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This extraordinary little tower sits on the north side of
Upper Thames Street just before the traffic disappears
into the tunnel. The church was Wren's, a simple one, the
tower elaborate, and almost certainly the work of his
assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. The church was demolished
for street widening in 1870, the parish united with that
of St Andrew by the Wardrobe. No doubt the tower would
have been destroyed too but for the outcry among
architects led by Ewan Christian, an early example of
conservation militancy. What
is left is a worthy survivor. The pinnacles are mad, all
over the place and all different, they dance wilfully
above the austere grace of the tower. As Pevsner
observed, magically varied silhouettes result.
Wayland Young was even less prosaic: if this is a
sermon in stone, he observed, it is a sermon on
Pentecost. All the pinnacles were blown away by
German bombing, but the Blitz damage was repaired in
1956, the pinnacles restored to their original integrity,
as the inscription records.
Simon Knott, December 2015
location: Upper Thames Street EC4V 3BG -
2/045
status: tower only
access: visible from street
  
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from Amazon.co.uk supports the running of this site
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