All Hallows-by-the-Tower
All Hallows-by-the-Tower, at one time dedicated jointly to All Hallows (All Saints) and the Virgin Mary and sometimes known as All Hallows Barking, is an ancient Anglican church on Byward Street in the City of London, overlooking the Tower of London. According to the church website and other sources it is "the oldest church in the City of London" and was founded in or before AD 675. These claims are not supported by recent research. The church survived the Great Fire of London in 1666.
The origin and early history of All Hallows-by-the-Tower church are obscure.[2] At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 the church belonged to Barking Abbey, a wealthy Benedictine nunnery in Barking, Essex, originally established in the 7th century. The association with Barking was a long one, and All Hallows church was already known as "Berkyncherche" in the 12th century. According to Domesday Book in 1086, Barking Abbey possessed "28 houses and half a church" in London: although the church is not named, it is usually identified with All Hallows. The original Anglo-Saxon abbey of Barking was founded by Earconwald or Erkenwald before he became Bishop of London in about 675, and it has been claimed that the land on which All Hallows stands was granted to the abbey, and the first church established, at that time. Although this is a tempting assumption, it is doubtful.[2] A charter dated to 687, listing properties belonging to Barking Abbey at that time, includes two pieces of land in or near London. One of these was simply described as "iuxta Lundoniam", near/next to London, the other as "supra vicum Lundoniae", that is, in "Lunden-wic", the Anglo-Saxon town that had grown up in the area of the Strand, a mile to the west of the old Roman city of Londinium; neither description matches the location of All Hallows church, inside the wall of the Roman city on the eastern side.
The reuse of Roman building materials, and comparison with arches in the early Anglo-Saxon church at Brixworth, Northamptonshire, suggested that the All Hallows arch was very early in date, and that the original church could have been built in the 7th century. This seemed to confirm the belief that the church had been founded as a daughter church of Barking Abbey at about the same time as the abbey itself was established. However, more recent research, and archaeological evidence that Roman tiles and stone were being used in the construction of other London churches as late as the 11th century, suggest that the arch belongs to this later period. Fragments of three 11th-century stone crosses also found during clearance works after the bombing, now displayed in the crypt, are consistent with an 11th-century date for the first church. The church was expanded and rebuilt several times between the 11th and 15th centuries.[5][10] Its proximity to the Tower of London meant that it acquired royal connections, with Edward IV making one of its chapels a royal chantry and the beheaded victims of Tower executions being sent for temporary burial at All Hallows.
The Interior
The church was badly damaged by an explosion in 1650 caused when some barrels of gunpowder being stored in the churchyard exploded; its west tower and some 50 nearby houses were destroyed, and there were many fatalities. The tower was rebuilt in 1658, the only example of work carried out on a church during the Commonwealth era of 1649–1660. It only narrowly survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 and owes its survival to Admiral William Penn, father of William Penn of Pennsylvania fame, who had his men from a nearby naval yard demolish the surrounding buildings to create firebreaks. During the Great Fire, Samuel Pepys climbed the church's spire to watch the progress of the blaze and what he described as "the saddest sight of desolation".
