Bloomsbury (London, England) -- Description and travel; Holborn (London, England) -- Description and travel
Holborn Viaduct was finished in 1869. It is 1,400 feet in length, and is
carried by a series of arches over the streets in the valleys below. The
main arch is over Farringdon Road, the bed of the Fleet or Holbourne
Stream, and is supported by polished granite columns of immense
solidity. At the four corners of this there are four buildings enclosing
staircases communicating with the lower level, and in niches are
respectively statues of Sir William Walworth, Sir Hugh Myddleton, Sir
Thomas Gresham, and Sir Henry Fitz-Alwyn, with dates of birth and death.
On the parapets of the Viaduct are four erect draped female figures,
representative of Fine Art, Science, Agriculture, and Commerce. Holborn
Viaduct is a favourite locality for bicycle shops.
The City Temple (Congregational) and St. Andrew's Church are near
neighbours, and conspicuous objects on the Viaduct just above Shoe Lane.
The City Temple is a very solid mass of masonry with a cupola and a
frontage of two stories in two orders of columns.
The parish of St. Andrew was formerly of much greater extent than at
present, embracing not only Hatton Garden, Saffron Hill, but also St.
George the Martyr, these are now separate parishes.
The original Church of St. Andrew was of great antiquity. Malcolm, who
gives a very full account of it in "Londinium Redivivum," says that it
was given "very many centuries past" to the Dean and Chapter of St.
Paul's, and the Abbot and Convent of St. Saviour, Bermondsey, by
Gladerinus, a priest, on condition that the Abbot and Convent paid the
Dean and the Chapter 12s. per annum. We also hear that there was a
grammar-school attached to it, one of Henry VI.'s foundations, and that
there had been previously an alien priory, a cell to the House of Cluny,
suppressed by Henry V. The church continued in a flourishing condition.
Various chantries were bestowed upon it from time to time, and in the
will of the Rector, date 1447, it is stated that there were four altars
within the church. In Henry VIII.'s time the principals of the four inns
or houses in the parish paid a mark apiece to the church, apparently for
the maintenance of a chantry priest. In Elizabeth's reign the tombs were
despoiled: the churchwardens sold the brasses that had so far escaped
destruction, and proceeded to demolish the monuments, until an order
from the Queen put a stop to this vandalism.
In 1665 Stillingfleet (Bishop of Worcester) was made Rector. The church
was rebuilt by Wren in 1686 "in a neat, plain manner." The ancient tower
remained, and was recased in 1704. The building is large, light, and
airy, and is in the florid, handsome style we are accustomed to
associate with Wren. At the west end is a fine late-pointed arch,
communicating with the tower, in which there is a similar window. This
arch was blocked up and hidden by Wren, but was re-opened by the late
Rector, the Rev. Henry Blunt, who also thoroughly restored and renovated
the building some thirty years ago.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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