St. Andrew Undershaft
Agas MapList documents mentioning St. Andrew Undershaft- Aldgate Street
- Aldgate Ward
- Biography of John Stow (1525–1605)
- Churches in Aldgate
- Cornhill
- Historical Personography
- Lime Street
- St. Mary Axe
- Survey of London (1598): Aldgate Ward
- Survey of London (1598): Bishopsgate Ward
- Survey of London (1598): Lime Street Ward
- Survey of London (1598): Parish Churches
- Survey of London (1598): Sports and Pastimes
- Survey of London (1598): Temporal Government
- Survey of London (1598): The City Divided into Parts
- Survey of London (1633): Aldgate Ward
- Survey of London (1633): Bishopsgate Ward
- Survey of London (1633): Lime Street Ward
- Survey of London (1633): The City Divided into Parts
- Survey of London (1633): Vintry Ward
- Variant spellings
List variant names and spellingsChurch of Saint Andrew | Parish Church of S. Andrew Vndershaft | Parish Church of S. Andrew the Apostle | Parish Church of Saint Andrew Vndershaft | Pariſh church of S. Andrew Vnderſhaft | S. Andrew | S. Andrew Vndershaft | S. Andrew Vnderſhaft | S. Andrewe Underſhafte | S. Andrewe Vnder Shafte | S. Andrewes Church | S. Andrewes Church called Underſhaft | S. Andrewes vnderſhaft Church | S. Andrewes vnderſhafte | Saint Andrew | Saint Andrew Vndershafts Church | Saint Andrewes Church | Saint Andrewes Church called Underſhaft | Saint Andrews Church | Saint Andrews Church, called Vndershaft | St Andrew Undershaft | St. Andrew Undershaft | St. Andrew upon Cornhill | Undershaft | Underſhafte | church of S. Andrew | parish Church of Saint Andrew Vndershaft | pariſh Church of S. Andrew | pariſh Church of S. Andrew Vnderſhaft | pariſh church of S. Andrew Vnderſhaft | parriſh Church of S. Andrew the Apoſtle
St. Andrew Undershaft stands at the southeast corner of St. Mary Axe Street in Aldgate Ward. Built sometime before the twelfth century, it was refurbished in 1520. Stow asserts that the Tudor rebuild saw the church
roofed with timber and seeled, also the whole South side of the Church was glased(Stow). The church must have been a marvellous site upon its completion; even Stow called it
faire and beautifull(Stow). The church still stands on the same site today, surviving both the Great Fire and the Blitz, in World War II.
The church of St. Andrew Undershaft is the final resting place of John Stow. A memorial near his grave, paid for by his wife, still exists today (Beer). The memorial shows him sitting at a desk, quill in hand (Dixon).
Stow notes that the church is named Undershaft
because that of old time, euerie yeare on May day in the morning it was vsed, that an high or long shaft, or May-pole, was set vp there, in the midst of the streete before the south doore of the sayd Church, which shaft when it was set on ende, and fixed in the ground, was higher then the Church steeple(Stow). Henry Harben, however, disagrees. He suggests that the church was named after a permanent object near the church: the
hillock or artificial knob in the middle of the street opposite the church containing a socket in which the shaft was set up(Harben).
St. Andrew Undershaft is easily identifiable on the Agas map. It is a church with a large bell tower and
is identified by the label
S. Andrewe Vnder Shafte.
References
-
Citation
Beer, Barrett L.Stow, John (1524/5–1605).
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H.C.G. Matthew, Brian Harrison, Lawrence Goldman, and David Cannadine. Oxford UP. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/26611.This item is cited in the following documents:
-
Citation
Dixon, Henry. John Stow Memorial. London, 1880. Photograph. British Library.This item is cited in the following documents:
-
Citation
Harben, Henry A. A Dictionary of London. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1918. [Available digitally from British History Online: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/dictionary-of-london.]This item is cited in the following documents:
-
Citation
Stow, John. A Survey of London. Reprinted from the Text of 1603. Ed. Charles Lethbridge Kingsford. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1908. Remediated by British History Online. [Kingsford edition, courtesy of The Centre for Metropolitan History. Articles written after 2011 cite from this searchable transcription.]This item is cited in the following documents:
