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Just as the Augustinians had built their Priory by
Smithfield, so the Franciscans had theirs nearby on
Newgate Street, both on the main route into the City from
the north. The Franciscan Priory church was the biggest
in London at 300 feet long, surpassing St Bartholomew the
Great, the Augustinian church. As there, the bulk of the
church was demolished at the Reformation, and the chancel
alone remained to serve the new parish. It was still by
far the largest of the churches in the immediate orbit of
the Cathedral, but the medieval Christ Church was
destroyed in the Great Fire along with its huge
neighbour. Christ Church was rebuilt by the Wren workshop
on the foundations of the former chancel from 1677. The
tower top, almost certainly, was the work of his
assistant Hawksmoor.The
Reformation also saw the Franciscan Priory turned into a
hospital, Christs, and for several centuries there was a
strong association between the church, the hospital and
the schools, particularly the blue-coat boys who were the
scholars. The school moved to Horsham in 1902, but the
steeply banked galleries that had once accommodated the
boys remained.
Christ Church was destroyed by
German bombs on the night of 29th December 1940, and it
was not rebuilt. The tower and the outer walls survived,
and there was a plan in the 1950s to rebuild the
structure as Diocesan offices, but this did not happen.
In 1974, the eastern end of the church along with part of
the south wall were demolished for the widening of King
Edward Street, and the site converted into a public
garden. Hawksmoor's tower is now a private house.
Pineapple finials from the lost east end stand rather
forlornly in front of the tower, and all in all it seems
a mundane end for what must have been a terrific
building, several times.
Simon Knott, December 2015
location: Newgate Street EC4M 8AD - 1/020
status: tower and north nave wall only
access: tower now a private house, adjacent to
ruin and road. Ruined nave now a public garden
          
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