There is but one church in the street—St. Peter's, originally St. Peter the Apostle, but now St. Peter-the-Poor, a mean edifice, with an ungainly tower, and might well be designated "the poor" from its poverty of architectural merit. Maitland says that it "received the appellation from the mean condition (as is supposed) of the parish in ancient times. If so that epithet may at present be justly changed to that of rich, because of the great number of merchants and other persons of distinction inhabiting there." The probability seems to be that it derived that name from its proximity to the house of Begging Friars, who made a merit of their poverty, and this came to be called St. Peter by the Poor Friars, to distinguish it from St. Peter's, Cornhill, and others of the name. We have no knowledge of when or by whom it was built, but it is a very ancient foundation, as there is documentary evidence showing it to have been in existence in 1181. Among the rectors of St. Peter's have been some notable men. Richard Holdsworth, D.D., educated at St. John's, Cambridge, where he won a name for proficiency in arts and theology, became master of Emanuel College, and vice-chancellor of the university, who was preferred to the rectory in 1636. He was a zealous loyalist, and ejected from his living in 1642, his house plundered, and he imprisoned in the Tower. In 1645, he was nominated to the deanery of Worcester and elected Bishop of Bristol, but declined the dignity. He was permitted to attend King Charles at Hampton Court and Carisbrook Castle, but he suffered much by deprivation, sequestration, and several imprisonments. He died in 1649, and was buried in the church of St. Peter. Benjamin Hoadley, D.D., afterwards successively Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester, who held the living from 1704 to 1720. He was eminent as a controversialist, and held views which would now be termed Rationalistic, approaching closely to Unitarianism, which were developed especially in his _Plain Account of the Sacrament_, and his _Discourses on the Terms of Acceptance_. When Bishop of Bangor, he published a sermon on "The True Nature of the Kingdom that Christ came upon Earth to Establish," from the text, "My kingdom is not of this world," which gave rise to the celebrated and long-protracted "Bangorian Controversy." He published a multitude of works, chiefly of a controversial character, and died in 1761. John Scott, D.D., 1677-91, afterwards rector of St. Giles-in-the-Fields, and canon of Windsor, a learned divine, author of _Cases of Conscience_, 1683; _Texts Cited by the Papists Examined_, 1688; _The Christian Life_, 1683; ninth edition, 1702; and other works, which passed through successive editions, and some translated into foreign languages. His entire works were published in two vols., fol., in 1718, and in six vols., 8vo., in 1826.