Inventory Site Record

St Olave is the smallest intact medieval church in the City, first recorded in the late C12th. A stone church replaced the earlier building in the C13th, and the current building is primarily C15th although it was rebuilt in 1951-4. It has strong associations with the nearby Navy Office and Corporation of Trinity House. Samuel Pepys, who was buried here, called it 'Our own Church'. There was a churchyard by 1345 and well-preserved burial registers from 1563 onwards include a record of Mother Goose buried on 14 September 1586. Charles Dickens referred to it as 'My best beloved churchyard, the churchyard of St Ghastly Grim' in The Uncommercial Traveller. The entrance is via a gateway of 1658 that has a pediment with carved skull and crossbones. Until the early C20th the churchyard had many tombs set in grass but prior to 1920 it was laid out as a garden with a path from the gateway to the south door of the church, with some gravestones set against the walls.

Site location:

8 Hart Street/Seething Lane

Postcode:

EC3R 7NB

What 3 Words:

loss.asking.ties

Type of site:

Public Gardens

Borough:

City of London

Open to public?

Yes

Opening times:

As Church: Mon-Fri: 10am-5pm
Has taken part in Open Garden Squares Weekend 4 times, most recently in 2018.

Special conditions:

Facilities:

Events:

Recitals, concerts and lectures, including Parallel Lives, supper lectures about Pepys and his contemporaries (2010) - contact church for details

Public transport:

Tube: Tower Hill (District, Circle). Rail: Fenchurch Street

Citymapper    
Google Map    
streetmap.co.uk

Research updated:

01/04/2010

Last minor changes:

19/07/2023

Please check with the site owner or manager for latest news. www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/openspaces; www.santuaryinthecity.net

St Olave is the smallest intact medieval church in the city, first recorded in the late C12th. King Olaf fought with Ethelread the Unready against the Danes in the Battle of London Bridge of 1014; after his death 1025 he was canonised, soon after which a number of churches such as this one were dedicated to him, probably due to Scandinavian traders here. A stone church replaced the earlier building in the C13th, some elements of which remain in the crypt. The current building is primarily C15th although the church was gutted in 1941 and rebuilt in 1951-4. The church has strong associations with Samuel Pepys, who was buried here, and the nearby Navy Office and Corporation of Trinity House; Pepys referred to it as 'Our own Church'. It survived the Great Fire, in part due to the fact that Pepys had many of the wooden structures surrounding it removed. On the south aisle wall of the church was a doorway leading to the gallery for use by the Navy Office, which Pepys had built in 1660 in order to get to the church from the Navy Office and his home in Seething Lane without getting wet. Pepys was buried in the crypt and a monument to him and his wife (d.1669) is in the church together with a memorial plaque erected 1884 designed by Sir Reginald Blomfield. There was a churchyard by 1345 and the burial registers from 1563 onwards are well-preserved and include a record of Mother Goose being buried here on 14 September 1586. Many victims of the plague of 1665 were buried here, the first entry being on 24 July 1665 for 'Mary, daughter of William Ramsay, one of the Drapers' Almsmen'; tradition has it that the first appearance of the plague was in the Drapers' Almshouses in Cooper's Row.

The churchyard has a gateway of 1658 from Seething Lane with pediment with carved skull and crossbones after a design by Hendrik de Keyser. The churchyard also has strong associations with Charles Dickens: "My best beloved churchyard, the churchyard of St Ghastly Grim" (The Uncommercial Traveller). The churchyard garden is framed by the church spire on one side and offices on the other two sides. Until the early C20th the churchyard had many tombs set in grass but some time prior to 1920 it was laid out as it is today with a path from the street entrance to the south door of the church, with shrubs in the corners and a small path round a central bed, with some gravestones set against the walls; the most interesting is a slab set in the ground, broken but with excellent gothic German script (date indecipherable). There are excellent C18th railings and an entrance gate on the street side and railings on the boundary opposite.

Sources consulted:

Candidate for Register: Ben Weinreb & Christopher Hibbert, 'The London Encyclopaedia' (London) 1983; Return re. Open Spaces in the City, 1926, CLRO; Guildhall Library. George Godwin & John Britton 'The Churches of London: A history and description of the Ecclesiastical Edifices of the Metropolis, Volume I', London, 1838; Simon Bradley & Nikolaus Pevsner, 'The Buildings of England, London 1: The City of London', 1997 (1999 ed.); Philip Norman, 'The London City Churches, Their Use, Their Preservation and Their Extended Use', The London Society, (1920s); London Diocesan Advisory Committee for the Care of Churches data; Gerald Cobb 'The Old Churches of London', Batsford, 1942

Grid ref:

TQ333808 (533370,180848)

Size in hectares:

0.0358

Site ownership:

Diocese of London

Site management:

City of London Corporation Open Spaces Dept.

Date(s):

C11, C15, 1731-2; C19th; 1920s

Designer(s):

Listed structures:

LBI: St Olave's Church; LBII*: Entrance gateway, wall and C18th railings

On National Heritage List for England (NHLE), Parks & Gardens:

No

Registered common or village green on Commons Registration Act 1965:

No

Protected under London Squares Preservation Act 1931:

No

Local Authority Data

The information below is taken from the relevant Local Authority's planning legislation, which was correct at the time of research but may have been amended in the interim. Please check with the Local Authority for latest planning information.

On Local List:

No

In Conservation Area:

Yes

Conservation Area name:

Trinity Square

Tree Preservation Order:

No

Nature Conservation Area:

No

Green Belt:

No

Metropolitan Open Land:

No

Special Policy Area:

Yes - Thames Policy Area

Other LA designation:

Trinity Square Conservation Area is within the Tower of London World Heritage Site Local Setting.

St Olave Hart Street Churchyard, April 2010. Photo: S Williams

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