Not to be confused with St Benet Fink, Tottenham

St Benet Fink, Tottenham

-Early history:The original St Benet Fink church was in Threadneedle Street in the City of London and is first mentioned in 1216. At an unknown prior date a Saint Benedict's Church had been rebuilt with a gift from one Robert Finke.-Name:...

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St. Benet Fink was a church in the City of London

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

 located on what is now Threadneedle Street

Threadneedle Street

Threadneedle Street is a street in the City of London, leading from a junction with Poultry, Cornhill, King William Street and Lombard Street, to Bishopsgate....

. Recorded since the 13th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, then rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher Wren. The rebuilt church was demolished between 1841 and 1846.

History

‘St. Benet’ is short for ‘St. Benedict’. There were four churches with this dedication in London before the Great Fire of 1666. The earliest surviving reference to the church is in a document of 1216, although the discovery of a 10th century wheel-headed cross in its former churchyard suggests a Saxon foundation. In the case of St. Benet, it is certain that the Benedict referred to Benedict Biscop

Benedict Biscop

Benedict Biscop , also known as Biscop Baducing, was an Anglo-Saxon abbot and founder of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow Priory and was considered a saint after his death.-Early career:...

 the 7th century Anglo-Saxon founder of Jarrow Priory, and St. Benedict Fink referred to St. Benedict of Nursia, the 6th century founder of Western monasticism. "Fink", according to John Stow

John Stow

John Stow was an English historian and antiquarian.-Early life:The son of Thomas Stow, a tallow-chandler, he was born about 1525 in London, in the parish of St Michael, Cornhill. His father's whole rent for his house and garden was only 6s. 6d. a year, and Stow in his youth fetched milk every...

, is derived from Robert Fink, or Finch, a 13th century benefactor who paid to have the church rebuilt. Finch Lane off Threadneedle Street, was named after the same family.
Finch Lane off Threadneedle Street, was named after the same family, originally being named as “Fink” or “Finck” Lane.

The most significant event in the pre-Fire church was the marriage there, on 24 September 1662, of the Puritan divine Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter

Richard Baxter was an English Puritan church leader, poet, hymn-writer, theologian, and controversialist. Dean Stanley called him "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". After some false starts, he made his reputation by his ministry at Kidderminster, and at around the same time began a long...

.

St. Benet Fink was one of 89 churches destroyed in the Great Fire. Rebuilding began comparatively quickly, in 1670, thanks partly to a donation of £1000 by George Holman, a Roman Catholic. In gratitude, he was given two pews and a place in the vault. Building of the church and steeple was completed in 1675 at a total cost of £4129.

The parish registers record the death of the church warden, Thomas Sharrow, in 1673, from falling in a vault in Paternoster Row and lying there undiscovered for 11 days. The register entry includes the admonition “Let all who read this take heed of drink.”

On 9 April 1801, John Henry Newman, the future cardinal, was baptised in St. Benet Fink.

In 1838, the Royal Exchange, which had also been rebuilt after the Great Fire, burnt down. In order to improve the site of the Exchange, the Corporation of London petitioned Parliament for permission to demolish the tower of St. Benet Fink and appropriate its churchyard, as well as demolish the nearby St. Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange. More than twenty City churches were to be demolished over the next century but in 1840 the demolition was enough of a novelty to elicit protests from John Carlos, editor of The Gentleman's Magazine

The Gentleman's Magazine

The Gentleman's Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term "magazine" for a periodical...

 and the parish. The Bishop of London, however, supported the Corporation as there were many other churches in the immediate neighbourhood.

The first stage of demolition was carried out in 1842.
A new entrance was made in the west wall of the truncated church. This proved unsatisfactory, and the Corporation petitioned Parliament for another Act to demolish the rest of the church. This was granted and the church was knocked down in 1846.

The parish was combined with that of St Peter le Poer

St Peter Le Poer

St Peter le Poer was a church on the west side of Broad Street in the City of London. The church, often spelt "St Peter le Poor" was in existence by the end of the twelfth century...

 and proceeds of the sale of the site were used to build St. Benet Fink Tottenham. Sale of the furnishings realised only £15 5s.

The paintings of Moses and Aaron that formed part of the altarpiece are now in the chapel of Emanuel School

Emanuel School

Emanuel School is a co-educational independent school in Battersea, south-west London. The school was founded by Lady Dacre and Elizabeth I in 1594. Today it has some 710 pupils, aged between ten and eighteen.-History:...

, Battersea.

Today, the site is occupied by No.1 Threadneedle Street, an 8 story office block completed in 1991.

Architecture

The pre-Fire church was rectangular. After the Fire, the City appropriated the northwest corner of the church for widening Threadneedle Street. This left an irregular site on which to build, which Wren dealt with by rebuilding St. Benet’s to a decagonal plan. On top of the decagon sat an oval dome with a lantern, supported from within by six arches. The church had two aisles being spanned by entablatures supporting barrel vaults.

It is possible that the decagonal design employed by Wren was borrowed from Bernini's Sant'Andrea al Quirinale

Sant'Andrea al Quirinale

The Church of Saint Andrew's at the Quirinal is a Roman Catholic titular church in Rome, built for of the Jesuit seminary on the Quirinal Hill....

 in Rome. Wren had studied Bernini's drawings when he met him in Paris in 1665.

The walls were made from brick and rubble, faced with Portland stone

Portland stone

Portland stone is a limestone from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. The quarries consist of beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major...

, although the church was built around by houses for much of its history.

The tower was attached to the west end of the decagonal body of the church. It had a square dome surmounted by a bell cage, and, uniquely for a Wren church, a ball and cross, instead of a vane. The tower, including the steeple, was 110 ft. high.

The backs of houses constructed in Sweetings Rents – a lane demolished in the rebuilding of the Royal Exchange - were partly built over the churchyard, and these were supported by pillars, forming a colonnade.

See also

• List of Christopher Wren churches in London
• List of churches rebuilt after the Great Fire but since demolished

External links