The loss of the City of London Churches happened in three main waves. The first was the Great Fire of 1666 In total, 87 churches in the centre and west of the city were damaged or destroyed. After the fire, Parliament created a new coal tax to pay for the rebuilding of the City churches and Sir Christopher Wren was appointed as the King’s Surveyor of Works to oversee the reconstruction. It was decided that 34 churches should not be rebuilt but the others are known as ‘Wren’ churches since he oversaw their rebuilding even if other architects who assisted Wren, such as Robert Hooke or Nicholas Hawksmoor, did the designs. On the cards, I give the date that the “rebuilding by Wren” was completed.
The second wave of demolition was triggered by the Union of Benefices Act of 1860 which sought to combine parishes and free up commercial space for the swelling capital of the British Empire. The result was the 19th Century proved to be almost as damaging to the city churches as the Great Fire. Lastly, London suffered badly in the Blitz in Word War 2, which took its toll on these ancient buildings though most were painstakingly restored. Even though the church buildings were lost, their parishes remained and can still be explored today through their wall plaques and parish boundary markers mounted high on the office buildings around the City.
Wikipedia has some very good pages on these City of London Churches. Here is a list of the churches that were rebuilt after the Great Fire, and here is a list of the Wren Churches
Cards exist for 110 of the City of London Churches on this list (including 2 for St Pauls). If you are ordering specific cards then please give the name and number . The Lost churches come in two series. Series 2 cards are mostly those churches lost in the Great Fire and not rebuilt. Series 1 Lost churches were (generally) rebuilt after the Great Fire but have been lost since. Extant churches are series “E”
