Church of St Andrew

The Church of St Andrew stands on a rise near Holborn in the City of London, its stone tower rising above the old valley of the River Fleet. Roman pots found in the crypt show people lived here long before the first written record of 951 called it an old wooden church. After the Normans took England, a priest named Gladwin handed the church to St Paul’s Cathedral but kept a small yearly fee for Bermondsey Abbey. A stone belfry was added in 1280 when Simon de Gardino left money for bells, and by the 15th century the wooden building had become a sturdy medieval church. The church survived the Great Fire of 1666 because the wind changed at the last moment, yet it was still rebuilt by Christopher Wren. Wren kept the old stone tower, clad it in marble, and dug out the present crypt beneath. In 1771 James Somerset was baptised here; his later court case ended slavery in England. The surgeon William Marsden found a dying girl on the church steps in 1828, an event that led him to found the Royal Free Hospital. John Thavie’s 14th-century bequest still pays for repairs today. Inside, the west gallery holds an 18th-century organ casing that once belonged to Handel and was later moved from the Foundling Hospital. A mural by Brian Thomas shows the Holy Spirit as a dove above the nave, and a large motorised icon of Christ on the Cross can be raised or lowered. The rebuilt rectory and courthouse next door, designed by Samuel Sanders Teulon, now houses charities and conference rooms. After wartime bombing in 1941, the church was restored exactly as Wren had built it and now serves as a Guild Church for the local working community.