St. Stephen Coleman Street

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name = St. Stephen Coleman Street
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demolished_date = 1940
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address = Coleman Street and Gresham Street, London
country = United Kingdom
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St. Stephen's Church, Coleman Street was a church in the City of London, at the corner of Coleman Street and what is now Gresham Street, first mentioned in the 13th century. Destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666, it was rebuilt by the office of Sir Christopher Wren. The church was destroyed again, by bombing in 1940, and was never rebuilt ["The Old Churches of London" Cobb,G: London, Batsford, 1942] .

History

St. Stephen's was one of two City churches dedicated to the Christian protomartyr St. Stephen who, by tradition, suffered lapidation in Jerusalem in about 35 AD. Coleman Street itself is named after the charcoal burners who used to live there. During the reign of Henry III, the church is recorded as St. Stephen in the Jewry owing to its situation in the quarter of London inhabited by many Jews. John Stow asserted that the building had been used as a synagogue, although this is incorrect.

The earliest surviving reference to the church is to “the parish of St. Stephen colemanstrate” during the reign of King John. Two centuries later, the church is recorded as a chapel of ease to St. Olave Old Jewry. It regained parochial status in the middle of the 15th century.

In 1431, John Sokelyng, who owned a neighbouring brewery called ‘La Cokke on the hoop’, died and left a bequest to St. Stephen’s on the condition that Mass be sung on the anniversary of his death and that of his two wives [ "Vanished churches of the City of London",Heulin, G:London Guildhall Library Publications, 1996] . The gift was commemorated by a cock in a hoop motif that would decorate the church until 1940 and can still be seen in parish boundary markers.

Early in the 17th century, St. Stephen's became a Puritan stronghold. John Davenport, the vicar appointed in 1624, later resigned to become a Nonconformist pastor. His successor, John Goodwin, was also a prominent Puritan preacher who was briefly imprisoned after the Restoration for his political views. The five Members of Parliament impeached by Charles I repaired to Coleman Street in early 1642 when his troops were searching for them, and during the Commonwealth, communion was only allowed to those passed by a committee comprising the vicar and 13 parishioners – 2 of whom had signed the death warrant of Charles I.

It was during the Puritan incumbency that the playwright and Shakespeare collaborator Anthony Munday was buried in the church.

After its destruction in the Great Fire of London, the church was rebuilt on its old foundations [ "The city churches of Sir Christopher Wren",Jeffery,P:London, Hambledon Press, 1996] . Work on the church exterior was completed in 1677. In 1691, further funds were provided from the coal tax to build a gallery and a burial vault. The combined cost of restoration was £4517.

The church suffered slight damage from bombing in 1917. It was destroyed, along with all its fittings, in an air raid on 29 December 1940. The parish was combined with that of St Margaret Lothbury.

The site is now occupied by offices built in the late 1990s.

Architecture

The Wren church retained its predecessor's medieval plan, forming an irregular quadrilateral that tapered towards the east. The walls were made from brick and rubble covered with stucco, only the south and east fronts being exposed. The main façade, on Coleman Street to the east, was faced with Portland stone with rusticated corners, and had a circular pediment between two pineapples. Underneath the pediment and above the large round headed window, was a carving of a cock between two swags. The south façade had five large round headed windows.

The tower was on the north west, barely visible from the street [ "London city churches",Cobb, G:London, B T Batsford Ltd., 1977 ] . It had a small leaded bell lantern, on top of which was a gilded vane in the form of a cock. The height of the tower to the top of the lantern was 85 ft.

The interior was low (24 ft) yet managed to accommodate galleries on three sides. An extra children’s gallery was erected above the gallery on the west side in 1827.

References

External links

* [http://www.rootsweb.com/~genepool/coleman.htm St. Stephen's Church at Gene Pool]