York No. 21, Marygate / Eboracum / Eburacum / Eburākon / Eoforwic / Everwic / Jórvík

There are twelve entries for York in the Domesday survey [https://opendomesday.org/place/SE6052/york/] [accessed 8 August 2019] eight of which mentions a church in it [cf. infra]. The entry for this parish in the Victoria County History (York, 1961) notes: "The church of ST. OLAVE, Marygate, was founded by Earl Siward of Northumbria before 1055 when he was buried in it. [...] It was given before 1086 by Alan, Earl of Brittany, who had received it from the Conqueror, to Stephen, a monk of Whitby, as a foundation grant for what was later to be St. Mary's Abbey. [...] Nothing is known of how the church was served in this early period. The church was presumably used conventually until replaced by the abbey church, the foundation stone of which William II is said to have laid in 1089 [...] The prevailing style is of the 15th century but it is of 18th-century construction since the church was largely rebuilt about 1721. It is said to have been much damaged while being used as a platform for guns in 1644. Little of the ancient structure remains." Parker (1847) notes the church and font: "A very late Perpendicular Church […] The font is of the time of Charles II" [i.e., 1660+]. [NB: the original church is believed to have been founded before the Conquest by Sigurd [aka Siward] (+1055?), a subject of King Cnut and governor of southern Northumbria [cf. supra]; the church was restored in the 19th century; we have no information on the medieval font(s) of the church]. The entry for St Mary's Abbey in the Victoria County History (York, vol. 3, 1974) confirms the Anglo-Saxon house: "On the north side of the Ouse at York there stood in pre-Conquest days the church or monasterium of St. Olave, [...] which in the days of the Conqueror had come, together with 4 acres of land around it, into the hands of Alan Rufus, son of Eudo, Count of Bretagne. [...] This church and land were given by the earl to Stephen, a monk of Whitby, on which to found a Benedictine abbey." The entry for this church in Historic England [Listing NGR: SE5985852177] notes: "Parish church. Late C15 on C13 foundations; early C18 arcades, south wall and partial reconstruction of north wall. Chancel 1889, enlarged 1908; vestry 1898, converted to South Chapel 1908; organ chamber 1907, new vestry 1908. Late C19 and early C20 work by G Fowler Jones of York and JF Doyle of Liverpool. [...] Octagonal font on stem with moulded foot and C20 tiered cover."