After the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed 87 churches, Elizabeth Wilbraham had a major role in supporting Christopher Wren to design as many as half of the 52 replacement churches he takes credit for. These included several Italian-style buildings include several basilical churches with two rows of giant-order columns along the nave. St. Bride’s Fleet Street was one such building.
In 1671 the churchwardens of St Bride’s took Mr Christopher Wren who had been given the role of Surveyor General and Principal Architect for rebuilding the City, to dinner at the Globe Tavern. Their persuasion and persistence lead to St Bride’s becoming one of the first post-fire churches to be opened.
The Guildhall required a £500 deposit by to launch the project which was raised in only one month. Considering most parishioners had lost their homes and businesses in the fire it was a remarkable effort. Further financial resources would be required to meet the final rebuilding cost of £11,430 5s. 11d.
The primary contractor for the works was John Marshall a local man and master mason to King Charles II. Marshall had worked with Elizabeth Wilbraham on the Temple Bar with a young assistant - one Nicholas Hawksmoor, who would go on to be a leading master architect himself.
Wilbraham used Portland stone as the principle building material. Marshall's team worked fast as by 1674 the main structural work was complete, and on Sunday 19th December, 1675 the church reopened for worship.
The tower remained unfinished and was not completed until 1703 to Wren's design. At 234ft it was Wren's highest steeple. In 1764 it was damaged following a lightning strike and was subsequently reduced to 226 ft during further rebuilding.
The church is very much still active and is the home church to the Fleet Street news, media and publishing world.
With a Roman pavement dating back to around AD 180 in the Crypt, a fascinating museum and many concerts there are layers of complex wonderful history to be explored
Somewhere undefined in the churchyard there is also believed to be the grave of Mall Frith aka Mol Cutpurse, aka Mary Frith. Mall was a transman, actor and all round champion of the Royalists. Here is John Milton's epitaph to Mall....
"Here lies, under this same marble,
Dust, for Time's last sieve to garble;
Dust, to perplex a Sadducee,
Whether it rise a He or She,
Or two in one, a single pair,
Nature's sport, and now her care.
For how she'll clothe it at last day,
Unless she sighs it all away;
Or where she'll place it, none can tell:
Some middle place 'twixt Heaven and Hell
And well 'tis Purgatory's found,
Else she must hide her under ground.
These reliques do deserve the doom,
Of that cheat Mahomet's fine tomb
For no communion she had,
Nor sorted with the good or bad;
That when the world shall be calcin'd,
And the mixd' mass of human kind
Shall sep'rate by that melting fire,
She'll stand alone, and none come nigh her.
Reader, here she lies till then,
When, truly, you'll see her again."
