St Bartholomew the Great is so named to distinguish it from its neighbouring smaller church of St Bartholomew the Less, which was founded at the same time within the precincts of St Bartholomew's Hospital to serve as a chapel of ease and occasional place of worship. The two parish churches were reunited in 2012 under the benefice of Great St Bartholomew.
The church was founded in 1123 by Rahere, a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral and an Augustiniancanon regular.[4] While at the Vatican, Rahere dreamed that a winged beast came and transported him to a high place, then relayed a message from "the High Trinity and...the court of Heaven" that he was to erect a church in London's Smithfield.[5] Rahere travelled to London and was informed that the area in his vision – then a small cemetery – was royal property, and could not be built upon. Henry I, however, granted title of the land to Rahere upon hearing his divine message.[5]
Rahere started construction on the building with the use of servants and child labourers, who collected stones from all over London.[5]
Arms of the Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great
The priory gained a reputation for curative powers, with many sick people filling its aisles, notably on 24 August (St Bartholomew's Day). Many miracles were attributed to occur within and without the walls of the building, including "a light sent from heaven" from its first foundation, and especially miraculous healings; many serious disabilities were claimed to be cured after a visit.[5] Many of these cures were undertaken at the church hospital, the still existing St Bartholomew's Hospital.[5]
The last Prior was Robert Fuller, the Abbot of Waltham Holy Cross. He was favoured by King Henry VIII, having been invited to attend the christening of Prince Edward, and did not oppose the dissolution of the Priory.[6]
While much of the hospital survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries, about half of the priory's church was ransacked before being demolished in 1543.[7] Having escaped the Great Fire of London of 1666,[8] the church fell into disrepair, becoming occupied by squatters in the 18th century. W. G. Grace, however, was one famous congregant before its restoration in the late 19th century,[9] when it was rebuilt under Sir Aston Webb's direction.[10] During Canon Edwin Savage's tenure as rector, the church was further restored at the cost of more than £60,000.[11] The surviving building had comprised part of a priory adjoining St Bartholomew's Hospital,[12] but its nave was pulled down up to the last bay but the crossing and choir survive largely intact from the Norman[13] and later Middle Ages, enabling its continued use as a parish church. The church and some of the priory buildings were briefly used as the third Dominicanfriary (Black Friars) of London, refounded by Queen Mary I of England in 1556 and closed in 1559.[14] Part of the main entrance to the church remains at West Smithfield, nowadays most easily recognisable by its half-timbered, late 16th-century, Tudorfrontage built on the older (13th-century) stone arch. This adaptation may originally have been carried out by the Dominican friars in the 1550s,[14] or by the post-Reformation patron of the advowson,[15]Lord Rich, Lord Chancellor of England (1547–51).[16] From this gatehouse to the west door of the church, the path leads along roughly where the south aisle of the nave formerly existed. Very little trace of its monastic buildings now survive.
The Lady chapel at the east end had been previously used for commercial purposes and it was there that Benjamin Franklin worked for a year as a journeyman printer. The north transept was also formerly used as a blacksmith's forge.
In 1888, new parish school rooms, with basement rooms for youth clubs and a soup kitchen, were built on part of the former burial grounds. The works were funded by in part by the rector, SirBorradaile Savory. The foundation stone was laid on 5 July 1888 by the Duchess of Albany.
The poet and heritage campaigner Sir John Betjeman kept a flat opposite the churchyard on Cloth Fair. Betjeman considered the priory church to have the finest surviving Norman interior in London.[19]
In 2005 a memorial service was held for Sir William Wallace, on the 700th anniversary of the Scottish hero's execution nearby, organised by the historian David R. Ross.
Charitable distributions in the churchyard on Good Friday continue. A centuries-old tradition established when twenty-one sixpences were placed upon the gravestone of a woman stipulating that the bequest fund an annual distribution to twenty one widows in perpetuity,[20] with freshly baked hot cross buns nowadays being given not only to widows but others.[21]
The Priory Church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.[22] In April 2007 it became the first Anglican parish church to charge an entrance fee to tourists not attending worship.[23]
After a few years in which the rector of the church was simultaneously priest-in-charge of the nearby St Bartholomew the Less, which retained its own Parochial church council (PCC) and churchwardens, on 1 June 2015, the parishes of both churches were dissolved and replaced with the united benefice of Great St Bartholomew. The Rector of the former parish of St Bartholomew the Great became Rector of the united benefice. The boundary of the new parish incorporates precisely both former parishes. There is now a single PCC and churchwardens responsible for both buildings. The parish church is St Bartholomew the Great, while St Bartholomew the Less is a chapel of ease within the parish.
The Oriel Window was installed inside St Bartholomew the Great in the early 16th century by Prior William Bolton,[24][25] allegedly so that he could keep an eye on the monks. The symbol in the centre panel is a crossbow "bolt" passing through a "tun" (or barrel), a rebus or pun on the name of the prior.
It may be doubtful whether Bolton, Prior of St Bartholomew, in Smithfield, was wiser when he invented for his name a bird-bolt through his Tun, or when he built him a house upon Harrow Hill, for fear of an inundation after a great conjunction of planets in the watery triplicity
Services have also been broadcast live on the BBC Radio 3 programme Choral Evensong, most recently an Evensong service to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the foundation of the church, in 2023.[28]
Rectors
Edward A. Webb's history of St Bartholomew-the-Great provides an account of each rector up to W. F. G. Sandwith.[29]
Several rectors served as President of Sion College: Thomas Westfield (1631, 1632), Thomas Spateman (1732), Owen Perrot Edwardes (1785), Sir Borradaile Savory (1905).[47]
St Bartholomew the Great had an organ installed by John Knopple in 1715. This was superseded by an organ in 1731 from Richard Bridge. In 1886, it was replaced by the organ from St Stephen Walbrook which was installed by William Hill. Further modifications were made in 1931 by Henry Speechly & Son, in 1957 by N.P. Mander and in 1982–83 by the firm of Peter Wells. Specifications of the church's organ are detailed on the National Pipe Organ Register.[48] Currently, the church is using a Viscount digital organ for services, but the process of acquiring a new instrument has begun.
Choirs
Unusually for a parish church, the Priory Church Choir comprises professional singers, directed by Rupert Gough. A choir of amateur singers, the Rahere Singers, sing for some services.[49]
Organists
Adrian van Helsding, 1715–21
Isaac Orbell, 1721–31
Rowland Evans, 1731–39/40
Richard Ward, 1740–177
Nicholas Steele, 177–1785
Thomas Ball, 1785–73
John Whitaker, 1793–1805
William Bradley, 1805–19
John Monro, 1819–27
Miss Wafforne, 1827–34
Jolly, 1834–36
Elizabeth Ellen Wafforne/Williams, 1836–49 (became Mrs Williams in 1843)
William Peryn (died 1558), Catholic theologian and Prior of St Bartholomew
Folklore
The ghost of Rahere is reputed to haunt the church, following an incident during repair work in the 19th century when the tomb was opened and a sandal removed. The sandal was returned to the church but not Rahere's foot, and Rahere since then, as a "shadowy, cowled figure appears from the gloom, brushes by astonished witnesses and fades slowly into thin air. Rahere is said to appear every year on the morning of July the 1st at 7 am, emerging from the Vestry".[53]
Gauthier, Charlotte, ed. (2022). 900 Years of St Bartholomew's: the history, art and architecture of London's oldest parish church. London: Paul Holberton Publishing. ISBN978-1-915401-03-8.
