A Country Church In The Heart Of The City: St Olave Hart Street

Nestled amongst the skyscrapers and ceaseless energy of the City of London, the nation’s financial heart, lies a small pocket of stillness, steeped in history.

On the corner of Seething Lane and Hart Street you will find what almost looks and feels like a countryside parish church, St Olave Hart Street. Indeed, John Betjeman, poet laureate and great heritage campaigner, described it as a ‘country church in the world of Seething Lane’. 

Just like the City itself it has endured and been reborn through invasion, fire, plague and bombs. It is an architectural tapestry of the centuries it has lived through, is a cradle for the city’s stories and is still resolutely holding its ground against the ever accelerating world around it.

Origins

St Olave Hart Street likely has 11th century origins, built first as a simple wooden structure. It is named after Olaf II Haraldsson (995-1030) who was King of Norway from 1015-1028. He was the son of Haral Groenske, a distant descendant of the first King of Norway. In around 999AD Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, took the Norwegian throne and then in 1013 conquered England. 

Ethelred the Unready, the exiled English King then challenged Danish rule and Olaf (anglicised to Olave) was one of his supporters. In 1014 Olave sailed up the Thames to help recapture London. The story goes that the Norwegians tied cables around the supporting piles of London Bridge and rowed hard downstream to bring the bridge crashing down bringing many of the Danish defenders with it. This is one of the proposed origin stories for the ‘London Bridge is Falling Down rhyme’. 

After helping Ethelred retake London Olave returned to Norway and eventually became King of Norway and, most likely, encouraged the spread of Christianity across the country. He was canonised in Norway in 1031.

There were numerous churches built and named after St Olave in London. I have written about St Olave Silver Street previously here. 

Rebuilding and The Blitz

The original wooden church was likely rebuilt in stone in the late 12th or early 13th century. It was then rebuilt again, the current building you see today, in the 1460s. 

The church suffered devastating damage during the Blitz. Most of the windows were lost when a bomb landed nearby in 1940 and then, in the Spring of 1941, the church was gutted by incendiary bombs. Thankfully, many of the church’s treasures and monuments had been stored safely elsewhere.

The church was restored and rebuilt from 1951-54, designed by Ernest Glanfield. In 1951 King Haakon VII of Norway, who was exiled in London during the war, laid the restoration stone at the entrance to the chancel. 

Samuel Pepys

St Olave Hart Street’s most notable historic connection is with the 17th century diarist Samuel Pepys, best known for writing about his experiences in the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of 1666. 

Pepys moved into the parish with his wife Elizabeth on 17th July 1660. A couple of weeks earlier he had been given the post of Clerk of the Acts to the Navy Board, a pivotal role in which he oversaw royal dockyards, naval contracts. He later became Surveyor General of the Victualling Office and then Secretary to the Admiralty. He moved into lodgings on Seething Lane, adjoining the Navy Office and St Olave’s became ‘own our church’. 

During the Great Fire of London in 1666, Pepys, with the help of Admiral William Penn (father of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania) saved the Navy Office and the church from destruction by employing dockyard workers to pull down houses and create fire breaks. It is, therefore, one of only a few churches to have survived the Great Fire.

Pepy’s wife Elizabeth died of typhoid in 1669 and was buried at St Olave’s and so was his brother John in 1676. Samuel Pepys himself was buried here after he died in 1703. 

The memorial to him in the church today was commissioned and erected in 1884. It is located where the special Navy Office pew was located in the South gallery.

The Churchyard

The churchyard has this rather ominous entranceway. It dates from 1658, the skulls being a ‘memento mori’ symbol, translating from latin as ‘remember you must die’. Underneath are the words ‘Christus vivere Mors mihi lucrum’, words of St Paul, translated as ‘For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain’. This macabre display lead Charles Dickens many years later to refer to it as ‘one of my best beloved churchyards, I call the churchyard of St Ghastly Grim’. 

The churchyard is raised above the entranceway of the church, said to be because of the centuries worth of bodies. For example, 357 victims of the Great Plague of 1665 were buried here. The Great Plague killed roughly 100,000 Londoners, which was around 15-20% of the population of the city. Burials at St Olave’s includes that of a lady called Mary Ramsay on 24th July 1665, who it seems was blamed, without evidence, for introducing the plague to the City of London.

Another burial is that of someone called ‘Mother Goose’ in 1586. This is often associated with the 19th century pantomime character, but is likely just someone who had the surname ‘goose’. 

A rare Women’s Window

In the Lady Chapel is a lovely stained glass window which represents the three parishes now united under St Olave’s.

In the centre is the Virgin and Child for St Olave’s, on the left is Queen Elizabeth I for All Hallows Staining (because she attended a Thanksgiving service here after her release from the Tower of London in May 1554) and St Katherine of Alexandria for St Catherine Coleman church. Above are more modern women, including Florence Nightingale, Elizabeth Fry, Josephine Butler and Edith Cavell. 

Monuments and Memorials

There are numerous interesting monuments and memorials to look out for. They can be seen almost as a microcosm of the City’s complicated history. This one, for example, is to Sir Andrew Riccard, a wealthy merchant and politician.

Riccard was Chairman of the East India Company and of the Turkey Company, as well as Alderman and Sheriff of the City. He later became the MP for the City in the First Protectorate Parliament of 1654/55. 

Below is a wonderful, carved monument of Peter Capponi, who was an Italian merchant, who fled to London after plotting against the Medici. He started working for Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I’s spymaster and died of the plague in 1582. 

One of the most attractive is the monument dedicated to brothers Andrew and Paul Bayning who died in 1610 and 1616 respectively. They were both Aldermen depicted in their red robes and were both closely involved in the Levant Company. 

Finally, this one is easy to miss, but is also worth noting.

It is the memorial plaque for William Turner (died 1568), the Dean of Wells Cathedral and Naturalist. He published ‘A New Herball’ in 1551, the first authoritative treatise on the use of plants in the English language. He is sometimes referred to as the ‘Father of English botany’ because of his contributions to the field.

The Crypt And The Vestry

Make sure if you visit to not miss the crypt. Descending down a tight stone staircase you emerge into the crypt, partially dating from the 12th/13th century. There are various archaeological finds displayed in one room.

In another you will find the atmospheric crypt chapel. 

There are carvings in the stone, thought to possibly be symbols to ward off evil spirits, such as this one of a bishop’s mitre. 

There is also a well that is thought to date back to the Saxon period. 

Another little space people often miss (e.g. me on numerous occasions until it was pointed out to me), is the vestry. 

This little room was constructed in 1661-62, just a year after Pepys moved to the parish and a few years before the Great Fire. It has an attractive plastered ceiling and a painting of Faith, Hope and Charity. The stout wooden door is thought to date back over 600 years. 

Visiting St Olave Hart Street

Hopefully the above has persuaded you, if you have not been before, to visit this unique and fascinating church. You can see the opening hours (at time of writing below): 

Monday- Wednesday: 10:30am to 5pm

Thursday: 8:30am to 5:45pm

Friday: 10:30am to 5pm

Saturday: Closed

Sunday: 10:50am to 1pm

They have lunchtime recitals at 1pm on Wednesdays and Thursdays and of course regular services as well. You can see all the details on their website here.

Thank you for reading, more hidden historic gems below if you would like to read on!