St Peter upon Cornhill

St Peter upon Cornhill is an ancient and historic church on the corner of Cornhill and Gracechurch Street, in the heart of the City of London. Standing on the highest point of the City, it is one of the most venerable church sites in London — by tradition the oldest of all — and though the present building is the work of Sir Christopher Wren, who rebuilt it after the Great Fire, the ground beneath it has been associated with Christian worship, and with the Roman city that came before, for the best part of two thousand years.

The church stands directly above the foundations of the great Roman basilica of London, the vast public hall built around AD 90–120 at the centre of Roman Londinium; the east end of the church and its high altar are positioned above the area where some basilicas of the period had a shrine room, and the alignment of the church follows that of the Roman basilica to within a couple of degrees, suggesting that its builders may even have reused the solid Roman wall fabric for support. A long-standing tradition holds that the church was founded by Lucius, said to be the first Christian king in Britain, after his conversion in AD 179, and that it became the seat of an archbishop until the coming of the Saxons in the fifth century, when London was abandoned and the Christian mission later established itself at Canterbury. Whatever the truth of these traditions, St Peter upon Cornhill claims to be the oldest place of Christian worship in the City, and in the Middle Ages it was a church of importance, with a noted library and scriptorium and a grammar school.

The medieval church was destroyed, like so much of the City, in the Great Fire of London in 1666. It was rebuilt to the designs of Sir Christopher Wren, the work being completed by 1684 at a cost of £5,647; the new church was a little shorter than its predecessor. Its brick tower is crowned by a leaded cupola and a small spire, surmounted by a weathervane in the form of St Peter's key. The interior preserves one of Wren's finest fittings: a magnificent carved wooden screen dividing the nave from the chancel, installed at the insistence of the rector at the time of the rebuilding, William Beveridge — one of only two such chancel screens to survive in Wren's City churches.

The church has many notable associations. Its organ, in the west gallery, was played by the great composer Felix Mendelssohn, who gave an impromptu performance here in 1840 and left an autograph for the church's organist, Elizabeth Mounsey — a distinguished musician who held the post for forty-eight years. The novelist Charles Dickens mentioned the churchyard in his novel Our Mutual Friend, and in 1946 a theatre group called The Players of St Peter was formed at the church, performing medieval mystery plays.

Today St Peter upon Cornhill is a satellite church within the parish of St Helen's Bishopsgate, one of the leading evangelical churches in the City, and it is home to St Helen's 10am congregation, which meets here for services on Sunday mornings and for mid-week Bible studies. Thus, after nearly two thousand years, the highest point of the City of London remains a place of living Christian worship.

The church stands at the corner of Cornhill and Gracechurch Street, in the financial heart of the City of London, close to the Bank of England and the Royal Exchange. Nearby are the historic Leadenhall Market, the towering modern skyscrapers of the City — the Gherkin, the Leadenhall Building and others — the Monument to the Great Fire, the many other City churches, and the Tower of London a little to the east, with the South Bank across the river within easy reach.

From its legendary foundation in Roman times above the great basilica of Londinium, through its medieval importance with its library and school, the destruction of the Great Fire and the rebuilding by Sir Christopher Wren in 1684, and its associations with Mendelssohn and Dickens, St Peter upon Cornhill gathers the whole history of the City of London into one building. A Wren church on the highest point of the City, claiming to be the oldest place of worship in London, it remains a living church at the heart of the capital — a remarkable survival from the deepest roots of Christian London.