London No. 83

Blatch (1995) writes: "It is possible that this was the first place in the capital where Christ was worshipped. The building lasted until the 10th century, when it was replaced by another, possibly because the earlier church had been destroyed by the Danes", and both Blatch (ibid.) and Allen (1839?) report of a number of buildings or re-buildings of it in the 12th, 13th, 15th centuries, until the destruction of the building in the Great Fire of 1666 and re-built in 1680 by Sir Christopher Wren (Allen, Blatch, ibid.). Allen (1839?) reports: "The font is interesting as a vestige of ancient London, having been preserved from the old church; it consists of a basin of white marble, sustained on a pedestal of black, and bearing the following arms on a shield, viz.: Azure a lion rampant or, a crescet for Hothershall, empaling gules, a chevron armine, between three buckles or, and this inscription:'DEO ET ECCLESIAE EX DONO HENRICI HOTHERSHALL, ANNO 1615'". [NB: there is no mention of the font in Blatch]. [NB: Newman & Pevsner (2006) report a 1887 alabaster copy of "the font formerly in Wren's St Bride, Fleet Street" in the Parish Church of St. Giles, Badger, in Shropshire; where is Wren's font?]