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Although the church of St.
Vedast is traditionally claimed to have been established by 1170, the earliest
authenticated references to it stem from the thirteenth century. The church may
well have been established by a Flemish community in London, recalling a saint
associated with their homeland. Little is known of the medieval church on the
site, but by the Reformation there was a chapel dedicated to St. Dunstan and
altars of Our Lady and of St. Nicholas. The church was one of the thirteen
under the archbishop of Canterbury's jurisdiction in the City of London, and
continued to be so into the nineteenth century.
The Great Fire of London in
1666 destroyed the medieval church, which had undergone several re-buildings,
although the base of the tower and the lower walls survived. After the fire,
the church was hastily repaired in the 1670s. However, these arrangements soon
proved unsatisfactory, and the church was completely re-built under Sir
Christopher Wren's supervision between1695 and 1712. The most distinctive
feature, namely the steeple, was constructed in 1709-12. On stylistic grounds,
this has been attributed to Wren's assistant, Nicholas Hawksmoor, although the
case has not yet been proven. Wren's own work did not sweep away the ancient
remains, and recent cleaning of the church on its southern side has revealed
older features which he did not encase with his newer Portland stonework, as
this face was hidden from the street. As the original foundations were re-used,
the building followed much of the irregular medieval plan. Within this
framework, he nevertheless created the illusion of regularity with his new,
classically inspired architecture. High-quality plasterwork and woodwork was
installed, although there is no direct evidence that Grinling Gibbons was
involved in its creation.
Wren's work survived
essentially intact until the Blitz, when, on the 29th December, 1940, the
church was gutted by fire; only the walls, tower and steeple survived. The
post-war restoration was undertaken by Stephen Dykes Bower. He remained
faithful to Wren's original conception by collecting fittings dispersed from
other City churches, including the font from St. Anne and St. Agnes, the
reredos from St. Christopher-le-Stocks, the altar table from St. Matthew Friday
Street, the organ case from St. Bartholomew-by-the-Exchange, and the pulpit
from All Hallows Bread Street. His major innovation was to rearrange the
interior by introducing a collegiate seating pattern, which helps to unify the
congregation. The church was also enriched with glass in the east windows of
the nave by Brian Thomas, and recently an aumbry, by Bernard Merry, has been
added in the Lady Chapel. The beauty of the church is often commented on by
visitors, and this can now be more easily seen through the new glass doors at
the west end, installed in 2000.
Click
here to look at the inside of the church
Past Incumbents
A list of past incumbents and their dates has been compiled. They include an
Archbishop of York, Thomas Rotherham, and the ritualist martyr, Thomas Pelham
Dale, both of whom appear in the Dictionary of National Biography.