| Summary : The shells of the 14th century crossing tower and north transept, gutted by bombing, still stand. They are the remains of the priory church of Elsing Spital, founded in 1331 as a hospital for the blind staffed by secular priests, and taken over by Augustinian Canons in 1340. There are two plain arches to the west and north with a similar, but lower, arch in the north transept of the west wall. The east crossing arch is also lower, of three orders with quarter-round mouldings, framing a segment-headed doorway with a cusped niche on the inside. This may have screened the canons' chapel to its east from the hospital space, which was possibly in the nave itself. The rest, demolished in 1923, comprised work of 1775-7 by William Hillyer, with a pedimented east front to the old line of Aldermanbury, and a lesser front on to London Wall. The old parish church proper, abandoned at the Reformation in favour of the vacated priory, was built on the line of the City Wall to the north. |
More information : [TQ 32418162] SITE OF ST ALPHAGES CHURCH [AT]. (1)
(4) REMAINS OF OLD ST. ALPHEGE CHURCH stand on the N. side of St.
Alphege Churchyard and are of medieval ragstone-rubble. They consist
only of the N. wall, probably of the chancel, and the N.E. angle. The
city-wall forms the lower part, but is now mostly concealed by the
rise of the ground-level. The wall is covered externally by adjoining
buildings and has lost all its internal facing. Fixed on the face of
the town-wall is a stone tablet with skull and cross-bones and the
inscription, "This gateway was erected at the proper cost and charge
of Ralph Holbrook husband of Eliz'th Holbrook, neice of Laur. Copping
Gent. who lyeth interr'd within. Anno Domini 1687." (2)
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