In the year 1177 a Norman church, ‘Sanctee Mariae Hupenhulle’, stood on this spot and was attached to the town house of the abbots of Waltham Abbey in Essex. The old church was enlarged in the fifteenth century. After the Great Fire Wren began work in 1672, incorporating the still-standing tower and side walls into the new building. A spire was added in 1695, but this was replaced by a brick tower after 1780. About the phrase ‘At Hill’ Stow says, ‘In this St Marie hill lane is the fair parish church of St Marie, called on the hill, because of the ascent from Billingsgate’.
The interior of this church forms a Greek cross. Wren drew upon the designs of seventeenthcentury Dutch churches for his model. This is one of the best interiors in the City, as good as or better than the original despite all the alterations. It is an example of improvement by the Victorians rather than the reverse. The fine box pews and pulpit are the work of a talented nineteenth-century wood carver, William Gibbs Rogers. The lovely gilded reredos, however, is original.
Stow says that Thomas Becket was once a parson in the old church. Its most famous vicar since Wren’s rebuilding (from 1892 to 1926) was Prebendary Wilson Carlile. Carlile was the evangelical founder of the Church Army, who often preached in the open air using a trombone to aid in the worship. His trombone is preserved in a glass case in the vestibule.