25 April 2015 ~ Mary-le-Bow

Listening to: Big Mama Thornton ~ Sweet Little Angel (Ball n' Chain)

I had a great birthday this week.

My co-workers met me at The Fine Line for drinks and appetizers.

Here I am imitating the statue of Captain John Smith. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother unveiled the statue of Smith, "founder" of Jamestown, Virginia, in 1960. He set sail from Blackwall to the colony of Virginia in 1606.

Following a period as the prisoner of the native Americans he became head of the settler's colony before returning to London in 1609-10. He was buried in St. Sepulchure's Holborn in 1631 where his gravestone can still be found. The statue was placed at this location as it was close to the old site of Cordwainers' Hall, and because the church of St. Mary le Bow was the "setting for a number of sermons in furtherance of the colonisation of the New World in the early seventeenth century." [according to Wikipedia]
 

I had dinner at the Café Below, in the crypt of the church. Archaeological evidence indicates that a church existed on this site in Saxon times. A medieval version of the church had been destroyed in the late 11th century by one of the earliest recorded (and one of the most violent) tornadoes in Britain, the London Tornado of 1091. The church with its steeple had been a landmark of London and the “bow bells”, which were once used to order a curfew. This building burned in the Great Fire of London of 1666.

Considered the second most important church in the City of London after St Paul's Cathedral, St-Mary-le-Bow was one of the first churches to be rebuilt by Christopher Wren and his office.

Much of the current building was destroyed by a German bomb during the Blitz on 10 May 1941, during which fire the bells crashed to the ground.

Heading down to the crypt, candles light the way.

 

 

The crypt was the first arched crypt found in any church in London. The 'le-Bow' in the church’s name derives from those arches.