ST. KATHERINE CREE St. Katherine Cree, in Leadenhall Street, is on the site of the cemetery of the Priory of Holy Trinity, whence it derives its name Creechurch or Christchurch. This priory is said to have been built in the same place where Siredus sometime began to erect a church in honour of the Cross and of St. Mary Magdalen. This ancient church contributed thirty shillings to the Dean and Chapter of Waltham. The abbey church here is also dedicated to the Holy Cross, and when Matilda founded Christ Church or Trinity she gave to the Church of Waltham a mill instead of this payment. But little is known of the building of Siredus; but Matilda’s Priory is said to have occupied parts of the parishes of St. Mary Magdalen, St. Michael, St. Katherine, and the Blessed Trinity, which now was made but one parish of the Holy Trinity, and was in old time of the Holy Cross or Holy Rood parish. At this time, therefore (1108), the old parish of the Holy Rood had disappeared, and four parishes appear on its site. In the perambulation of the old soke of the Priory we find the parishes of Coleman Church (St. Katherine), St. Michael, St. Andrew (Undershaft), and of the Trinity (now St. James’s, Duke’s Place), but St. Mary Magdalen and Holy Rood are not mentioned. This loss of St. Mary Magdalen is not easily explained. Could the Church of St. Andrew have been dedicated formerly to St. Mary Magdalen? Such changes in dedication are known, and, even in this ward or soke, Stow tells us that St. Katherine Coleman was called St. Katherine and All Saints. This would make up all the parishes which are given at the several periods in this locality. The existence of St. Katherine Coleman and St. Katherine Cree as two distinct parishes adjoining is remarkable. The parish of St. Katherine Coleman belonged to the ancient establishment of St. Martin’s-le-Grand, and so remained until the Dissolution. Was it a part of this parish which was taken into the precinct of the Trinity? The inhabitants of the enclosed parish of Cree Church at first used the Priory church, but it was agreed afterwards that they should have a church erected, and use the Priory church only at certain times. This would be what we might expect of a part of a parish detached at the establishment of the Priory, but which desired to be released from the control of the prior, and to be a parish of itself, with its own church. We must not confound the parish of St. Mary Magdalen with a small parish of St. Mary the Virgin, St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins. This was on the west side of St. Mary Axe, and belonged to the Priory of St. Helen. The church was destroyed, and the parish united, by Edmund Grindal, Bishop of London, to St. Andrew, Undershaft, in the year 1561.