This church stands in a burying ground, on the north side of St. Anne's-lane. The exterior is very plain. The plan of it is square, with a tower of the same form, attached to the western front, to the sides of which are appended vestries, erected in a dwelling-house style. The upper story of the tower, which is the only portion visible, has a square window, bounded by an architrave, in each face, and is finished by a cornice and parapet, above which is a small mean turret, ending in a vane, which supports the letter A. The south front of the church has three windows with arched heads, enclosed in rustic frontispieces: the centre is higher and larger than the others. Below the western window is a rusticated arched doorway, flanked with pilasters. The angles of the church are guarded by rustic work, and the elevation finishes with a cornice, a pediment being added to that portion of the wall which is above the central window, and which is, in consequence, higher than the remainder. The east front is similar, excepting that the pediment is omitted, and the lateral windows bricked up. The north front is similar to the south, the two smaller windows being walled up. The walls are constructed of red brick, with stone dressings, and the roofs covered with tiles, which, not being concealed by the parapet, has an unsightly appearance. The walls have recently been covered with stucco, and painted to imitate stone. The interior is very pleasing; four corinthian columns, on lofty pedestals, form a square in the centre of the church; they support rich entablatures, issuing from the side walls of the church, where they rest upon corbels of a composed character, very tasteful in their ornaments; they meet in a right angle above the columns; in consequence, a cruciform shape results, very appropriate to the nature of the building, and one of the best forms for distributing light into the church. The columns are painted in imitation of yellow marble, and some eminently tasteful improver has painted a long strip beneath the corbels, to create the appearance of pilasters. The four compartments forming the arms of the cross are each covered with an arched ceiling, enriched with three square panels, in handsome borders, and bounded by four arches, whose soffits are charged with coffers and roses, forming a large square centre, which is simply groined, and adorned with an expanded flower upon the point of junction of the groins. The flat ceilings occupying the spaces at the angles of the church not comprehended on the cruciform plan, are enriched with circles, enclosing wreaths of foliage and fruit, with cherubim in the angles. The pulpit and reading desk are affixed to the pedestals of the two easternmost pillars. The altar screen is in three compartments; the central is flanked by corinthian pilasters, and covered with scrolls, disposed pedimentally at the sides of an urn; the lateral divisions have carved festoons of fruit in the upper panels; the east window has an irradiation surrounding A the Hebrew name of the Deity in its arch in stained glass. western gallery extends across the church; in it is an organ in a handsome case. The font is situated in the vestibule under the gallery; it is a neat circular basin, on an octagonal pillar, and covered with a canopy of carved wood-work. The church was erected by Sir C. Wren, in the year 1680, at the expence of no more than 2,4481. Os. 10d.; the dimensions are fifty-three feet every way, the plan being, as before remarked, square, and the tower and turret eighty-four feet high. The organ, erected in 1782, by subscription, occupies the only gallery in the church. Before it are the royal arms emblazoned. Among the monuments in this church, before the repairs made about sixty years ago, was the following: Peter Heiwood, younger son of Peter Heiwood, one of the counsellors of Jamaica, by Grace, daughter of Sir John Muddeford, knt. and bart., great grandson to Peter Heiwood, of Heiwood, in the county palatine of Lancaster, who apprehended Guy Faux, with his dark lanthorn; and for his zealous prosecution of Papists, as justice of peace, was stabbed in Westminster-hall by John James, a Dominican friar, A. D. 1640. obit November 2, 1701. Reader, if not a papist bred, Upon such ashes gently tread At present there are no monuments or epitaphs worthy notice in the church. St. Botolph without Aldersgate. This church is situated on the west side of Aldersgate street, at the south corner of Little Britain. It received its name from being dedicated to St. Botolph, a Saxon monk, and its vicinity to the gate. It was anciently a rectory, the patronage of which was in the dean and canons of St. Martin's-le-Grand; but it continued unappropriated, until the year 1399, when Richard II. by his letters patent, dated May the 21st, at Pembroke, gave license to Thomas Stanley, dean of St. Martin's-le-Grand, to appropriate the income, at that time not exceeding five marks per annum, to his collegiate church, for the celebration of a perpetual anniversary for his deceased consort Anne, upon the day of her death, during his life; but, after his demise, the anniversary to be solemnized upon his obit for ever. In consequence of this licence, the church of St. Botolph was appropriated to that of St. Martin's-le-Grand, by a commission from the bishop of London, to his official, the dean and canons being bound to provide a sufficient maintenance for a chaplain to serve the cure; since which time it has continued a dona tive or curacy. When Henry VII., in the year 1503, annexed the collegiate church of St. Martin's-le-Grand to the convent of St. Peter, Westminster, this church also became subject to that abbey; but at the suppression of monasteries, was granted, by Henry VIII. to his new bishop of Westminster. That bishopric, however, being dissolved on the accession of queen Mary, and the abbot and monks restored to their convent, this church reverted to its old masters; and when the monks were finally expelled, and the convent converted into a collegiate church, by authority of parliament, in the reign of queen Elizabeth, she granted the curacy to the dean and chapter, who still retain it; it is, however, subject to the bishop and archdeacon of London, to whom it pays procuration. The antiquity of this church may be collected from the patish records; from which it appears, that a house, anciently given to the parishioners, was, in the year 1319, demised by them, upon lease, to Richard Kothing. It escaped the fire of London, in 1666, but became so ruinous, that it has been since rebuilt. The old church stood on the same site as the present, which is on the west side of Aldersgate-street, at the eastern corner of Little Britain. It was a plain erection of the pointed style, much defaced by alteration. The east and north walls had been rebuilt in brick, nearly as they now appear. In the south wall were four mullioned windows, of three lights, with arched heads of a simple and common form. The church was made into a nave and side aisles, by pointed arches resting upon clustered columns composed of an union of four small cylinders to a square pier, in the same style as those which may be seen in the few ancient parish churches still remaining in the metropolis. The nave was lighted by a clerestory of dormer windows, the structure was low, and the woodwork old. When the church was rebuilt in 1790-91, the east walls were retained, being merely heightened to accommodate the superior elevation of the new building.* The present building abuts to the east and north on the street, to the south on a burying ground, and to the west on houses; and it has nothing in its external appearance to attract attention. The eastern end has a palladian window in the centre (which, however, gives no light to the body of the church), and two lateral entrances crowned with pediments. The north side has no windows, the wall being merely broken by recesses; the south side has two ranges of windows of no architectural character, and the clerestory, which is scarcely seen, is covered with lead. A square tower of small dimensions and mean appearance, rises above the west end. It is doomed over with a leaden roof, on which is raised a square bell turret of wood. The interior is very elegant, and displays a profusion of tasteful architectural ornament. The plan of the church s nearly square, and it is made into a body with side aisles by For this notice of the old church, the author is indebted to a gentleman, from whom he has received considera ble information relating to this and other ancient buildings in the metropolis, which no longer exist. three square piers, with moulded caps, and two half piers attached to the extreme walls, which sustain an enriched fascia, on which the fronts of the galleries are constructed. From the capitals of the piers rise three Corinthian columns, and two half columns, sustaining an entablature, the enrichments of which are in the grandest style of Roman architecture: the ceiling of the body is arched, and rests upon the cornices of the entablature; it is crossed by ribs, the intermediate spaces being highly ornamented with circles, foliage, and other enrichments: between each of the ribs the ceiling is pierced laterally with semicircular windows, which range over the intercolumniations, and form a clerestory. The ceilings of the aisles are horizontal, and panelled by fascia, uniting with the main architrave above the capitals, and sustained upon trusses at the side walls. At each end of the body of the church is a semicircular niche, equal in height and breadth to the building; that at the west end is divided about the middle by a gallery sustained on four columns, the capitals of a composed order; in this gallery are the organ and seats for the charity children; the ceiling, which consists of half a spherical dome, is highly enriched with panels of a square and octangular form; the eastern niche contains the altar, and three windows over it filled with stained glass, by Pearson. The ceiling is similar to the western one, excepting that the centre is occupied by a dove and glory. The window immediately above the altar is arched, and has the representation of a painted curtain attached to it, which appears to be drawn up to display the subject of the painting, which is "The Agony in the Garden." The persons represented are our Saviour and two angels. The side windows contain whole lengths of St. John and St. Peter, in niches. In the execution of these windows there is no great display of merit. The profusion of yellow and light-brown tints give the whole a bilious and unnatural appearance. The pulpit, on the north side of the church, appears to hang on a single pillar, which ends in a palmtree supporting the sounding-board. The reading-desk is a circular pedestal ornamented with Ionic pilasters. The expence of rebuild ing the church was about 10,0007. The monuments from the old church, which in that building chiefly occupied the walls of the chancel, have been carefully set up in the present. They are not in the same situations as before, but occupy the piers between the windows and other portions of the building. There are several handsome monuments in this church. In the north aisle is a plain, but neat monument, to the memory of D. Wray, esq. F. R. S. and S. A., son of sir D. Wray, knt., who died Dec. 29, 1783, aged 82. A handsome monument of veined marble, with a relievo bust by Roubiliac, to the memory of Elizabeth Smith, who died July 16, 1750. A small monument to the memory of John Caston, registrar of the archiepiscopal court of Canterbury, who died July 3, 1614. A handsome monument in the form of a sarcophagus, on the top of which are two cupids, and a relievo bust of the deceased, to the memory of Z. Foxall, esq. born December 7, 1664, died May 5, 1758. Beneath the inscription are the following lines: Spite of the partial rules of vulgar fate, The man who could be honest, might be great; Who blest each gift, improved each talent given, At the east end of the same aisle is a monument to the memory of Elizabeth, wife of sir T. Richardson, of Honington, Norfolk, who died Jan. 24, 1639, aged 32. Within an oval is a half-length effigy of this lady, dressed in the costume of the age. In the south aisle is a similar monument to the memory of Elizabeth, widow of Ralph Ashton, of Midleton, in Lancashire, esq., who died 22nd of March, 1662, aged 54. Also a neat monument to the memory of R. A. Cox, esq. late alderman of the ward. Collegiate Church of St. Martin's-le-Grand. It is a matter of no small difficulty to produce any conclusive evidence of the period when the church of St. Martin was first founded; it must, however, have existed before the time of Ingelric and his brother Girard, who are designated by the conqueror's charter as its founders. Tanner in his Notitia, mentions, that in the margin of the register of the College deposited in the library of the abbey of Westminster, and which was written as late as the reign of Henry VI., Wythred, king of Kent, is named as its founder; but every other authority consulted being silent on this head, and Wythred having founded the priory of St. Martin at Dover, which from its pre-eminence in that place was also styled Le Grand, Mr. Kempe conceives the truth of this assertion to be at least very doubtful. That there was a building erected on the site of St. Martin'sle-Grand, and devoted to worship by the early Christians, is rendered extremely probable by the bull of pope Clement, reciting the church to be among those exempted from episcopal jurisdiction, because they were founded before bishops were ordained in the kingdom, and episcopal jurisdiction had been usurped over them, during times of civil commotion, insurgente procellâ turbationis in regno. The royal and free chapel, which, from an early period, there is |