St Bartholomew-the-Great
| St Bartholomew the Great | |
|
Priory Church of | |
|---|---|
|
London, Middlesex | |
 West door and entrance from Smithfield | |
| Church of England | |
| Diocese of London | |
| Parish: | |
| Location | |
| Location: | 51°31’8"N, 0°5’59"W |
| History | |
| Norman | |
| Information | |
| Website: | greatstbarts.com |
The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, sometimes abbreviated to Great St Bart's, is a church in the City of London, Middlesex, and a Church of England parish church in the Diocese of London. It stands in Smithfield.
The building was founded as an Augustinian priory in 1123. It adjoins St Bartholomew's Hospital and is of the same foundation.[1]
The church is designated a Grade I listed building.[2]
History
The church was founded in 1123 by Rahere, a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral and an Augustinian canon regular. He said that while in Italy he had had a dream that a winged beast came and transported him to a high place, then relayed a message from "the High Trinity and...the court of Heaven" that he was to erect a church in the London suburb of Smithfield.[3] Rahere travelled to London and was informed that the area in his vision, then a small cemetery, was royal property, and that nothing could be built upon it. Henry I, however, granted the title of the land to Rahere after he explained his divine message.[3]
Rahere started construction on the building with the use of servants and child labourers, who collected stones from all over London.[3]
The priory gained a reputation for curative powers, with many sick people filling its aisles, notably on 24 August (St Bartholomew's Day). Many miracles were attributed to occur within and without the walls of the building, including "a light sent from heaven" from its first foundation, and especially miraculous healings; many serious disabilities were claimed to be cured after a visit.[3] Many of these cures were undertaken at the church hospital, the still existing St Bartholomew's Hospital.[3] This reputation certainly ensured generous donations to the church and its hospital.
While much of the hospital survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries, about half of the priory's church was ransacked before being demolished in 1543.[4]
The church and some of the priory buildings were briefly used as the third Dominican friary (Black Friars) of London, refounded by Queen Mary I in 1556, but this was closed under Queen Elizabeth in 1559.[5]
The church escaped the Great Fire of London of 1666[6] but it fell into disrepair, and was occupied by squatters in the 18th century. It revived somewhat in the 19th century (W. G. Grace was one famous congregant) and later in that century St Barts underwent a restoration, when it was rebuilt under Sir Aston Webb's direction.[7]
During Canon Edwin Savage's tenure as Rector, the church was further restored at the cost of more than £60,000.[8]
Structure
The surviving building had comprised part of a priory adjoining St Bartholomew's Hospital,[9] but its nave was pulled down up to the last bay but the crossing and choir survive largely intact from the Norman[10] and later Middle Ages, enabling its continued use as a parish church
Part of the main entrance to the church remains at West Smithfield, nowadays most easily recognisable by its half-timbered, late 16th-century, Tudor frontage built on the older (13th-century) stone arch. This adaptation may originally have been carried out by the Dominican friars in the 1550s,[5] or by the post-Reformation patron of the advowson,[11] Lord Rich, Lord Chancellor of England (1547–51).[12] From this gatehouse to the west door of the church, the path leads along roughly where the south aisle of the nave formerly existed. Very little trace of its monastic buildings now survive, although part of the cloister now houses a café.[13]
The Lady Chapel at the east end had been previously used for commercial purposes and it was there that Benjamin Franklin worked for a year as a journeyman printer. The north transept was also formerly used as a blacksmith's forge.
The Priory Church was one of the few City churches to escape damage during the Second World War and, in 1941, was where the 11th Duke of Devonshire and the Hon Deborah Mitford were married.
About the church
St Bartholomew the Great is so named to distinguish it from its neighbouring smaller church of St Bartholomew the Less which was founded at the same time within the precincts of St Bartholomew's Hospital to serve as the hospital's parish church and occasional place of worship. The two parish churches were reunited in 2012 under one benefice, and the parishes were united in 2017.
The poet and heritage campaigner Sir John Betjeman kept a flat opposite the churchyard on Cloth Fair. Betjeman considered the church to have the finest surviving Norman interior in London.[14]
Charitable distributions in the churchyard on Good Friday continue. A centuries-old tradition established when twenty-one sixpences were placed upon the gravestone of a woman stipulating that the bequest fund an annual distribution to twenty one widows in perpetuity,[15] with freshly baked hot cross bun]]s nowadays being given not only to widows but others.[16]
Oriel window
The oriel window was installed inside St Bartholomew the Great in the early 16th century by Prior William Bolton,[17][18] allegedly so that he could keep an eye on the monks. The symbol in the centre panel is a crossbow "bolt" passing through a "tun" (or barrel), a rebus or pun on the name of the prior.
William Camden wrote:
It may be doubtful whether Bolton, Prior of St Bartholomew, in Smithfield, was wiser when he invented for his name a bird-bolt through his Tun, or when he built him a house upon Harrow Hill, for fear of an inundation after a great conjunction of planets in the watery triplicity
Associated organisations
St Bartholomew the Great is the adopted church of various City livery companies hosting services throughout the year: the Worshipful Company of Butchers (one of the seven oldest livery companies), the Worshipful Company of Founders (whose Hall abuts the church), the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers (incorporated 1448), the Worshipful Company of Fletchers, the Worshipful Company of Farriers (incorporated 1674), the Worshipful Company of Farmers (incorporated 1955). The more recently established Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (incorporated 1992), the Worshipful Company of Hackney Carriage Drivers (incorporated 2004) and the Company of Public Relations Practitioners (incorporated 2000) also have an association with St Bartholomew's.
The church served as the chapel of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor before the establishment of the society's permanent chapel in St Paul's Cathedral in 2005.[19]
Film, television and music video
The church has appeared on film many times:
- Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994): it was the location of the fourth wedding
- Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves
- Shakespeare in Love
- The End of the Affair (1999)
- Amazing Grace (2006
- Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007)
- The Other Boleyn Girl (2008)
- Sherlock Holmes (2009)
- Richard II (2012), part of The Hollow Crown series)
- Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)
- Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
- Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
St Barts was used by T-Mobile as a stand-in for Westminster Abbey in its "royal wedding" advertisement of 2011. It has also been the location for six music videos of Libera, a choir.
Music
Organ
St Bartholomew the Great had an organ installed by John Knopple in 1715. This was superseded by an organ in 1731 from Richard Bridge. In 1886, it was replaced by the organ from St Stephen Walbrook which was installed by William Hill. Further modifications were made in 1931 by Henry Speechly & Son, in 1957 by N.P. Mander and in 1982–83 by the firm of Peter Wells. Specifications of the church's organ are detailed on the National Pipe Organ Register.[20] Currently, the church is using a Viscount digital organ for services, but the process of acquiring a new instrument (an American Symphonic Pipe Organ built by Schoenstein & Co.) has begun.
Choirs
Unusually for a parish church, the Priory Church Choir comprises professional singers. A choir of amateur singers, the Rahere Singers, sings for some services.[21]
Folklore
The ghost of Rahere is reputed to haunt the church, following an incident during repair work in the 19th century when the tomb was opened and a sandal removed. The sandal was returned to the church but not Rahere's foot, and Rahere since then, as a "shadowy, cowled figure appears from the gloom, brushes by astonished witnesses and fades slowly into this air. Rahere is said to appear every year on the morning of July the 1st at 7 am, emerging from the Vestry".[22]
The church's environs were also the location of many executions, especially during the reign of 'Bloody Mary'. Reportedly during some nights there was a strong scent of burning flesh.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about St Bartholomew-the-Great) |
- St Bartholomew-the-Great
- St Bartholomew's Priory, Smithfield, Records; The parish: descendants of Rich and the advowson
- Friends of City Churches website
- Rahere's Garden: The History & Personalities of St Bartholomew the Great
- Photo essay and history of the priory
- Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield from Project Gutenberg
- 360 Panorama of Lady Chapel, St Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield
- 360 Panorama inside St Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield
References
- ↑ G. Cobb, The Old Churches of London, London: Batsford, 1942.
- ↑ National Heritage List 1180873: Church of St Bartholomew the Great
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Akroyd, Peter (2001). London: The Biography. London: Vintage. pp. 39-40. ISBN 0099422581.
- ↑ The records of St Bartholomew's Priory and St Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield: volume 2, E. A. Webb, 1921
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 Holder, Nick (2017). The Friaries of Mediæval London: From Foundation to Dissolution. Woodbridge: Boydell. pp. 57–65. ISBN 9781783272242. https://boydellandbrewer.com/the-friaries-of-mediæval-london-hb.html.
- ↑ Samuel Pepys, The Shorter Pepys, Robert Latham (ed.), Harmondsworth, 1985, p. 484. ISBN 0-14-009418-0.
- ↑ T. Tucker, The Visitors Guide to the City of London Churches, London: Friends of the City Churches, 2006. ISBN 0-9553945-0-3.
- ↑ C. Hibbert, D. Weinreb, J. Keay, The London Encyclopaedia, London: Pan Macmillan, 1983 (rev. 1993, 2008). ISBN 978-1-4050-4924-5.
- ↑ N. Pevsner and S. Bradley, London: the City Churches, New Haven: Yale, 1998. ISBN 0-300-09655-0.
- ↑ "The City Churches" Tabor, M. p29:London; The Swarthmore Press Ltd; 1917
- ↑ "Rich, Baron (E, 1546/7 – 1759)", Cracroft's Peerage.
- ↑ "Art in Parliament", Parliament of the United Kingdom.
- ↑ St Bartholomew's: the Cloister Café
- ↑ Betjeman, John: 'The City of London Churches' (Pitkin, 1967) ISBN 0-85372-112-2
- ↑ "Present and Past". London: George Bell and Sons. 1876. http://www.masseiana.org/dyer.htm. Retrieved 3 December 2014.
- ↑ "Hot Cross Buns at St Bartholomew the Great". 30 March 2013. http://spitalfieldslife.com/2013/03/30/hot-cross-buns-at-st-bartholomew-the-great/.
- ↑ Lost City of London website
- ↑ "William Bolton", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography..
- ↑ St Paul's Cathedral
- ↑ "St. Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield [D03193"]. http://www.npor.org.uk/NPORView.html?RI=D03193.
- ↑ "Choral Music at the Priory Church". http://www.greatstbarts.com/Pages/Choir/Choir.html.
- ↑ Jones, Richard (2001). Walking Haunted London. London: New Holland Publishers. p. 31. ISBN 1843300753.