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Location: St Dunstan-in-the-West, City of London, London, England, United Kingdom. (51°30′51.3″N 00°06′36.8″W).
Website: www.stdunstaninthewest.org
Phone: +44 20 7405 1929
St Dunstan-in-the-West
The Guild Church of St Dunstan-in-the-West is in Fleet Street in London, England. An octagonal-shaped building, it is dedicated to a former Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury.
History of St Dunstan-in-the-West:
First founded between AD 988 and 1070, there is a possibility that a church on this site was one of the Lundenwic strand settlement churches, like St Martin's in the Fields, the first St Mary le Strand, St Clement Danes and St Brides. These churches may pre-date any within the walls of the city . It is not known exactly when the original church was built, but it was possibly erected by Saint Dunstan himself, or priests who knew him well. It was first mentioned in written records in 1185.[1] King Henry III gained possession of it and its endowments from Westminster Abbey by 1237 and then granted these and the advowson to the "House of Converts" i.e. of the converted Jews, which led to its neglect of its parochial responsibilities. This institution was eventually transformed into the Court of the Master of the Rolls.
The medieval church underwent many alterations before its demolition in the early 19th century. Small shops were built against its walls, St Dunstan's Churchyard becoming a centre for bookselling and publishing. Later repairs were carried out in an Italianate style: rusticated stonework was used, and some of the Gothic windows were replaced with round headed ones, resulting in what George Godwin called "a most heterogeneous appearance". In 1701 the church's old vaulted roof was replaced with a flat ceiling, ornamented with recessed panels.
The Worshipful Company of Cordwainers has been associated with the church since the 15th century. The company holds an annual service of commemoration to honour two of its benefactors, John Fisher and Richard Minge, after which children were traditionally given a penny for each time they ran around the church.
William Tyndale, the celebrated translator of the Bible, was a lecturer at the church and sermons were given by the poet John Donne. Samuel Pepys mentions the church in his diary. The church narrowly escaped the Great Fire of London in 1666. The Dean of Westminster roused 40 scholars from Westminster School in the middle of the night, who formed a fire brigade which extinguished the flames with buckets of water to only three doors away.
