St Michael Wood Street

St Michael Wood Street was a medieval church in Cripplegate Ward, first recorded in 1225 as St Michael de Wudestrate. It stood on Wood Street, with an early frontage on Huggin Lane before moving to the main thoroughfare. The church traced its origins to the 13th century and served a growing parish in the heart of the City. Its name linked it to the timber trade that once flourished along Wood Street. The building carried the marks of centuries of worship and change before its eventual fate. After the Battle of Flodden in 1513, tradition holds that the head of King James IV of Scotland was buried in the church’s crypt. The diarist John Stow praised the church in the 16th century as a ‘proper thing’. Destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666, it was rebuilt in 1673 by Sir Christopher Wren. Wren’s design featured a classical facade of four Ionic columns, a pediment and entablature facing Wood Street. The tower, originally 90 feet high, was later raised to 120 feet with a spire. Inside, the church presented a large rectangular space with a coved ceiling and a gallery at the west end. The organ, built by Thomas Elliot in 1800, was played by Dr Henry Hiles from 1859. The east end held a reredos with paintings of Moses and Aaron. By the late 19th century the parish had shrunk and the church was demolished in 1897. Its site has since been redeveloped, most recently as a pub called the Red Herring between 1994 and 2016.