Did Eate
Genesis text, inside St Bride's church, Fleet Street
Secrets of the Ossuary
A Guided Tour of St Bride's Crypt
The ancient Church of St Bride’s on Fleet Street has been associated with the media since Wynkyn de Worde set up his printing press nearby in 1500. Samuel Pepys was christened here and it was here that Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall recently plighted their troth. The existing church was built after the Great Fire of 1666 by Sir Christopher Wren and is famous for its spire which has inspired countless wedding cake designs. The crypt had been sealed since the 1850s, however bomb damage in Word War Two led to it being excavated and the uncovering of many fascinating details of its occupants.
This guided tour will provide rare access to the skeletal remains of the 227 people interred within the ossuary. Jelena Bekvalac, the curator of human osteology at the Museum of London, will outline the history of the crypt revealing the forensic key the named skeletons have left us in the quest to unlock the social history of London.
[London Month of the Dead]
The story of St Bride's is inextricably woven into the history of the City of London. By the time the Great Fire of 1666 left the church in ruins, a succession of churches had existed on the site for about a millennium, and the area had already assumed its unique role in the emergence of English printing. It took nine years for St Bride's to re-appear from the ashes under the inspired direction of Christopher Wren, but for the next two-and-a-half centuries it was in the shadow of the church's unmistakeable wedding-cake spire that the rise of the British newspaper industry into the immensely-powerful Fourth Estate took place.
Then, in 1940, St Bride's fell victim once again to flames as German incendiary bombs reduced Wren's architectural jewel to a roofless shell. This time 17 years elapsed before rebuilding was completed, although a series of important excavations in 1953 amid the skeletal ruins, led by the medieval archaeologist Professor W. F. Grimes, came up with extraordinary results, uncovering the foundations of all six previous churches on the site.
[St Bride's website]
Part of the London Month of the Dead 2017
Did Eate
Genesis text, inside St Bride's church, Fleet Street
Secrets of the Ossuary
A Guided Tour of St Bride's Crypt
The ancient Church of St Bride’s on Fleet Street has been associated with the media since Wynkyn de Worde set up his printing press nearby in 1500. Samuel Pepys was christened here and it was here that Rupert Murdoch and Jerry Hall recently plighted their troth. The existing church was built after the Great Fire of 1666 by Sir Christopher Wren and is famous for its spire which has inspired countless wedding cake designs. The crypt had been sealed since the 1850s, however bomb damage in Word War Two led to it being excavated and the uncovering of many fascinating details of its occupants.
This guided tour will provide rare access to the skeletal remains of the 227 people interred within the ossuary. Jelena Bekvalac, the curator of human osteology at the Museum of London, will outline the history of the crypt revealing the forensic key the named skeletons have left us in the quest to unlock the social history of London.
[London Month of the Dead]
The story of St Bride's is inextricably woven into the history of the City of London. By the time the Great Fire of 1666 left the church in ruins, a succession of churches had existed on the site for about a millennium, and the area had already assumed its unique role in the emergence of English printing. It took nine years for St Bride's to re-appear from the ashes under the inspired direction of Christopher Wren, but for the next two-and-a-half centuries it was in the shadow of the church's unmistakeable wedding-cake spire that the rise of the British newspaper industry into the immensely-powerful Fourth Estate took place.
Then, in 1940, St Bride's fell victim once again to flames as German incendiary bombs reduced Wren's architectural jewel to a roofless shell. This time 17 years elapsed before rebuilding was completed, although a series of important excavations in 1953 amid the skeletal ruins, led by the medieval archaeologist Professor W. F. Grimes, came up with extraordinary results, uncovering the foundations of all six previous churches on the site.
[St Bride's website]
Part of the London Month of the Dead 2017