At the dissolution of the priory the site was given to Richard Williams, one of the visitors of the monasteries, in exchange for certain lands in Huntingdonshire. He assumed the name of Cromwell, being a kinsman of Cromwell, Earl of Essex, and was ancestor of the Protector, Oliver Cromwell. The dividing wall in the church was taken down and the whole of the space appropriated to the use of the parishioners. The Leathersellers purchased the nuns' hall, and made it the hall of their company. The priory buildings remained, but in a ruined state, until 1799, when they were cleared away, and St. Helen's Place built on the site. A view of the ruins is given in Wilkinson's _Londina Illustrata_, and a picturesque view of the church and the Leathersellers' Hall in Malcolm's _London Rediv._, 1803. The church contained more "altar" tombs with recumbent and kneeling effigies than any other church in the City, but they suffered terrible mutilation from the iconoclastic zeal of the Puritans, many of them having been altogether destroyed. Sir Thomas Gresham had promised to build a tower, which unhappily he was prevented doing by death, and it was not until 1699, that it was furnished with a steeple. The church has undergone many repairs and restorations, notably by Inigo Jones, 1623-4, and frequently in the plaster and whitewash style of decoration. The last and most judicious restoration was carried out in 1867-8, and the venerable old church may now be seen, after weathering so many storms, with its graceful Gothic arches, its groupings of tombs and monuments, the nuns' grating in the crypt, its grotesque heads, and over one of the doors the black figure of St. Helena, for which hundreds of pounds have been offered by foreign Catholics, and refused; with many of the same features that were looked at by the Greshams, the Crosbys, and other old parishioners of the Norman, Plantagenet, and Tudor ages, with the addition of some modern stained windows and an organ built in 1742, and rebuilt in 1868. The rectory was sold by Queen Elizabeth to Michael and Edward Stanhope, with the proviso of paying a stipend of £20 per annum to a vicar. Amongst the tombs are those of Sir Thomas Gresham, a splendid monument; Sir John Crosby, in full armour, and his wife, one of the oldest remaining; Sir John Lawrence, the noble Lord Mayor of the Plague year; Sir John Spencer, "Rich Spencer," whose daughter and heiress eloped with her lover, Compton, in a baker's basket.