Hidden away in a 1960s housing estate in Forest Hill, South London, you will find something that looks very out of place: the top of a City of London church spire. Not only that, but one designed by none other than Sir Christopher Wren after the Great Fire of London.
But how did a 340 year old church spire end up here?
St Antholin’s Church
The spire once topped St Antholin’s church on, the now non-existent, Budge Row in the City of London, roughly where Bloomberg Arcade is today. There had been church on the site since at least AD1119.
The medieval St Antholin’s burnt down in the Great Fire of London in 1666 but was one of the 51 churches rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren. The works finished in 1682.
The spire is constructed, unusually, entirely from Portland stone, whereas most of his other spires were a timber structure lined with stone, lead or tiles.
The original weathervane showed the heraldic symbol of the Bishop of London but the current one is a wolf, or potentially dragon’s, head, added in the 19th century.
An In-Spire-ing Career
In 1829 the tower of the church was damaged in a storm. They believed the spire to be too heavy and it was therefore removed and replaced, but not before being sold to one of the churchwardens for the grand sum of £5.
Robert Harrild, the churchwarden who purchased the spire, was a pioneer in the printing business.
Robert created a new way of printing involving ‘composition rollers’ to apply the ink instead of hand-held leather balls. This vastly increased the speed of printing that could be done and he ended up supplying them to nearly all the publishers on Fleet Street. He purchased a large manor house with the profits called Round Hill House in Sydenham.
The story goes that he could see the spire of St Antholin’s from the window of his office and greatly admired it. Therefore, when it was threatened with demolition, he stepped in to save it.
He had the spire transported to Round Hill House as an urban ornament for the garden.
St Antholin’s church ended up being knocked down in 1875 to make way for the new Queen Victoria Street.
The Spire Today
From the 1930s the house was the location of the Sydenham and Forest Hill social club. It was then demolished in the 1960s. The housing estate we see today was constructed on the site and the spire was left stranded in the middle.
You will also see a large cedar tree which would have once been part of the gardens.
The spire is Grade II listed by Historic England today.
It can be quite tricky to find, see the map below with the route that I took. The nearest station is Forest Hill.
Thank you for reading! More quirky London history below.
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Hi Jack, Ian Yates here, please forgive my nostalgic trip down memory lane. It was with great interest that I read your recent post about St Antholin’s Church Spire residing in Forest Hill where printing Engineer, Robert Harrid had relocated it in 1829 to his large home called Roundhill House from the Wren built church site in Watling Street, near his printing office.
I grew up at 17 Radlett Avenue in Forest Hill, a hundred yeards from Round Hill. In the early 1960’s, after Roundhill House had been knocked down and before the current housing estate was built, my brother, sister, neighbourhood kids and I would explore the very overgrown Roundhill House site. The church spire was, to us a rather magical, ‘romantic’ place in the middle of an overgrown urban jungle. I remember the huge cedar tree, which even at the age of 4 or 5 years looked a bit out of place compared to all the brambles, lilac and stinging nettles (the latter which I managed to fall off my bike into one memorable day!).
The other thing of note is that at the end of Radlet Avenue, 20 yards from our front door was Baxter Field park (memories come back to me of being called back home from playing in the park on the grey, overcast 30th January day in1965 to watch Churchhill’s state funeral on our small black & white TV). This park was named after George Baxter who invented commercially viable colour printing in the1830’s – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Baxter_(printer) and married Harrild’s daughter, Mary.
As wikipedia states, depsite his genius, tragically, ‘ Baxter was declared bankrupt in 1865 and died in 1867 after an accident involving a horse omnibus. It is estimated that Baxter himself printed over twenty million prints during his career’.
Look forward to joining another of your tours soon! Best wishes, Ian
I was interested to read the comment about Baxter Field Park and George Baxter. I have two Baxter prints. I am pleased to know that someone remembers George Baxter.
This was fascinating, especially as my boyfriend from 1962 to 1966 lived in Maple Cottage, Bird-In-Hand Passage, Forest Hill. Maple Cottage was, I was told, built in the 13th Century. An inside bathroom was constructed not long before I used to visit, and I experienced the resident ghost on several occasions, once while I was in this upstairs bathroom. I hadn’t been told about it before this event! I thought you might find it interesting to look into its history. Best wishes, Avril
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