The lost church of St Christopher le Stocks stood on the current site of the Bank of England. The first written record of the church is from 1282. The name comes from the “Stocks Market” – a market for meat and vegetables which was held at the site of what is now Mansion House where there were a set of stocks for punishment. The original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666 but we have some idea of what it looked like from the Agas map of 1560 and the Hollar Panorama. It was rebuilt by Wren in 1671 but demolished some hundred years later in 1781 to make space for the expanding Bank of England. The human remind from that churchyard were reburied in Nunhead Cemetery – see the memorial slab that marks the spot below
Sub Hoc Saxo
Civium Londinensium Reliquiae
Subter Aedem Jamoudum Dirutam
Sancti Christopher le Stocks
Olim Sepultae Bis Exhumatae Tandem Requiescum
A.S MDCCCLXVII
Which translates as:
Under This Stone
Relics of the Citizens of London
Beneath the building destroyed a long time ago
Saint Christopher le Stocks
Once Buried Twice Exhumed Finally at Rest
AD 1867
