Proposed New Church, 1711
On 26 October 1711 the minister and churchwardens of St. Botolph Bishopsgate submitted a
representation to the Commissioners for Building
Fifty New Churches, in which they asked for the
extra-parochial district of Norton Folgate ’containeing about One Hundred Familys’ to be
united to their parish, together with the Old
Artillery Ground, and for a new church to be
erected within the parish. They suggested two
sites, both on the west side of Bishopsgate
Street. (ref. 215) The Commissioners decided on 31
October that a church should be erected within
the bounds of the parish and of ’Norton falgate,
the old Artillery ground and St. Mary le Spittle’.
William Dickinson, a colleague of Nicholas
Hawksmoor as one of the Commissioners'
surveyors, was required to make a survey. (ref. 216)
On 6 November the inhabitants of the ’extraparochial precincts’ of Norton Folgate and ’St.
Mary le Spittle’ and the Old Artillery Ground
submitted their own representation, asking to be
constituted a separate parish. The precincts
were said to contain together nearly five hundred
dwelling-houses ’which for the most part are
Good and New houses’. The precinct of ’St.
Mary le Spittle’ contained a ’Great Quantity of
Vacant Ground’ belonging to Jeremy Sambrook,
the mortgagee, and William St. John, the heir of
the third Earl of Bolingbroke, within which was a
’very commodious and cheap place’ which could
be obtained in fee simple. It was claimed that the
inhabitants could raise a salary of £100 per annum
for the minister by a 6d. rate, ’without burdening
the poor’. The ability to support a minister was
likely to be increased by the improvement of the
rest of the vacant ground by building. (ref. 217)
On the same day Dickinson delivered a report
on his survey of the two liberties of Norton Folgate and the Old Artillery Ground, and on
20 November laid before a committee of the Commissioners a plan of ground within Norton Folgate ’for the scite of one of the churches etc. to be
erected within the Hamblet of Spittlefields’. (ref. 218)
If this was not an error by Dickinson it was
evidently intended at this time to join the liberties
to Spitalfields rather than to St. Botolph Bishopsgate, although the papers relating to the project
appear to have continued to be kept with those
relating to the latter parish.
On 11 December the committee decided that
’the Scite proposed by Mr. Dickinson in Spittle
Square, near the Ld Bullinbrooks house’ was
suitable for a church, churchyard and minister's
house. At the same time the site subsequently
used for Christ Church was approved for one of
the Spitalfields churches and a site near Hanbury
Street approved ’for the other new church’. Thus
Thus the union of the liberties with Spitalfields, if contemplated, had been abandoned. (ref. 219)
On 18 December a proposal for the sale to the
Commissioners of the land and houses of the late
Earl which had been ’reported proper for the
Scite of a Church, Churchyard and Minister's
House’ was received on behalf of the Earl's
executor and mortgagee. £2,117 15s. was asked
for the site, or £1,603 15s. part of it. (ref. 220)
It is not certain which of the surviving plans
at Lambeth Palace Library and the Guildhall
Library are Dickinson's plan of November: most
of the plans appear to bear his handwriting. But,
despite the description of the site as being in Spital
Square, it is probably one of the plans showing a
church site on the south side of Folgate (then
White Lion) Street, about 100 feet east of Norton
Folgate High Street, opposite the present south
end of Blossom Street, with an entrance also from
Spital Square. The church plan delineated has a
rectangular body, some 80 feet long and 53 feet
wide, divided by two colonnades into a nave and aisles of seven bays. A square tower, enclosing a
circular vestibule, projects centrally from the west
end, and an almost square chancel forms a similar
east projection. Another plan shows the same
building sited with its tower fronting on to Norton
Folgate High Street. The only plans showing a
site actually in the present area of Spital Square
locate it on ground probably not part of the St.
John estate in 1711: they may be connected with
a project of the inhabitants in March 1711/12.
A projected roadway is shown running some
400 feet north along the line of Blossom Street to
a burial-ground of one acre and seventeen poles
approximately where Commercial Street now
crosses the railway line approaching Liverpool
Street Station, and described in 1717 as garden
ground in the occupation of Mrs. Pelter.
In March 1711/12 the inhabitants of the
Liberty of Norton Folgate obtained a legal
opinion on the possibility of acquiring for the site
of the church the ground previously occupied by
the Candle House which had ’been downe for
severall years past, and the ground whereon it
stood lain entirely wast and useless’. Adjoining
was other waste ground of the Earl of Bolingbroke.
The inhabitants had ’agreed for the said earl's
wast ground’ and wished to treat with the feoffees
of the Candle House ground. (ref. 221) In 1719 the
Candle House was probably acquired by Isaac
Tillard (see page 47). If it did not form part of
the St. John-Tillard estate before 1719 this site
can hardly have been that on the south side of Fol
gate Street and was probably near the north side of
the eastern arm of Spital Square, for which site
undated plans of a church exist. These were for
an asymmetrical building with a rectangular nave
having on its south side a west tower and vestibule,
and an aisle of four bays. At the east and projects
a shallow chancel, and a vestry entered from the
aisle. One of these plans also shows, in dotted
outline, a plan for a church on Folgate Street
with a rectangular body, an east projection, and at
the west end a vestry and a north-west tower.
The price asked in December 1711 for the
late Earl's land was probably too high as the com
mittee asked the Commissioners' secretary to look
for another site. (ref. 220)
In August 1712 William Dickinson was re
quired to make another survey of the late Earl's
ground and in the same month the late Earl's
mortgagee promised to give an answer regarding
price. (ref. 222) In November two members of the
Commission, Mr. Wren, Sir Christopher's son,
and Mr. Manlove, were asked to view a site pro
posed by the mortgagee, Mr. Sambrook, with
Dickinson in attendance. (ref. 223) They reported in
the same month on this site and another proposed
by the Goldsmith's Company west of Bishopsgate
Street, which was rejected as difficult of access.
Mr. Sambrook's site was a half-acre in Folgate
Street with a twenty-four foot wide access from
Bishopsgate Street: it required some old buildings
to be removed. One and a half acres also belong
ing to Mr. Sambrook and suitable for a churchyard
is described as ’adjoining’ but was doubtless that
shown in the plans some 400 feet north of Folgate
Street. (ref. 224)
In March 1712/13 William St. John, on
behalf of himself and Jeremy Sambrook, proposed
to sell a site for £1,550 to the Commissioners.
The proposal was accepted and the title-deeds
ordered to be examined. (ref. 225) At this time a plan
was made showing the alternative sites for a church
either opposite the south end of the later Blossom
Street or on the corner of Norton Folgate High
Street and Folgate Street (Plate 6a). The church
shown on this plan has a rectangular body, some
ninety feet long and forty-seven feet wide, with a
western apse opening to a circular vestibule under
the square tower, this being flanked by lobbies or
vestries. The shallow square-ended chancel is also
flanked by vestries. A minister's house, with a
garden, is sited just east of the church.
The purchase was never made. The next
reference to the proposed church in the Commissioners'
sioners’ records is in June 1716, when they con
sented that Mr. Sambrook and Lord St. John
(formerly William St. John) should ’be discharged
from the Agreement made by them with the
former Commissioners in case Mr. Tilliard [Isaac
Tillard] be the purchaser of the Scite mentioned
in their Agreement’. (ref. 226) Isaac Tillard purchased
the estate and in January 1716/17 the Commis
sioners ordered that his proposals for the sale of a
site ’in the Precints of Norton Folgate’ should be
obtained and that John James, who had become
one of the two surveyors, should make another
plan of the site. (ref. 227) In March 1716/17 Isaac
Tillard proposed to sell to the Commissioners a
site in White Lion Yard (Folgate Street) standing
ninety-six feet east of Norton Folgate High Street,
and also a piece of garden ground containing about
one and a quarter acres, as a site for a burial
ground. The price asked had fallen to £1,150. (ref. 228)
Tillard subsequently described this proposal as
being ’more to the Commissioners Liking’ than
that of Sambrook and St. John in March 1712/13,
but it must have related to virtually the same
ground. In the same month James submitted his
plan and in May some of the Commissioners were
appointed to view the site. (ref. 229) In this last scheme
the church is shown in an enclosure on the south
side of White Lion (now Folgate) Street, opposite
Sott's Hole (Blossom Street), here developed as a
straight lane leading to the burial-ground. The
church is shown as a simple rectangular building
with a shallow projection at its west end and a
square tower at its east end. The enclosure is
figured as measuring 170 feet fronting to the
street, and 120 feet deep, and the minister's house
and garden abut the east side.
Writing in January 1726 Sir Isaac Tillard
stated that ’in the Viewing thereof the said Commissioners saw another Piece of Ground which
they thought more convenient if the same could
be obtained and therefore desired Sir Isaac Tillard
to purchase it, being part the Grownd of Sir
George Wheeler, Knight, and part of other persons’. Sir Isaac did so, at a cost of £1,300, ’being
willing to gratify the Commissioners in their good
intentions’. (ref. 230) From his description of the ground
it is clear that it occupied the site of the north side
of the eastern arm of Spital Square. This was
probably the purchase made by him in 1719 and
possibly included the Candle House site (see
page 47). But the Commissioners were by this
time in financial difficulties and in the end no purchase was made or church erected.