St Alban Wood Street with St Olave Silver Street, London Genealogy

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St Alban Wood Street, with St. Olave Silver Street, Cheapside, is situated about the middle of the East side. It is an indifferent attempt at the appointed style of architecture by Sir Christopher Wren, who, it is clear by this and other of his churches in the ancient English style of Gothic architecture, had but little knowledge and feeling for this appropriate and elegant style of ecclesiastical architecture. It is dedicated to St. Alban, the Anglo -- proto-martyr who suffered under the persecution of Diocletian, and gave his name to the ancient town in the Abbey of St. Alban, in Hertfordshire. The first church on the site was erected in the year 930, and dedicated to the same. After various repairs, the ancient church was taken down in 1634, and another corrected, that was destroyed by the great fire of London in 1666, when the present edifice was erected after the same plan as the former. The living is a rectory, in the patronage of Eton College [Buckinghamshire], and the Dean and chapters St. Paul's, alternately; and the parish of St. Olave, Silver Street, was united to it after the fire.

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