St. Helen's Church - Bishopsgate (City of London)
N 51° 30.883 W 000° 04.917
30U E 702464 N 5711103
Gothic twin-nave St. Helen's Church at Bishopsgate, belonging ot the Church of England, is one of historically and also architectonically most interesting ecclesiastic buildings in the City of London.
Waymark Code: WMM7BV
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/04/2014
Views: 3
Gothic twin-nave St. Helen's Church at Bishopsgate, belonging ot the Church of England, is one of historically and also architectonically most interesting ecclesiastic buildings in the City of London.
The existing unusual two-nave church's disposition is the result of the extension of the older parish St. Helen's church bulit in the 12th century, which was extended by the addition of the second nave during the founding of adjacent Benedictine nunnery in 1210. Until the abolition of the nunnery in 1538, the church was divided in two by a partition running from east to west, the northern half serving the nuns and the southern the parishioners. These two joined paralell naves gave to the church's interior its unusual spaciousness. The church is the only survived nunnery' building in the City of London. During following centuries the church was only slightly rebuilt - new Baroque portals were added (1633), restoration of the building by John Loughborough Pearson (1891-1893) and repairing of damages from IRA bomb attack (1993). St. Helen's is one of only a few City of London churches to survive both the Great Fire of London of 1666 and the Blitz during World War II.
In the church's interior you can find valuable Jacobean pulpit (1615), several brasses (1465) and many Gothic/Renaissance tombs including e.g. Sir Thomas Gresham (1579) or Sir John Crosby (1475).