At first nowhere, and then everywhere. The church of St Peter Westcheap disappeared around 400 years ago, and if you are rushing for your next meeting down past the shops on Cheapside, you may never be aware that this lost church ever existed. But if you stop for a minute and look around you, you will find clues everywhere. The first odd thing to notice is a huge plane tree towering over the thinnest row of shops you have ever seen. Why when commercial space is so valuable in the City – the beating heart of capitalism – is a plane tree more important than the shops?
This plane tree has been a famous landmark for centuries. Wordsworth wrote a poem about it called “The Reverie of Poor Susan” in 1797. A bookseller in 1853 called Samuel Roe advertised his business address as “under the tree, Cheapside” clearly knowing that would be enough for people to find him. The same was true in 1910 when L & R Wooderson gave their address as 124 Cheapside (under the tree). The second clue is in the fact that this tree is twice the size of any other in Cheapside. This is logical because it’s been there longer, but you might also reflect on the fact that it is so well nourished because it is growing in a graveyard. A gruesome thought to some, maybe, but to others a reaffirmation of the circle of life.
The tree is growing on the site of the lost church of St Peter Westcheap which burnt down in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and was never rebuilt. In the picture at the top of this post, you can see on the iron railings a little white image of Saint Peter and, above him, the crossed keys that he keeps – the keys to Heaven. We have some idea what the church looked like because it appears both in the Wyngaerde Panorama of 1543 and the Copperplate Map of 1555. In both cases, it seems to have a dome of some sort on the roof. In the Copperplate Map, the church is shown just to the left of the Cheapside Cross which once stood in the middle of the street.
The Cheapside Cross was originally built in 1290 by Edward I in memory of his wife Queen Eleanor of Castile. She died at Harby near Lincoln, and her body was brought to Westminster Abbey for burial. The King built stone crosses at each place where her body rested on the way. The next stop after Cheapside on the way to Westminster was Charing Cross, where a replica of one of the crosses (that gave this place its name) stands outside the station. An engraving from 1639 shows the Cheapside Cross with the smaller similar looking Water Conduit to the right and on the left-hand side the church of St Peter Westcheap. Here, it seems to have a strange onion dome, set quite far back from the front of the church, which abuts the street.
The first record of the church is in 1196 as “St Peter of Woodstreet”. It was repaired in 1503 and again in 1617. After the fire the parish was united with St Matthew Friday Street on the opposite side of Cheapside. Then, when St Mathew’s was demolished in 1885 under the Union of Benefices Act both parishes were combined with St Vedast Foster Lane. Like an acquisitive conglomerate, St Vedast has gathered the parishes of many lost churches under its wing and now represents 13 united parishes, namely – St Michael le Querne, St Matthew Friday Street, St Peter Westcheap, St Alban Wood Street, St Olave Silver Street, St Michael Wood Street, St Mary Staining, St Lawrence Jewry, St Mary Magdalene Milk Street, St Michael Bassishaw, St Anne & St Agnes, St John Zachary and St Mary Aldermary. (Note: some of these churches still exist but as Guild churches not parish churches)
At first nowhere, then everywhere. The church of Saint Peter Westcheap may have gone, but evidence of its its existence is all around you. If you go into the small garden where the plane tree stands, you will see high on the wall, above some remaining gravestones, a plaque with the church’s name. Then why not amuse yourself with a brief treasure hunt and see if you can find the four existing parish boundary markers shown in the pictures below. Hint: they are all less than 100 yards away from the plane tree. Enjoy!
The wikipedia page for St Peter Westcheap is here and the Parish Clerks page here