Christ Church Greyfriars

Christ Church Greyfriars, also known as Christ Church Newgate Street, stood on Newgate Street in the City of London, opposite St Paul's Cathedral. One of the churches rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London, it was largely destroyed in the Blitz, and its surviving tower and the outline of its walls, set within a celebrated rose garden, now form one of the most evocative spots in the City. Behind those ruins lies a long and remarkable history, for this was once the site of one of the greatest churches in medieval London, the burial place of queens and of the author of the legends of King Arthur.

The church began as the conventual church of a Franciscan friary — the name "Greyfriars" refers to the grey habits of the friars. The first church on the site was built in the mid-thirteenth century, but it was soon replaced by a vast new building, begun in the 1290s and completed around 1360, which was the second-largest church in medieval London, some three hundred feet long. It was raised partly at the expense of Marguerite of France, second wife of King Edward I, who was buried here, as were Queen Isabella, widow of Edward II, and Joan of the Tower, Queen of Scotland; the heart of Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III, was also interred here. Among the many others buried in the medieval church was Sir Thomas Malory, author of Le Morte d'Arthur. The great Lord Mayor Richard Whittington founded a library in connection with the church in 1429. After the friary was dissolved in 1538, its buildings became home to Christ's Hospital, the famous "Bluecoat School" founded by Edward VI, and the church became a parish church and the school's place of worship.

The medieval church was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, and its rebuilding was entrusted to Sir Christopher Wren, as part of his great programme to rebuild St Paul's and some fifty City churches. Wren's new church, completed in 1687 on the eastern part of the old site, was smaller than its predecessor, with the western part becoming a churchyard. It was a fine and well-lit building, its nave and aisles divided by Corinthian columns, with galleries — built specially for the boys of Christ's Hospital — and an organ by Renatus Harris. Carved pineapples, symbols of welcome, adorned the roof, and, uniquely among Wren's churches, the walls were strengthened by buttresses. The elegant steeple, rising some 160 feet with a free-standing Ionic colonnade, was completed in 1704.

For two centuries Christ Church was an important centre of City life and music. The Lord Mayor attended an annual Spital Sermon here, and the church's fine organ was played by Mendelssohn, who performed Bach in 1837. The boys of Christ's Hospital continued to worship in the galleries — among them, in their schooldays, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the essayist Charles Lamb. But after the school moved out of London to Horsham in 1902, and as the residential population of the City dwindled, the congregation declined steadily.

The end came on the night of 29 December 1940, during one of the fiercest air raids of the Second World War, when a firebomb tore into the roof and the church was gutted — one of eight Wren churches to burn that single night. The roof and vaulting collapsed, though the stone tower and walls remained standing, scarred and weakened; the only fitting saved was the carved wooden font cover, rescued by an unknown fireman who ran into the burning building. After the war it was decided not to rebuild the church, and in 1949 the ruins were preserved, being listed at Grade I, while the parish was united with that of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, where the font cover may be seen today.

Much of the church was cleared in the following decades — the steeple was carefully taken down and rebuilt, and part of the walls demolished for road-widening — but in 1989 the area of the former nave was laid out as a public garden and memorial, with climbing roses and wooden towers marking the positions of the lost columns. The tower itself was later converted into a private residence. Today the garden is one of the most beautiful and peaceful corners of the City, a green oasis in the shadow of St Paul's, and the City of London is creating a new public space around it.

The ruins and garden stand on Newgate Street, between St Paul's Cathedral and the Museum of London site, in the heart of the City of London. St Paul's Cathedral, the Old Bailey, the church of St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, Smithfield Market, the Barbican and the wider attractions of the City are all within easy reach.

From its origins as the church of a great Franciscan friary and the burial place of medieval queens and of Sir Thomas Malory, through Wren's rebuilding after the Great Fire and its long association with Christ's Hospital, to its destruction in the Blitz and its survival as a rose garden among its ruined walls, Christ Church Greyfriars gathers seven centuries of London's history into one site. A Grade I listed ruin and garden in the heart of the City, it remains one of the most poignant and beautiful reminders of the lost churches of London.