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Four of the eastern City gates had churches dedicated to
St Botolph, the patron saint of travellers and wayfarers.
The churches at Aldgate, Aldersgate and Bishopsgate
survive, but St Botolph Billingsgate was lost in the
Great Fire, and was not replaced. Indeed, its position
just beside Pudding Lane gave this church the honour of
being the closest church to the start of the Great Fire,
so it was probably the first one lost.
As was common, the burial ground continued in use until
the 1850s, and a portion of it survives as a small garden
near the junction with Lower Thames Street, along with
the entrance pillars. The church stood to the north of
here.
Billingsgate was one of the City's great provision
markets, bringing fish to the heart of London. TS Eliot
loved this part of town, sitting in the pubs
eavesdropping on gossiping women, or listening to the
pleasant whine of a mandoline. But the fish market stood
in the way of progress, and it was kicked downstream to
the Isle of Dogs in the 1980s to be replaced by that most
essential staple of late 20th Century western
civilisation, a conference centre.
Simon Knott, December 2015
location: Monument Street EC3R 6DX - 4/017
status: churchyard only
access: visible from the road
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