ls of the four inns
or houses in the parish paid a mark apiece to the church, apparently for
the maintenance of a chantry priest. In Elizabeth's reign the tombs were
despoiled: the churchwardens sold the brasses that had so far escaped
destruction, and proceeded to demolish the monuments, until an order
from the Queen put a stop to this vandalism.

In 1665 Stillingfleet (Bishop of Worcester) was made Rector. The church
was rebuilt by Wren in 1686 "in a neat, plain manner." The ancient tower
remained, and was recased in 1704. The building is large, light, and
airy, and is in the florid, handsome style we are accustomed to
associate with Wren. At the west end is a fine late-pointed arch,
communicating with the tower, in which there is a similar window. This
arch was blocked up and hidden by Wren, but was re-opened by the late
Rector, the Rev. Henry Blunt, who also thoroughly restored and renovated
the building some thirty years ago.

The most interesting of the interior fittings is a porphyry altar,
placed by Sacheverell, who was Rector from 1713 to 1724, and who is
buried beneath it. A marble font, at which Disraeli was baptized at the
age of twelve, is also interesting, and the pulpit of richly-carved
wood, attributed to Grinling Gibbons, is very handsome. On the west wall
is a marble slab, in memory of William Marsden, M.D., founder of the
Royal Free and Cancer Hospitals. It was put up by the Cordwainers'
Company in 1901.

In the tower are many monuments of antiquity, but none to recall the
memory of anyone notable. The church stood in a very commanding
situation until the building of the Viaduct, which passes on a higher
level, giving the paved yard in front the appearance of having been
sunk.

On this side of the church there is a large bas-relief of the Last
Judgment, without date. This was a favourite subject in the seventeenth
century, and similar specimens, though not so fine, and differing in
treatment, still exist elsewhere (see p. 17).

Malcolm mentions a house next the White Hart, with land behind it, worth
5s. per annum, called "Church Acre," and in the reign of Henry VII. the
priest was fined 4d. for driving across the churchyard to the Rectory.
In the twenty-fifth year of Elizabeth's reign there was a great heap of
skulls and bones that lay "unseemly and offensive" at the east end of
the church. The register records the burial here, on August 28, 1770, of
"William Chatterton," presumably Thomas Chatt