St Antholin Budge Row

Just outside the Bloomberg building near Cannon Street is a work of art called “Forgotten Streams”. It commemorates the old river Walbrook which flowed down to the Thames near here and was the main source of water (inside the walls) for the Roman city. So the title  ‘Forgotten Streams’ recalls both the buried river, and the layers of history that exist beneath the City of London. Given the wealth and richness of the subject matter, you might imagine this work to be glorious and inspirational. Sadly, it just looks like a sewage works. Perhaps never has such a grand idea being so meanly executed. In fact, some people who are walking past throw their trash into the artwork, just as the old river eventually became clogged with refuse. So it’s also maybe a celebration of two centuries of littering.

I mentioned this because there is another forgotten stream, which is not memorialized on this spot, though it is elsewhere. For this was the site of the lost church of St Antholin, Budge Row. The road, Budge Row, has also disappeared although it’s route was aligned with (and a little south of) the arcade that runs through the middle of the Bloomberg building, which is now filled with restaurants. 

The first mention of the church of “St Antonin” was in 1119 AD when two priests – William and Derman – came to an agreement to share the church between them. In later documents it is recorded variously as “St. Tauntelyne” (1384 AD), “St. Anthony Boge rowe” (1406 AD) and “SeyntAncelyne”. The name “Antholin” is a corruption of “Anthony” after Anthony the Great (251-356 AD), a hermit who maintained a very strict ascetic diet. He ate only bread, salt and water and never meat or wine (take note those of you starting out on a dry January!)

We know what it looked like from the Agas Map of 1560, where it is clearly visible. John Stow wrote in his Survey of London in 1598 … “You have the fair parish church of St. Anthonies in Budge row, on the north side thereof. This church was lately re-edified by Thomas Knowles, grocer, mayor, and by Thomas Knowles, his son, both buried there”. These improvements were carried out in 1400 and the church was further enlarged in 1514 by John Tate. More repairs took place in 1616 and a new gallery was added in 1623. Then came the catastrophe of the Great Fire of London in 1666 when the church was destroyed along with many others, including the nearby church of St John the Baptist on Walbrook. The latter was not rebuilt and its parish was united with St Antholin Budge Row, which was lucky enough to be one of those selected to be rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. 

He came up with an unusual elongated octagonal oval design for a very tall stone spire. The watercolour shows what an impressively tall edifice this was.  This was the only steeple of all the churches by Wren that was built of stone – all the others had wooden frames. It was maybe not a good choice. The weight of this proved to be unstable and the steeple was taken down in1829 and sold to Robert Harrild, a wealthy printer. He re-erected it outside his house at Round Hill in Sydenham where it remains to this day as a Grade II listed monument. The rest of the church did not last much longer and it was demolished in 1875 under the Union of Benefices Act as part of the redevelopment of Queen Victoria Street. The parish was then united with St Mary Aldermary and the bodies from the crypt reburied in two different cemeteries – Brookwood and the City of London Cemetery in Ilford. The site was sold for £44,990 which was used to build a new church dedicated to St Anthony in Nunhead. 

What remains of St Antholin Budge Row today? First place to look is the church of St Mary Aldermary which absorbed its parish. There is the plaque outside on the south wall with an engraving of St Antholin. Inside the church you will find the original door of the lost church, and a mention of St Antholin on a marble slab tucked away near the toilets. The other remains of the church are scattered across Greater London. There is a fine memorial obelisk in the Ilford cemetery where the remains from the crypt are reburied, but sadly the one in Brookwood has been reduced to only a few blocks of stone ( see map for locations). The original reredos is in the church of St Anthony with Silas in Nunhead. If you are looking for a bicycle challenge as part of your New Year’s resolution to do more exercise, why not visit all five of these locations by bike. You can then maybe take a ride back on the train from Brookwood to Waterloo along the line of the old Necropolis railway – so named because it used to take the corpses from the city to the cemetery. Enjoy!

The wikipedia page for St Antholin Budge Row is here