St Margaret Moses

The lost church of St Margaret Moses is one of the most elusive when it comes to tracing remains. It was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the parish was united with St Mildred Bread Street. However, that church was destroyed by bombs in World War 2, so the parishes of St Margaret Moses and St Mildred Bread Street now belong to St Mary le Bow. 

St Margaret Moses Copperplate Map 1555
St Margaret Moses Copperplate Map 1555
St Margaret Moses Agas Map 1560 
St Margaret Moses Agas Map 1560

We know who it looked like from the Copperplate and Agas maps from 1560, where it seems quite prominent with a tower and steeple. On the Agas map, Friday Street is shown under its old name of Pissing Lane. John Stow in his survey of London in 1598 also gave the church  a decent write up saying : 

“Then lower down Friday Street is one other parish church of St. Margaret Moyses, so called (as seemeth) of one Moyses, that was founder or new builder thereof. The monuments there be of Sir Richard Dobbes, skinner, mayor 1551; William Dane, ironmonger, one of the sheriffs 1569; Sir John Allet, fishmonger, mayor 1591. There was of older time buried, Nicholas Stanes, and Nicholas Braye; they founded chantries there.”

St Margaret Moses Hollar Panorama
St Margaret Moses Hollar Panorama

Hollar, in his Panorama of London in 1647 did not explicitly identify St Margaret Moses. But we can maybe suggest that the unidentified tower between St Augustine Watling Street and St Nicholas Cole Abbey which is highlighted with a red circle in the image below could be St Margaret’s. Although Hollar’s panorama is known to have errors and may have been composed from many other drawings from different vantage points .

St Margaret Moses Parish Map 
St Margaret Moses Parish Map

Sadly, there are no blue plaques or parish boundary markers for St Margaret Moses. 

The wikipedia page for the church is here