St Olave Hart Street
St Olave Hart Street is an Anglican church in the City of London . The church, built in 1450, is one of the few churches that survived the Great Fire of London in 1666, but was badly damaged by the German Air Force in the London Blitz .
The Perpendicular style church is Ward Church of Tower Ward in the City of London. Your ward belongs to the Church of England . The church was the "house church" of Samuel Pepys , who is also buried there, and of King Haakon VII of Norway, who went to church here during the German occupation of Norway in World War II.
history
St Olave has been the smallest of England's medieval churches since the IRA bombing of St Ethelburga's Bishopsgate in 1993.
First mentions of a church at this point come from the late 12th century. Its dedication to the Norwegian King Olav II. Haraldsson suggests the presence of Scandinavian traders in the area at that time. In the 15th century, the furriers Robert and Richard Celys financed a rebuilding of the church.
St Olave was the guild church of the Worshipful Company of Ironmongers and the Worshipful Company of Clothworkers . On Trinity , the members of the Trinity House brothers attended the church service. After her release from the Tower of London , the future Queen Elizabeth I celebrated the Thanksgiving service here in 1554. For 290 years, the congregation celebrated a thank-you service on the anniversary of the release.
The church has a close connection to Samuel Pepys , who mentions it over 250 times in his diary. Pepys worked and lived next door in the Naval Office and referred to the church as "our church" and the vicar as "our vicar". Like his wife Elisabeth Pepys , he is buried in the church. The street that leads from the former Naval Office to the church is called Pepys Street .
When the plague broke out in London in 1665 , 365 people were buried in the small churchyard of St Olave alone, allegedly including Mary Ramsey, the woman who is said to have brought the plague to London.
During the Second World War, the church was hit by bombs several times. In September 1940, a bomb explosion near the church destroyed its windows. A direct hit on April 17, 1941 destroyed large parts of the interior and left the north and east walls unstable. An incendiary bomb on May 11th that year burned the church tower, melting the eight church bells. The restoration lasted from 1951 to April 1954.
The connection to Norway from the namesake revived during World War II. When King Haakon VII fled to England from the German occupation, he attended church services in St Olave while the church was still open. After the war and the post-war restoration, Haakon VII laid the “King's Stone”, the foundation stone for the restoration of the church; the bishop of Trondheim laid a stone fragment from Olaf's crypt in Trondheim's Nidaros Cathedral next to it .
architecture
Surroundings and churchyard
The church is on the corner of Hart Street and Seething Lane in Tower Ward in the southeast of the City of London. Today it is surrounded by numerous high-rise office buildings from the 20th century. To the south of the church is a churchyard, which walls and surrounding buildings shield from the noise of the city. A large central linden tree shadows a green area on which there are also some gravestones. The east windows on the naves are from the 15th and 16th centuries, while the main window in the east clearly shows the taste traces of its restoration in the 19th century.
The main entrance to the church is on Hart Street. Today's street level is a good bit above the historical level on which the church is located.
Access to the courtyard from Seething Lane is made possible by an archway from 1658, which Hendrik de Keyser designed in a style typical of the time: the arch is decorated with skulls and bones throughout. There are iron spikes on the skulls. The gate made such an impression on Charles Dickens that he referred to the church as St Ghastly Grim in his book The Uncommercial Traveler .
Facade and tower
The nave and base of the tower date from the 15th century, when the existing church building was almost completely rebuilt. The naves take up the entire length of the church; that is, there is no externally visible choir . The walls consist mainly of limestone , with much older masonry being visible, especially in the east.
The church tower is complemented in the southwest by a small turret in which the stairwell is located. The upper floors of the tower were built by John Widdows in 1732 in the Baroque style. On all four sides of the tower there are openings to the outside with round arches, above each of which there is a smaller round opening. The octagonal lantern on the tower is a wooden reconstruction of the earlier post-war model. The flag of the United Kingdom and the flag of Norway flutter from two masts above the tower.
In the southeast on the Seething Lane is a small sacristy of brick , which dates from the years 1661-1662. There was a simultaneously built entrance for the administration of the Royal Navy in Seething Lane. This was demolished in 1853.
The actual church building has a main nave and two side aisles on an almost square base with an edge length of 16.5 meters; only the east wall does not fit this geometry by tapering to the south.
The upper storey was rebuilt between 1951 and 1954 after it was destroyed in 1941, based on a design by EB Gladfield. The sturdy parapet and the low entrance area on the courtyard side of the church tower also come from him. The roof is also from the post-war period, a replica of the original roof from the 15th or 17th century.
inner space
The two-part crypt lies under the western main nave and comes from a previous building from 1270. Its ribbed vault has the frame of a lancet window in the west , which shows that it was partially above ground when it was built. In the crypt there is a well that presumably existed before the church was expanded so far to the west that the well was then integrated into the church.
Much of the interior was destroyed by the German bombs in the London Blitz. Today's sleek, post-war interior was designed by architect EB Glanfield, who, according to Pevsner, managed to maintain the church's age and intimacy.
The west wall of the main nave behind the organ dates back to the 13th century, as does a piece of wall on the north wall that adjoins it. The side aisles are stylistically based on the 13th century, date from the 15th and 16th centuries and were partially rebuilt between 1951 and 1954.
Furnishing
Due to the destruction caused by German bombs, many furnishings had to be fetched from other churches or newly made after the Second World War. An important source was the All Hallows Staining Church , after its demolition in 1870, parts of the interior were brought to St Olave. Some important furnishings survived the war in safe storage. For example, the statue of Elizabeth Pepys was stored in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral .
The hexagonal pulpit, made in 1685, originally comes from Christopher Wren's St Benet Gracechurch Church , which no longer exists. The communion bench also dates from the late 17th century and is supported by crouching lions.
The oak altarpiece from Glanfield and the organ from John Compton Organ Co. are from the post-war period . The tinted glass windows are from Arthur Buss (1954, east side, Jesus and the Apostles) and John Hayward (1970, heraldry).
Despite some losses from the bombing, St Olave has a particularly rich collection of monuments from the 16th and 17th centuries. Most of these were made for St Olave, but there are also examples from All Hallows Staining and St Katharine Coleman Church, which was demolished in 1926 . Impressive pieces include the statues of Queen Elizabeth I and Elizabeth Pepys, which were connected to the church. Pepys' marble statue by John Bushnell looks directly at the gallery for the members of the Navy Office, where her husband attended the services.
organ
The organ was built in 1954 by the organ builder John Compton (London) and expanded by three stops in 1957. In 1991 the instrument was revised by the organ builder Michael Mason. The instrument has 43 stops on three manuals and a pedal. The playing and stop actions are electric.
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Bells
The church bells were made from the material used in the old molten bells at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry , the same workshop that the originals had come from in the 17th century.
literature
- Simon Bradley, Nikolaus Pevsner: London 1. The City of London. Penguin, London 1997, ISBN 978-0-300-09624-8 , pp. 253-256.
- Percival Hunt: Samuel Pepys in the Diary. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958, ISBN 0822960508 , pp. 40-45.
Individual evidence
- ^ Simon Bradley, Nikolaus Pevsner: London 1. The City of London. Penguin, London 1997, ISBN 978-0-300-09624-8 , p. 253.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Simon Bradley, Nikolaus Pevsner: London 1. The City of London. Penguin, London 1997, ISBN 978-0-300-09624-8 , p. 254.
- ^ A b c d Percival Hunt: Samuel Pepys in the Diary. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958, ISBN 0822960508 , p. 41.
- ^ A b c Percival Hunt: Samuel Pepys in the Diary. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958, ISBN 0822960508 , p. 42.
- ^ Percival Hunt: Samuel Pepys in the Diary. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958, ISBN 0822960508 , p. 40.
- ^ A b Secret London: Part VII - The churchyard of St Ghastly Grim. In: iago80 of September 12, 2012.
- ^ A b c d Simon Bradley, Nikolaus Pevsner: London 1. The City of London. Penguin, London 1997, ISBN 978-0-300-09624-8 , p. 255.
- ^ Percival Hunt: Samuel Pepys in the Diary. University of Pittsburgh Press, 1958, ISBN 0822960508 , p. 43.
- ↑ Information about the organ (English).
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 39 " N , 0 ° 4 ′ 46.5" W.