St Magnus-the-Martyr

Architecture
St. Magnus-the-Martyr
Exterior photo of St. Magnus-the-Martyr
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Anglican, earlier Roman Catholic
Architect(s)	Sir Christopher Wren
Style	Baroque

St Magnus-the-Martyr is an Anglican church in Bridge ward of the City of London, located on Lower Thames Street near the modern London Bridge. It is a part of the Diocese of London and under the care of the Bishop of Fulham. This church is referred to briefly in the poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot at line 265.

1 History
2 Relics and monuments
3 Bells
4 Notes
5 See also
6 External links

History

The church is dedicated to St Magnus, Earl of Orkney, who died in 1117. It is mis-named as St Magnus was not martyred for his religious beliefs but was executed after being captured during a power struggle with his cousin, a political rival.

Early church

The church of St Magnus is mentioned in the Westminster Charter, dated 1067^[1]. However, this document is now accepted to be a 12th century forgery. The first church on the site was probably built in the early 12th century. In pictures from the mid-16th century the old church looks very similar to the present-day St Giles-without-Cripplegate in the Barbican. After the Reformation, the church was home to a series of distinguished rectors, including Myles Coverdale, John Young (Bishop of Rochester), and Theophilus Aylmer, son of John Aylmer and Archdeacon of London in the early years of the seventeenth century.

The Great Fire

St Magnus' was one of the first buildings to be destroyed in the Great Fire of London,^[2] in 1666, as it stood less than 300 yards from Pudding Lane, where the fire started. It was rebuilt by 1676, under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren.^[3] A steeple, copied from the church of St Charles Borromée, in Antwerp, was added thirty years later^[4]..

Second fire

St Magnus-the-Martyr interior.

Another fire, in 1760, damaged the western end of the church and destroyed several of the buildings on the neighbouring Old London Bridge. Instead of repairing the buildings on the bridge the opportunity was taken to demolish them all to widen the roadway and ease traffic congestion. At the same time a new pedestrian walkway was built along the eastern side of the bridge. With the other buildings gone St Magnus' blocked the new walkway so the western end of the church was demolished. Rather than demolish the church tower its base was opened out to allow the walkway to pass through it. The open base of the tower now forms the church porch. The large clock projecting from the tower was a well-known landmark in the City, and would have hung over the roadway of Old London Bridge. It is dated 1700 from an inscription within, and was presented to the church by Sir Charles Duncombe in 1709, the year he became Lord Mayor of London. Sir Charles Duncombe also presented the organ to the church in 1912.

Anglo-Catholic influence

The interior of the church was restored by Martin Travers in 1924, in a neo-baroque style, and reflects the Anglo-Catholic character of the congregation^[5]. The high altar is backed by a two-storey high reredos and flanked by two side-chapels. The altarpiece has paintings of Moses and Aaron, and the Ten Commandments betweenCorinthian columns. Above is a gilded pelican, an early Christian symbol of self-sacrifice, and a roundel with Baroque-style angels. On the north wall there is a Russian icon, painted in 1908, and in the north aisle is a shrine containing a fragment of the True Cross. The sword rest dates from 1708. In the south aisle stands a statue of St Magnus, holding a model of the church. The church survived the Blitz of World War II with relatively minor bomb damage, and stands in contrast to the interiors of the other London city churches. It was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950,^[6] and was repaired in 1951.

Relics and monuments

St Magnus viewed from top of Monument.

In the vestibule of the church stands a fine model of Old London Bridge. One of the tiny figures on the bridge appears out of place in the medieval setting, wearing a policeman's uniform. This is rumoured to be a representation of the model-maker who was formerly in the police service. In 1896 many bodies were disinterred from the churchyard and reburied at Brookwood Cemetery^[7]. In 1921 two stones from Old London Bridge were discovered across the road from the church. They now stand in the churchyard. In 1931 a piling from a Roman river wall was discovered during the excavation of the foundations of a nearby building. It now stands in the church porch. One of the windows in the north wall dates from 1671 and is from the old Plumber's Hall. The windows in the south wall are all modern and represent lost churches associated with the parish: St Magnus and his ruined church of Egilsay, St Margaret with her lost church in New Fish Street (where the Monument to the Great Fire now stands), St Michael with his lost church of Crooked Lane (demolished to make way for the present King William Street) and St Thomas Becket with his chapel on Old London Bridge.

Bells

The tower formerly contained ten bells, which were removed for safekeeping in 1940. However, the parish lacked the funds to restore the bells, which were scrapped in 1976. In March 2009, after a silence of almost seventy years, a new set of 12 bells were put into place to replace those removed during World War Two^[8]

Notes

^ London:the City Churches Pevsner,N/Bradley,S New Haven, Yale, 1998 ISBN 0300096550
^ Samuel Pepys - The Shorter Pepys, Latham, R. (ed.), p. 484: Harmondsworth, 1985, ISBN 0140094180.
^ Betjeman describes it as "Wren's welcome to the city for people coming over old London Bridge" The City of London Churches Betjeman, J. Andover, Pikin, 1967, ISBN 0853721122.
^ "The Old Churches of London" Cobb,G: London, Batsford, 1942
^ "The Visitors Guide to the City of London Churches" Tucker,T: London, Friends of the City Churches, 2006 ISBN 0955394503
^ Images of England — details from listed building database (199606) accessed 23 January 2009
^ "The Brookwood Necroplois Railway" Clarke,J.M: Oasdale, Usk, 2006 ISBN 9780853616559
^ "Ringing the changes: church to end its sixty year silence" photo with caption on p8 of Daily Telegraph issue no 47,821 (dated Wednesday 4th March, 2009)