At the corner of Aldermanbury and Love Lane you will find a garden which marks the site of the lost church of St Mary Aldermanbury. The name Aldermanbury means the “burgh” or house of the aldermen. This is probably a reference to the early mediaeval town hall. The nearby Guildhall, built in 1411, is still the City of London’s town hall today.
The footprint of the church is still visible in the foundation stones and at the western end you will find a memorial plaque. This has an etching which shows what the building looked like and an inscription explaining that the church was transported to Fulton Missouri in 1966. It was erected in the grounds of Westminster College as a memorial to Winston Churchill which is where he gave his famous “Iron Curtain” speech.
The first mention of this lost church was in 1181 but it was probably of late Saxon origin. Excavations have revealed that it began as simple two cell structure with side chapels added sometime in the 13th century. We have some idea as to what this original building may have looked like from the Copperplate map of 1555 as you see here. Sadly, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666 and rebuilt by Christopher Wren in 1686. A watercolour H.E Tidmarsh in 1890 shows what this building looked like.
The church of St Mary Aldermanbury was destroyed for a second time in the Blitz of World War 2. The remaining stonework was transported to Fulton Missouri as mentioned previously. The parish of Saint Mary Aldermanbury was combined with St Giles Cripplegate to the north. As you can see from this parish map, many of the surrounding churches have been also been lost.
St Alphage is a ruin. It was damaged by bombs in the First World War and united with St Mary Aldermanbury in 1917. St Michael Bassishaw has gone, demolished in 1900 and the parish merged with St Lawrence Jewry. St Alban Wood Street was damaged in the Blitz of WW2 and its parish was merged with St Vedast Foster Lane, with only the tower now remaining. You will find two parish boundary markers for the lost churches of St Alban Wood St and St Mary Aldermanbury on the wall of the Police Headquarters in Love Lane as shown in the picture.
When the church is Saint Mary Aldermanbury was demolished some of the human remains were reinterred in the City of London Cemetery at Manor Park. You will find some of these graves next to the monument dedicated to St Mary Somerset. Refer to my guide to the City of London Cemetery reburials for more details.
The wikipedia page for St Mary Aldermanbury
The Parish Clerks Page for St Mary Aldermanbury