Whenever you come across a small empty space or a pocket garden in the City of London, you can be fairly sure that it is the site of an old church or churchyard. Why else would such valuable real estate not be built upon? The site of St Pancras Soper Lane is a good example of this. If you walk along Pancras Lane you will come across a little paved rectangular area with wooden carved benches – as shown in the photo. This was the site of a church that was established in 1098 and then destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. It was never rebuilt, but it is still present in its absence – commemorated with this pocket garden, and with a nearby parish boundary marker.
It’s not just the church, but also Soper Lane that disappeared after the fire. There were many rebuilding plans put forward to eliminate the old convoluted medieval streets and create a new logical layout for the City of London. But none of these were ever implemented, and the city reasserted itself in its old guise. I say none but, in fact, there was one new street created – to link the Guildhall with the Thames with a direct route. And when I say one, I actually mean two, because the arrow straight road from what is now Southwark Bridge to the Guildhall has two names, Queen Street and King Street. It is called Queen Street from the Thames to Cheapside and then King Street from there to the Guildhall. The upper part of Queen Street – near Cheapside – follows the route of the old Soper Lane.
(By the way – if you have not discovered the Londonist Time Machine Blog yet – you should subscribe. There was a great article about why almost all straight roads in London feel wrong somehow – you can read it here)
St Pancras Soper Lane was built at the very end of the century 11th century as a small single nave building with a tower containing five bells. We know what it look like from the Agas map of 1560. The church was granted land for burials in 1379, and in 1621 the building was renovated with a porch added later in 1624. The parishioners only had 40 years to enjoy the new edifice, because it was completely destroyed in the Great Fire and the parish was then united with the next door church of St Mary-le-Bow.
What remains of the church today? A blue plaque marks the site and the carved wooden benches have ecclesiastical themes. There is also a parish boundary marker in Well Court near the Golden Fleece pub which shows the dividing line between the parishes of Saint Pancras and Saint Mary le Bow. When this area was redeveloped in the 1960s, the foundations of the lost church were excavated, which showed a building 6 m wide with an apsidal chancel at one end.
