St Botolph Aldersgate, Middlesex Genealogy

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St Botolph Aldersgate, the church of, is situated at the southeast corner of Little Britain, and Aldersgate Street Without, received its name from St. Botolph, a British St. born in Cornwall, and from its contiguity to the ancient Alder's Gate. Although the fire in 1666 did not reach the ancient church, yet it was so decayed that a part of it was rebuilt in 1757, and farther repaired and beautified in 1829. It was anciently a rectory, the advowson of which was in the dean and canons of St. Martin's Le Grand, but being for some time unappropriated, Richard the second, in 1399, gave the income to the Dean for a perpetual anniversary for his deceased consort Queen Anne. In 1593 Henry VII and annexed the collegiate church of St. Martin Legrand with all its appurtenances, to the convent of St. Peter Westminster; but at the suppression of monasteries it was granted by Henry VIII to his new Bishop of Westminster. That bishopric having been dissolved by Queen Mary, and the abbot and monks restored to their convent, this church reverted to its old masters; but when the monks were finally expelled, and the convent converted into a collegiate church by the authority of Parliament in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, she granted the curacy to the dean and chapter of Westminster, in whom it still remains, subject however to the Bishop and Archdeacon of London to whom it pays procuration. The advowson is a perpetual curacy...

[Adapted from: Topographical Dictionary of London by James Elmes; published 1831]