St Anne's Limehouse

Like St George-in-the-East, a church by the architect Nicholas Hawksmoor - assistant to Sir Christopher Wren. It was another of the churches built as part of the "50 New Churches Act" during the reign of Queen Anne. The parish of Limehouse grew out of the old parish of St Dunstan's, Stepney, in 1709. The building was completed in 1727, and consecrated in 1730.
The clock is the highest church clock in London - as it had to be seen by shipping on the Thames. The gold ball at the top of the tower was used as a navigation marker for shipping. The church has had a long association with the navy. When the last HMS Ark Royal was decommissioned, the Ensign flag was presented to St Anne's.
The church was gutted by a fire in 1850, but managed to survive the Blitz. Beneath the Portland Stone flooring is the original Queen Anne brick surface.

The church features prominently in the works of author Peter Ackroyd - in Hawksmoor and Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem.
Nicholas Hawksmoor has gained a reputation for having been more interested in paganism than Christianity. This is partly due to a pyramid that sits in the graveyard of St Anne's. This has "The Wisdom of Solomon" carved upon it.

Many believe this mysterious structure demonstrates Hawksmoor's interest in ancient masonic rites and sacred geometry. However, the pyramid was simply supposed to cap one of the corners of the church but Hawksmoor changed his mind and set it up in the yard. This fact hasn't stopped the conspiracy theorists. The pyramid has its own separate Grade II listing.
The war memorial, with a statue of Christ in bronze and a plaque featuring a WWI battlefield also has its own Grade II listing.

St George-in-the-East and the Ratcliff Highway Murders

St George-in-the-East is a Hawksmoor designed church, built as part of the Fifty New Churches Act during the reign of Queen Anne. It was constructed between 1714 - 1729. It lies south of Whitechapel, and north of Wapping, at a junction between Cannon Street Road and the Highway.
In 1850 it was the scene of a dispute between High and Low Church Anglicans. (High Church services have more ceremony - something Low Church followers feel is too close to Catholic rites). When the Bishop of London appointed a Low Church man to the parish, the locals demonstrated their disapproval by keeping their hats on, smoking their pipes and encouraging their dogs to bark in the church.

The church interior was destroyed when a bomb hit it in May 1941. Only the shell of Hawksmoor's building survives. Within is a smaller, modern church, built in 1964. There is a Montessori School in the crypt.
The gardens - St George's Park - to the east are built on the church's graveyard, so the walls have old gravestones along them. A number of tombs and monuments are still scattered about the lawns.

In one corner of the park there is also the burned out shell of what was once a small natural history museum.

The entrance to the park from the north - Cable Street - takes you past the famous mural depicting the 1936 "Battle of Cable Street", when the local Jewish population and a number of socialist groups joined forces and prevented a march by Oswald Mosley's Fascist Blackshirts from marching through the area.

In the grounds of the church are buried victims of East London's most notorious murders, after the Ripper killings. The street which now runs east towards Limehouse called the Highway was once known as Ratcliff Highway (Ratcliff being a corruption of red cliff - a topographical feature of the area).

On the night of 7th December, 1811, a local draper - Timothy Marr - who lived at 29 Ratcliff Highway sent his servant Margaret out to buy some oysters, and then to go to a bakery to pay an outstanding bill. The oyster vendor she went to was closed, so she went to pay the bill and see if she could find another shop that was still open. She returned past No.29 and saw Marr through the window. The bakery was closed as well, and she could not find another oyster shop open, so returned home just after midnight - only to find the house locked up. She heard noises within - footsteps on the stairs and the crying of Marr's baby. She banged on the door but no-one came to open it. This attracted the attention of the night watchman. A neighbour was alerted and he climbed over the back wall to find the rear door lying open. Inside he found a scene of total carnage. Marr, his wife, his baby and his apprentice had all been savagely murdered.
A search of the house found nothing missing, and a large quantity of money still intact, so it was assumed that the killers had panicked and fled when Margaret returned. Footprints found at the back of the house seemed to show that there had been more than one person involved.

On December 19th, a second set of killings took place nearby. The publican of the Kings Arms on New Gravel Lane - John Williamson - was murdered in equally barbaric fashion, along with his wife and servant girl. The alarm was raised when a lodger - John Turner - lowered himself from an upper window, half dressed and screaming "Murder!". This time there was survivor - Williamson's 14 year old grand-daughter, but she had not seen the killer(s).
On December 24th, the landlord of the nearby Pear Tree Inn identified the murder weapon - a sailor's maul - as belonging to one of his lodgers. This man had been at sea at the time of the killings, but his fellow lodger, John Williams, knew the Marrs and had often drank in the Kings Arms. He became the prime suspect and was imprisoned in Coldbath Fields Prison, Clerkenwell.
Here, on 28th December, Williams hanged himself with his scarf. The suicide was taken as a sign of his guilt. No other comparable killings took place after he died.

The police were happy to presume that he was responsible for both sets of killings. The motive for the killings has never been identified. Despite there being physical evidence, and some witness statements, to support there being more than one killer no-one else was ever charged.
Williams was buried on January 1st. His body was wheeled through the area, stopping for 15 minutes outside the Kings Arms. He could not be buried in hallowed ground as he was a suicide, so he was interred beneath the crossroads outside the church of St George-in-the-East. A stake was driven through his heart. The stake was to stop the soul wandering, whilst the position at a crossroads was designed to confuse any restless spirit.
The body was dug up in the late 1800's when gas mains were being laid. The skull was kept by the landlord of the nearby Crown & Dolphin. It was displayed for many years, but its whereabouts are now unknown.

Hawksmoor's Church of Saint Alfege

In the heart of Greenwich sits the church of St. Alfege. It is dedicated to an Archbishop of Canterbury who was martyred in 1012. (His name is sometimes spelt Alphege). He was killed at Greenwich by the Danes after a ransom demanded for him was not paid. A church was built on the site soon after, rebuilt in 1290. This was the church in which the future Henry VIII was baptised. The Tudor musician Thomas Tallis (d. 1585) was buried here.
The medieval structure collapsed in a storm in 1710, and a new church took its place as part of the Fifty New Churches scheme. Most of these were to be the work of Sir Christopher Wren, but St. Alfege fell to his assistant and favoured pupil Nicholas Hawksmoor. Peter Ackroyd fans may be pleased to know that I will be discussing Hawksmoor in more detail at a later date.
Work began in 1711, and was completed in 1714, though the new church was not consecrated until 1718.
General Wolfe, of the Battle of Quebec fame, is amongst those also buried here.
The church was damaged by incendiary bombs which fell on the roof in March 1941. The roof was destroyed and the interior gutted. It was restored in 1953.

The narrow St. Alfege Passage runs along the north side of the church, This is lined with some fine 18th Century houses.
At the end of the Passage lies the entrance to St. Alfege Park. It is very evident when you enter this that the graveyard of the church extended well beyond its current limits, as there are tombs and headstones everywhere you look. It was quite odd, when I visited recently, to see youths playing football in a fenced off section that had gravestones lined along its wall. Sadly, the elements have destroyed many of the inscriptions on the stones. On the Passage, however, was one facing away from the church building, which was still quite legible. No-one famous, but it does say much about about mortality rates - especially child mortality - in the late 18th Century.

Sarah Fountain died in 1790, at the age of 44. She had 10 children, half of whom predeceased her.
Some views of the church and the main churchyard...

And some images from the nearby Park...

Greenwich attracts many visitors each year - for the park, Royal Observatory, the Cutty Sark, the market, and the Maritime Museum. On a warm Spring afternoon, I was virtually alone in the churchyard of St. Alfege, and its little park. One of the hidden gems of the district. And The Mitre pub next door is certainly worth stopping at - purely in the interests of historical research, you understand...