During the reign of King Henry I (1100–35) the queen, Matilda, founded the Augustinian priory of Holy Trinity, Christ’s Church, on a plot of land just inside the walls of Old London near Aldgate. Matilda also united the older parishes of St Mary Magdalen, St Michael, St Katharine and Holy Trinity into the one parish of the Holy Trinity. The priory church thus became the parish church for all the people in the district. This edifice was built in the year 1108, and Stow tells us that the priory ‘in process of time became a very fair and large church, rich in lands and ornaments, and passed all the priories in the city of London or shire of Middlesex’. Its prior also held the office of alderman and rode in the public processions in similar livery, ‘saving that his habit was in shape of a spiritual person’ (Stow).
In the year 1280 the attendance of the townspeople apparently became a problem to the canons of the priory, and thus the prior caused a chapel to be built for the laity in the churchyard between Christ’s Church and the roadway coming from the Aldgate (now called Leadenhall Street). As the area was originally the parish of St Katharine, this new church was called St Katharine de Christ Church at Aldgate. The building lasted about 200 years and then was reconstructed.
At the Dissolution King Henry VIII gave the priory to Sir Thomas Audley, later lord chancellor. Sir Thomas wanted to build a house next to the roadway and offered to trade Christ’s Church for St Katharine’s, a smaller building. The parishioners refused the deal. He then tried to get someone to dismantle the great church in exchange for the materials, but there were no takers. In desperation Sir Thomas hired workmen to demolish it, hoping to gain back their wages by selling the materials. But, beginning with the steeple, the men carelessly threw down the stones, which broke in pieces. In the end, ‘any man in the city might have a cart-load of hard stone for paving brought to his door for six pence or seven pence’. Sir Thomas eventually built his house on the site of the priory church, but it cost him a great deal more than he had reckoned on.
The old church of St Katharine continued through Stow’s day, and he tells us that because the roadway was so often raised by new pavements it was necessary to walk down seven steps to get into the building. During the reign of Charles I it was again rebuilt, between the years 1628–30, a period when the classical style of church architecture was just beginning to appear in England. However, the famous aspect of this new building is not so much its architecture as its dedication. It was the only church to be constructed in London during that period, and its dedication was conducted by William Laud, then bishop of London. According to an eyewitness, Laud, who was to administer communion as part of the service, performed an elaborate ritual of bowing, chanting, pronouncement of blessing and curses and the like which aroused considerable amazement and resentment. This consecration later played a significant part in his trial for treason in 1645. Today, however, Laud is commemorated in St Katharine’s by a memorial chapel.
Laud’s ceremonial dedication may have been offensive to his Reformation-minded audience, but over the centuries St Katharine’s has actually been somewhat noteworthy for ceremony. In the Middle Ages morality plays often were held in the churchyard, and later in Elizabethan times it was used for secular dramas. A parish book of 1565 records that certain players ‘who for license to play their interludes in the churchyard paid the sum of 27s, 8d’. For many years in more recent days an annual ‘flower sermon’ was preached on Whit-Monday and was apparently well attended. The congregation all wore flowers, and a large bouquet was placed on the pulpit before the preacher. Today St Katharine Cree is on the London calendar for the ‘Lion Sermon’, preached every October 16. This service was endowed by Sir John Gayer, who in 1643 encountered a lion in the Syrian desert and escaped the beast in answer to prayer (a short one, no doubt)! The building is open weekdays only and has been designated as the Guild Church for Finance, Commerce and Industry.