesham. In 1503 the patronage was transferred to the Drapers’ Company, which still has the gift of the living.
Robert Fabyan, the author of The New Chronicles of England and France, was buried at St. Michael’s in 1513; and King Henry VIII’s physician, Robert Yaxley, was buried here in 1540.
In 1716, Thomas Gray a poet famous for ‘Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard’, was born in a milliner’s shop adjacent to St. Michael’s and was baptised in the church. Two hundred years later, Martin Neary, who became Master of the Music at Westminster Abbey, was baptised in the same font, which dates from 1672. The church, with the exception of the tower, was completely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. It was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren between 1669 and 1672. The interior, with its majestic Tuscan columns, was beautified and repaired in 1701 and again in 1790. Pre-Victorian features that remain today include 17th paintings of Moses and Aaron incorporated into the reredos, as well as a wooden sculpture of ‘Pelican in her Piety’ dating from 1775. The vestry retains its 17th century panelling, with a fine carved overmantel.The commanding tower was rebuilt in the ‘Gothick’ style between 1718 and 1722, the work being commenced by Wren and completed by Nicholas Hawksmoor. It houses a peal of 12 bells, including some of the originals cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry.
The interior of the church was extensively remodelled in the High Victorian manner by Sir George Gilbert Scott between 1857 and 1860. Scott recalled that he ‘attempted by the use of early Basilican style to give a tone to the existing classic architecture’. As part of this scheme of reordering, the eminent woodcarver William Gibbs Rogers carved new pews and a pulpit and lectern (which earned him a prize in the Great Exhibition of 1851). In addition, an ensemble of stained glass was made by the firm Clayton & Bell and a new porch, with a tympanum sculpture of St. Michael by John Birnie Philip, was added. In 1906, the parishes of St. Peter le Poer and St. Benet Fink were united to St. Michael’s upon the demolition of St Peter’s. (St Benet’s had been demolished in 1846.) Hence the practice of appointing seven churchwardens, three for St Michael’s and two for each of the other parishes. The Church was fortunate to escape serious damage in the Second World War. The interior was restored in 1960, with the roofs and the nave of the tower being renewed in 1975.
Music & Musicians
We know that St Michael’s had an excellent choir by the year 1375 (650 years ago), and that an organ was being maintained in the mid-1450s. John Stow, in The Survey of London (of 1598) recounts that the Lord Mayor Sir John Rudston (1480-1531) paid for “proper houses to be raised for lodging of choir men” in the church yard [the modern church garden]. The choirmaster’s contract from 1509 is preserved in the great book containing the Church Wardens’ accounts from 1456 to 1608. (The book is kept in the London Metropolitan Archives in Clerkenwell.)
We know the names of all the organists and choirmasters from 1684: people such as Philip Hart (a Restoration composer whose playing was criticized for his “frequent iteration of the shake as destroyed the melody”); Obadiah Shuttleworth (a leading violinist and organist, “celebrated for his fine finger on the organ”, who often improvised an hour-long voluntary after the evening service); Joseph Kelway (whose organ improvisations were reputedly admired by Handel – music described as “masterly wildness … bold, rapid and fanciful”); William Boyce (a well-known composer to the Chapel Royal, scholar, and early conductor of the Three Choirs’ Festival, who was buried under the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral); Theodore Aylward (Gresham Professor of Music); Richard Stevens (a composer of sacred and secular music, who ran a lucrative music-teaching practice, largely for the daughters of the aristocracy); Richard Limpus (who founded the [Royal] College of Organists in St Michael’s); Edward Thorne (an early exponent of the choral music of J S Bach); George Vincent (who persuaded the Church Wardens to pay for an electric blower for the organ, to replace the three human blowers who had previously been needed); Harold Darke (composer, widely-admired organ recitalist, and choral conductor); and Richard Popplewell (teacher, composer and organist).
Furtter information may be found in “St Michael’s Cornhill” and “Music, Musicians, and Organs of St Michael’s Cornhill” – two books available for purchase online.