There are records which show that this church was given by a priest named Alnothus or Alnod to the Abbey of Evesham in the year 1055, eleven years before the Norman Conquest. Thus (along with St Peter, Cornhill) it is unique in having a proven Saxon foundation, as records from Saxon days are quite rare. It was rebuilt in the fifteenth century and a spire was added, but that church was destroyed in the Great Fire. Wren’s building dates from 1670–77 but he left the earlier tower, which was replaced in 1722.
The street called Cornhill, where the church is located, derives its name from the medieval grain market which was held here. The high ground all around this area was part of the old Roman city of Londinium, and it is not unusual for Roman structures to be found when excavation is done for a new building. St Michael’s is pretty well eclipsed by modern buildings, and only the neo-Gothic doorway by the Victorian architect Sir George Gilbert Scott can be seen from Cornhill.
At the back of the church, however, there is a nice green that was once the old churchyard and originally was surrounded by cloisters. Above the church soars a very grand tower, built in the Gothic style with carved pinnacles, sculptured heads, and so on. Not much of the interior is original, but note the fine carved-wood pelican (1775), the organ (eighteenth century) and the carved pulpit, lectern and bench-ends by W. Gibbs Rogers. Monuments of three of the ancestors of the poet William Cowper may be seen near the southwest door of the vestibule.