Among the most important charities were those of: Laurence Thompson, 1601, who left £100 in trust for tea, coal, and bread for the poor of the parish. William Walthal, 1606, who left £246 : 13 : 4, £200 of which was to be lent to the struggling shopkeepers of the parish, the interest to be distributed in bread and coal. The Robert Warden (1609) bequest for Ash Wednesday sermons and Sunday bread to be administered through the Poulterers Company. The Lucy Edge (1630) bequest for the weekly lecture. Sir Benjamin Thorowgood’s (1682) bequest of three shops at the west end of the church for the maintenance of the organ and organist; and the Gibbs’ bequest (1864). Of these, all, with the exception of the Lucy Edge and Gibbs’ bequests, which provide for the Thursday lecturer, and part of the Robert Warden bequest, which provides for the Ash Wednesday sermon before the Poulterers Company, have been appropriated, with other endowments, by the City Parochial Charities, out of which common fund a yearly allowance is made for the upkeep of the Church. John Hodgkin, Bishop of Bedford, 1537, was rector here; also John Taylor (d. 1554), Bishop of Lincoln; Francis White (d. 1638), Bishop of Ely; William Beveridge (1637-1708), Bishop of St. Asaph; John Waugh, Bishop of Carlisle, 1723—he is buried in front of the present altar. Next door to the church is another of the exceptions in the street, a well-designed terra-cotta building. The building is in a late Perpendicular or Tudor style, and is appropriately named Tudor Chambers. St. Peter’s Alley leads to the graveyard at the back of the church, which is cut in two by an abnormally broad sweeping way up to the centre door. Plainly built chambers of many stories look down on the dusty evergreens of the churchyard. The next object of interest is the deeply recessed and beautifully ornamented porch of St. Michael, which stands back a little from the line of the street. By the side of the church is St. Michael’s Alley, which leads us to the graveyard. In this a small cloister or entry with vaulted roof leads through to the churchyard, a space of newly turned soil with a fringe of the inevitable evergreen bushes. The great London coffee-house was set up in St. Michael’s Alley in 1652 by one Pasqua Rosee. ST. MICHAEL, CORNHILL The body of St. Michael’s Church was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt by Wren in 1672; the tower was injured and pulled down in 1722, when the present tower, also the work of Wren, was erected. In 1858 it was greatly altered by Sir Gilbert Scott. The earliest date of an incumbent is 1287.