St Ethelburga-the-Virgin

This small parish church is one of London’s oldest, as its Saxon dedication indicates. The present building dates to the first part of the fifteenth century, but a fourteenth-century (west) window survives. It is not very distinguished in appearance, either inside or out, the interior resembling a small country church. Until the early 1930s the entrance was between two shops that fronted on the street. There are, however, four striking stainedglass windows by Leonard Walker, three of which commemorate the voyages of Henry Hudson.

Hudson and eleven of his crew took the sacrament here in 1607 before their first attempt to discover a 182 183 S northwest passage. An east window, done by Kempe in 1871, depicts Ethelberga (not Ethelburga—note spelling), the daughter of King Ethelbert of Kent who welcomed Augustine. She married King Edwin of Northumbria, and her chaplain, Paulinus, was instrumental in the conversion to Christianity of what is now Northumbria and York.