Thomas Cromwell And The Curious History Of Austin Friars

Austin Friars is a street in London, just to the North East of the Bank of England. In terms of its shape it looks a bit like a wonky ‘T’ and has a couple of little alleyways shooting off from it such as Pinner’s Passage and Austin Friars Passage. 

You enter through an archway on Old Broad Street and then wind your way into a more open courtyard-like area.

Walking along Austin Friars the obvious significance of the area has been largely lost or hidden by the mists of time. If you go digging however, you discover clues to the area’s rich history in the street names, patterns, architecture and sculptures.

A Monastery

At the bend of Austin Friars will spot this statue of a pious looking monk.

This area, tucked just inside the City wall, was once the site of a monastery. It was an Augustinian Friary, often shortened to ‘Austin Friars’, founded by Henry III’s Constable, a returning crusader called Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford. 

It was likely established in the 1260s occupying a small area but over time, as their wealth grew, they expanded to a precinct of around 5.5 acres. They built a large church with a soaring steeple, which would have been a well-known landmark on the city’s skyline.

The monastery also had a boundary wall with four gates and various other buildings for prayer, study, dining and sleep. It became a popular place for the rich and wealthy to pray and be buried and it benefitted from many royal and aristocratic endowments over the years.

By the end of the 13th century there were around sixty friars located here.

In 1381 it bore witness to a dramatic event. During the Peasant’s Revolt of that year, the Flemish in the City were targeted and thirteen of them fled to Austin Friars, where they believed they would be safe. They were dragged out of the church by the mob and publicly executed. 

A New Tenant: Thomas Cromwell

There were also peripheral tenement buildings that the monks rented or leased out to laypeople. Tenants included Erasmus, the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, Richard Rich and Thomas Cromwell, all very familiar names to fans of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall of course. 

Thomas Cromwell (1485-1540) rose up from lowly beginnings in Putney to become King Henry VIII’s right hand man. From the 1520s Cromwell, then a successful London businessman, leased a large house from the friary. It was three storeys high, had fourteen rooms and a garden.

From 1524 he started working as a clerk to Cardinal Wolsey, the King’s chief minister. As Cromwell’s star rose and he was given various positions in the council, his property at Austin Friars grew as well. 

In 1535, the year Sir Thomas More was executed, construction started on a huge new mansion. The property, when finished, covered around 2 acres, had roughly 50 rooms arranged around 3 courtyards with huge gardens. It was one of the largest properties in pre-Dissolution London. 

Dissolution and Fire

Cromwell, of course, played a key role in dissolving Austin Friars in 1538 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The Marquess of Winchester acquired the Friar’s house and cloisters and built himself a large townhouse on the site. This existed until 1844 when it was broken up into warehouses. 

It was only two years later, in 1540, that Cromwell’s fall also came. He was imprisoned and then executed on Tower Hill for treason and heresy on the 28th July 1540. 

Due to the conviction of treason, his property and the contents were seized by the crown. The house three years later was sold to the Drapers’ Company, one of the most prestigious livery companies of the City, to become their livery hall. 

The building burnt down in the Great Fire of London in 1666, but Drapers’ Hall was rebuilt and remains on the site today. 

The Stranger’s Church

After the friary was dissolved most of the church was stripped of its lead, valuables and parts were used as storerooms for coal, corn and wine. 

The nave however started to be used by the community of Germans, French and Dutch ‘strangers’ in London. In 1550 they were granted a royal charter by King Edward VI to establish a ‘Stranger’s Church’.

By the late 17th century, the largest group were the Dutch, largely Protestants who had fled religious persecution. 

The Dutch Church, as it became known, was heavily restored in the 19th century before being destroyed the night of the 15th October 1940 by Blitz bombs. Its rare collection of books, bibles and atlases had thankfully been removed from the church for safekeeping just one day before the bombing raid. 

The new church, a concrete box frame, clad in Portland stone, was designed by Arthur Bailey and finished in 1954.

It is still an active church and they have Dutch language services and other events there. Founded in 1550, it is the oldest Dutch language Protestant church in the world and is known in the Netherlands as the mother of all Dutch reformed churches. 

The Passages

I love the atmospheric Austin Friars Passage opposite the church.

It was known in the 18th century as Bell Alley but renamed after World War Two. It runs along the route of what would have once been a path between the monastery buildings to the East and the gardens to the West. 

Spot the old ghost sign for a stockbrokers, called Pater and Co, that was here until 1923.

You can also see a couple of old parish boundary markers for both All Hallows by the Wall from 1853 and St Peter le Poer from 1715. St Peter le Poer was demolished in 1907. 

You also have Pinner’s Passage, which sits more or less where one of the gates of the monastery would have once been. The name comes from Pinners Hall, nearby on Old Broad Street, which until the late 18th century, was home to the livery hall of the Worshipful Company of Pinmakers. 

Talking of Livery Companies, you can find the livery hall of The Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers at number 12 Austin Friars, housed, since 2001, in this beautiful townhouse designed in 1883 by E Gruning. 

As is so often the case with London, the more you dig, the more layers of fascinating history are revealed.

Thank you for reading! More of London’s incredible hidden history below…