St Mary at Hill Monuments

St Mary at Hill Church lies just just east of London Bridge, going along Lower Thames St, then up the little cobbled side street which is called St Mary at Hill towards Eastcheap; an alternative entrance is from Lovat Lane. The only indication of the church, with its flat front to the street and tower set back, is the protruding clock; and far more conspicuous is the tower of St Margaret Pattens framed against the top of the street across Eastcheap.

St Mary at Hill, showing the clock.

St Mary at Hill is a work of Christopher Wren dating from 1676, and he incorporated part of the walls of the pre-Fire church on the site. The tower was also kept, but replaced later by the current brick structure by George Gwilt, surveyor for repairs from 1787 - it is not visible from the street, in the view above, but can be seen from the little churchyard. The significant 19th Century architect James Savage repaired and restored the Church in the 1820s and again in the 1840s. The mason for the Wren church, who was also a statuary, was the eminent Joshua Marshall, who carried out work for Wren on a variety of his churches.

We enter through a gate to the little square of what remains of the churchyard, wherein is the entrance to the church. The yard, the last remnant of the burial ground, was closed in 1846, as noted on a panel. A few broken monuments are against the church wall, with dates between 1701 and 1880.

Gravestones in the yard, 19th Century.

Inside, the Church is shaped as a Greek cross inside a square, with Corinthian columns holding up a central dome. Cleared of its pews, it looks somewhat bare, being effectively a large and largely empty hall, with stacked chairs for use in meetings, concerts etc, though it does make it easy to admire the architectural features. The arched ceiling is decorated with a variety of minor stylised flowers and leaf fronds and light patterning in a Frenchified manner. There is much dark woodwork around the vast altar which reaches to the ceiling, with carving including the Royal coat of arms with unicorn and lion above the clock, and panels of carved musical instruments etc. Over one side door is another version of the coat of arms in darkened wood - it came from the lost church of St George Botolph Lane. Some plainer panelling up to about 5ft runs around part of the rest of the interior. Some of the 17th Century woodwork needed replacement in the 19th Century, in a competent, sympathetic style that is hard to tell from the original the wood carver, W. Gibbs Rogers, has been much admired for the quality of his work. The glass is mainly plain, with a bit of modern colour.

St Mary at Hill Church, interior.

And of primary interest to these pages, we have in the main body of the church and the entrance lobby a crop of wall monuments, including a bust, a serious cartouche or two, and some more minor things. Notable monuments, then, in date order from the 17th and 18th Century, and one from the 19th Century, include:

Principal monuments:

• John Woods d.1658, and first wife Anne d.1645, and John Woods, eldest son by his second wife d. 1670. Woods was a Citizen and Distiller of London, whose first wife was daughter of a Haberdasher, and the second, daughter of an ironmonger. Dark stone for the inscription, surrounded by white marble, a custom which was later reversed. The monument has two free-standing Corinthan pillars, a broken pediment with decorated shield and two particularly vile cherubs sitting on the side portions, and holding wreaths. If you like cherub sculpture, there is a page on them here. There are good little 17th Century lions heads under the pillars, and skulls on top of them tucked into the corners of the pediment. Minor decoration below with floralities, including at the base two festoons, with crossbones and ribbons above each, and a small cartouche between.

  

  Classical tablets: John Woods, d.1658, and Thomas Davall, d.1700, and details.

• Daniel Wigfall, d. 1698/9, merchant, son of Henry Wigfall of Renishan in the county of Derby. A well-designed cartouche mounted rather out of reach to get close, solid, with swirls and drapes around, and little cherub heads in amongst all this. Coat of arms and a knight s visored helmet and droopy leaves above.

• John Harvey, d.1700. The inscription notes he was son of Stephen Harvey by Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Martin Freman Esq, all ancient inhabitants of this parish and benefactors of the same . The text is written in fine flowing script with curly tops to the verticals. A cartouche with border scrolling, winged cherub head underneath, coat of arms on top and little summit flaming urn, somewhat damaged since it was photographed for the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments in 1929. The monument is signed, by the Irish sculptor William Kidwell, who made several significant monuments in England, including two in South London, at Mortlake (Francis Coventrye, d.1699) and at Carshalton (Henry Herringman, d.1704).

  

  Cartouches, early 18th Century: Harvey and Vickars monuments, and their cherub heads.

• Thomas Davall and wife Anna (Potts), d.1700, Merchant in London. A large plaque with receding pilasters to the sides, an hourglass, trumpets, coat of arms and foliage, covered in drapes over the open rounded pediment, which become free-hanging folds on each side, but completely outside and detached from the main monument, so giving an unusual and distinctive silhouette to the monument. On top is an urn with flame, and at the base, under a gadrooned (corrugated like a shell) shelf, the curvy apron bears three winged cherub heads above a terminating leafy bracket. A large and noble monument.

• Henrietta Vickars d.1712/3, with Latin inscription, a fine cartouche with draped surround with scrolling encompassing cherubic heads, and two coats of arms. Thus the inscription is ona field of roughly violin shape, with painted arms above, and a smaller painted lozenge of arms above the knight s helm an unusual arrangement. The drapery is knotted at the sides, falls freely to lie upon the heads of two cherubs, and then downward to the base, raised up in the centre by a third cherub head. A few small flowers are carved in low relief just below the text.

• Joseph Martyn, d.1718, and his wife Maria, with short Latin script. Solid monument with curved front, Corinthian fluted pilasters, receding back, open pediment with frond-covered coat of arms, seemingly broken off and sunk down, and missing a pot or something on top. Dragooned base and brackets, and underneath, a now-blank coat of arms with little drapes to side and behind, very accomplished. A very decent monument of its type, and the curved front is unusual.

  

  Samuel Nixon's monument to William Johnson Rodber, d.1843.

• William Johnson Rodber, d.1843, rector of the Church. This features a stone bust in a niche, rather plain of face but carefully made, with underneath a pile of religious bits and bobs and two books, one open, one shut, scattered to give an informal aspect. There looks to have been a chalice or some such which has been broken and attached upside down next to the bust. To each side are pilasters, and a pedimental structure of a dove and sunburst above, rather well done. Samuel Nixon was the sculptor, and this work seems typical of his style, though I have not seen so much of it. The inscription notes that the monument was erected by parishioners, and we may note with approval that Rodber was also secretary to the Incorporated Society for the enlargement and repair of churches and chapels &c.

  There are a few other notable monuments in the porch:

• Isaac Millner d.1717, with a long inscription, more of a eulogy, the monument also commemorating a variety of his offspring, including his son Isaac, d.1743, and his wife, who erected the monument, but later remarried to become Mrs Ann Colmore, d.1749. An ambitious. tall wall monument, with two pillars, then a baseless or entirely open pediment to create an attic storey encompassing both the space of the pediment and the entablature, with shield and billowing decoration, and little knight helm. Above is a pot and two lounging cherubs, while to the side of the base are two further cherubs, standing, wiping their eyes with handkerchiefs, each with a foot on a skull. An added section below has the subsidiary inscription and minor decoration including a further pair of winged cherub heads at the base. The sculptor was Edward Stanton, a prolific statuary who was later mason to Westminster Abbey, there rebuilding the N front with its carved in the 1820s and 30s.

  

  Early 18th Century: Martyn, Smyth and Millner.

• William Smyth d.1726, and 15 of his 16 children, an oval inscription in a shaped rectangular slab with ogee curved top, coat of arms, large pot above, framed against a dark tall backing in the shape of an obelisk or tall pyramid, and a single winged cherubic head below. Such obelisk monuments, of which this one is really a rather early example, had their heyday later in the 18th Century. With their imposing height and ancient Egyptian connotations, with the associated cult of the afterlife, obelisk monuments formed a taller and less costly alternative to the grander Classical panels with their rectangular shape and pillars and pediments.

• John Crane of Ireland, d.1823, once of County Down, later Croydon, and wife Elizabeth d.1819 and infant son (see picture at top of page). A large panel with coat of arms and fronds beneath, upturned torches to the sides, symbolic of the snuffing out of life, and a pediment with wreath and flourishes. Large and quite ornamental. The inscription notes that many of the charities of this metropolis participated in his bounty, of which the charity schools of this ward had their share, but the principal part of the ample fortune which he had accumulated by his honest industry, he divided amongst his poor relations. We may surmise that the executors of his will were among the said poor relations, as they put up the monument.

Other, plainer monuments:

There are another 16 panels in St Mary at Hill, plus a couple of damaged ones, with little or no sculptural decoration. After a couple of 18th Century plain memorials, the rest form a group with interest when seen altogether, as showing some of the popular types of less expensive Classical panels of the first part of the 19th Century. They form a variety of simple panels, cut with pediments above, some styled like the end of a tomb chest, and some like a casket tomb seen from the side, and appear either with no backing, or the increasingly popular white marble panel on a black backing. We note them briefly, in date order again: