This venerable old church is best known for its associations with the Norwegians from whom it derives its name and also with the seventeenthcentury naval official and man-about-town, Samuel Pepys, whose Diary reveals his fondness for St Olave’s, his parish church. The crypt dates back to 1250 and is the oldest part of the building. Otherwise, the present church was built in 1450. Having escaped the Great Fire with the help of Pepys and Admiral Pen, it suffered serious bomb damage during the blitz in 1941; the roof, when it fell in, destroyed the clerestory and most of the walls. However, it has been beautifully restored by architect Ernest Glanfield. The restoration stone was laid in 1951 by King Haakon of Norway.
The seventeenth century appears to be the period when a number of interesting persons were members of this parish, and their monuments can be seen today in the church. Above the vestry door is a monument to Sir James Deane, his three wives and his children. He was a merchant adventurer who made a great fortune and was very generous in his charity. Near this in the east wall is a monument to Dr William Turner, who died in 1614, both an eminent herbalist and naturalist and an outspoken Reformer who was imprisoned by the infamous Bishop Gardiner. The monument to Sir John Minnes, vice-admiral to Charles I and governor of Dover Castle under Charles II, has disappeared. This brave and witty man is the author of those fatuous lines:
For he that fights and runs away, May live to fight another day.
Samuel Pepys himself is remembered by both a monument in the south aisle and a tablet on the outside of the church. Pepys was Secretary of the Navy, whose office was nearby on Seething Lane. The Navy Office had its own pew in a gallery which connected with the churchyard by an outside stairway. The tablet is affixed to the outside wall near this stairway, and the monument inside the church covers the blocked doorway to this gallery. Pepys honoured his wife Elizabeth, a buxom beauty of French extraction who died in 1669, with a bust located in the northeast corner. Pepys died in 1703 but had no monument until 1884. It is recorded in the parish register that 326 plague victims of 1665 were buried in St Olave’s churchyard. However, the elaborate churchyard gate with its skulls and spikes was erected in 1658, some seven years before. Charles Dickens in the Uncommercial Traveller immortalizes this churchyard and gate with a lengthy essay entitled The City of the Absent.’ He says:
One of my best beloved churchyards, I call the churchyard of Saint Ghastly Grim... The gate is ornamented with skulls and cross-bones, larger than life, wrought in stone.
As any visitor to St Olave’s can see, nothing has changed.