HISTORY OF THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF ST. SAVIOUR, FORMERLY ST. MARY OVERIE, SOUTHWARK

The history of St. Saviour’s takes us back to those distant days when Southwark was but a marsh, and when there was no bridge across the Thames. John Stow, historian and antiquary (1525-1605), was acquainted with Bartholomew Linstede, the last of the Priors, and gives the following account of its origin on his authority:

East from the Bishop of Winchester’s house, directly over against it, standeth a fair church, called St. Mary-over-the-Rie, or Overie; that is, over the water. This church, or some other in place thereof, was, of old time, long before the Conquest, a house of sisters, founded by a maiden named Mary; unto the which house and sisters she left, as was left to her by her parents, the oversight and profits of a cross ferry, or traverse ferry over the Thames, there kept before that any bridge was built. This house of sisters was after by Swithun, a noble lady, converted into a college of priests, who in place of the ferry built a bridge of timber, and from time to time kept the place in good reparations; but lastly, the same bridge was built of stone; and then in the year 1106 was this church again founded for canons regular by William Pont de la Arch, and William Dauncey, Knights, Normans.

Stow’s account has been disputed in several particulars. Although it may be taken for granted that there was a cross-ferry before there was a bridge, it does not follow that the bridge immediately superseded it; and it has been suggested, as more likely, that both means of transit were used for some time simultaneously, as is the case to-day at other places.

If the first London Bridge was built by Roman engineers during the Roman occupation, it may be assumed that the bridge existed before the church. That the first bridge was a Roman structure has been almost proved by the discovery of Roman coins and other relics among the debris of the original work during the erection of later bridges. We have an evidence of the antiquity of the site in some Roman tesserae, discovered in 1832, while a grave was being dug in the south-east corner of the churchyard, and still preserved in the pavement, near the entrance, in the south aisle of the choir. These tesserae, with the pottery, tiles, coins, lachrymatories, sepulchral urns, etc., excavated from time to time in and about the church, are clear indications of an important Roman settlement.

It is known that after the destruction of Roman London by Boadicea, a great many Romans made their escape into Southwark, where they continued to live, and contributed greatly to the size and importance of the southern suburb. The principal buildings sprang up round the site of St. Saviour’s Church, and it has been reasonably conjectured that a temple stood on the very spot that the church now occupies.

It is true that no trace of this temple has been discovered; but the conjecture is not inconsistent with the known principles of the early Christian missionaries, in their contact with paganism, as illustrated in the history and traditions of other important churches.

Stow’s phrase, “long before the Conquest,” though somewhat ambiguous, has been thought to point to a date posterior to the Roman occupation. Some authorities, therefore, contend that the Romans had erected London Bridge and left the country before St. Mary’s was founded, and consequently the bridge the antiquary mentions as built by “Swithun, a noble lady,” was not the first. Again, it is doubtful whether the sub-title “Overie” means “of the ferry,” or “over the river,” or whether the form “Overies,” which the word sometimes takes, does not suggest a derivation from “Ofers,” “of the bank or shore,” a meaning contained in the modern German Ufer. John Overy, or Overs, was the father of Mary, but whether the surname was derived from the place, or vice versa, is uncertain. In any case, the name, whether by accident or design, includes a reference to the foundress as well as to the locality of her foundation.

Stow is obviously wrong, however, as to the person who converted the House of Sisters into a College of Priests, who was not a lady, but St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester (852-862), whose devotion to the building of churches and bridges is well known.

The character of the foundation, altered by St. Swithun, was again altered in 1106, under Bishop William Giffard, with the co-operation of the two Norman knights to whom Stow refers. They not only erected the first Norman nave, but made a radical change within by abolishing the “College of Priests,” in whose place they introduced “Canons regular” of the Augustinian Order, governed by a Prior, thus transforming the Collegiate Church into a monastery. Except as regards the sex of the inmates, the change was a reversion to the idea of the foundress.

The Norman work of this period is the earliest of which any traces remain in the present church, unless the doubtful signs on a shaft in the exterior are to be taken as evidence of Saxon workmanship. This shaft is attached to the north wall of the Chapel of St. John-the-Divine (now used as a clergy vestry), which is perhaps the oldest part of the fabric. The undoubted Norman remains consist of three arches in the same chapel, where their outline is just discernible among the brickwork; the fragment of a string-course, with billet moulding, on the inner wall of the north transept; a portion of the Prior’s entrance to the cloisters; the old Canons’ doorway; and an arcaded recess. Of these, it may be briefly remarked that the remains of the Prior’s door, showing the mutilated shafts and the zigzag moulding of the jambs, are preserved, in situ, in the outer face of the north wall to the new nave. The outline of the Canons’ entrance, obviously of much simpler moulding, will be seen on the inner side of the same wall, towards the west end. The Norman recess lies still farther to the west on the same side.

Quite recently a valuable relic of the same period has been discovered in the north-east corner within the above-mentioned chapel (by the side of the new Harvard window) apparently part of the original arcading to the apse.

Early in the thirteenth century London was visited by one of those great fires, which occurred at rather frequent intervals, before the greatest of all, in 1666, led to the rebuilding of the city, and better means for its protection. The date of the particular fire is sometimes given as 1207, sometimes as 1212 or 1213. It is not unlikely that there were several, in one or other of which London Bridge, Southwark, and the church were seriously injured. (Vide Stow and Harleian MSS., No 565.)

The repairs were soon taken in hand by Peter de la Roche, otherwise de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester (1205-1238), who altered the nave into the Early English, which was then generally superseding the heavier Norman work, and shortly afterwards built the choir and retro-choir in a still lighter and more ornate style. The architecture gives us the approximate date of de la Roche’s work as the early part of the thirteenth century, which is about as near as we can get to it in the absence of a more precise record than that it was “begun after the fire.” In consequence of this, or some previous fire, the Canons were led to found a hospital close to the Priory for the relief of the distress and disease caused by the disaster. During the restorations by Peter de Rupibus, in or about 1228, he had the hospital transferred to a more favourable site in the neighbourhood, where the air was fresher and water more abundant, and dedicated it to St. Thomas of Canterbury, to whom the chapel on London Bridge was also dedicated.

In addition to all this excellent work, Bishop de Rupibus built a chapel for the parishioners, the conventual church being reserved for the Prior and monks. This chapel stood in the angle between the walls of the choir and south transept, and was called St. Mary Magdalene Overy.

In the reign of Richard II there was another fire, involving repairs; and then, as well as in the reign of Henry IV, Perpendicular features were introduced by Cardinal Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester (1405-1447), aided by John Gower, the “Father of English Poetry.” The Cardinal is said to have restored the south transept at his own expense, and is there commemorated in a sculptured representation of his hat and coat of arms affixed to a pier by the door. The difference in style between the two transepts shows that on the north to be of somewhat earlier date, though it was probably not left untouched by the restorers. The poet Gower founded a chantry in the Chapel of St. John Baptist, in the north aisle, where he was eventually buried, and where daily masses were said for the repose of his soul before the Reformation. His monument was transferred to the south transept during the “repairs and beautifications” of 1832, but is now restored to its original place over the poet’s remains in the fifth bay (from the west), of the north aisle of the nave. The chapel and chantry have unfortunately disappeared.

In 1469 the stone roof of the old nave fell down. The accident has been attributed to the removal, in the reign of Richard II, of the flying buttresses by which the vault was originally supported, as is still the case with the choir walls. Another roof of groined oak was soon substituted, as less likely to suffer from its own weight. That it was not a specially light structure, however, may be inferred from the massive bosses preserved from it, and now to be seen on the floor of the north transept.

The crowning piece of work, which very shortly preceded the ruin brought about by the Dissolution, was set upon the Priory Church by Bishop Fox in 1520, in the magnificent altar-screen, which through all its mutilations has borne witness to his work in his favourite device of the “Pelican in her piety,” and the humorous allusion to his name, in the figure of a man chasing a fox, among its sculptured ornaments. The west end of the church was considerably altered, and a new western doorway inserted, with a six-light window above it, at about the same time; when also the upper stages of the tower were erected. The window is said to have been altered for the worse in the seventeenth century, and in its last phase the whole façade presented what Mr. Dollman describes as “a heterogeneous mass of masonry and brickwork,” not worth preserving when the modern restoration was taken in hand. The flying buttresses have been reproduced in the new nave, and the chief doorway placed in the south-west corner, which the architect was led to believe was its original position.

It is generally admitted that by the sixteenth century the monastic institutions had so far departed from the ideal of their founders, and outlived their usefulness, as to call for some drastic measures for their improvement. Steps had been taken from time to time with this object, before the reign of Henry VIII, when a combination of circumstances, into which we need not now enter, enabled the King to carry out his scheme for the Dissolution of the monasteries, comprising the two chief classes of abbeys and priories into which they were divided. The coming storm was heralded at St. Mary’s on 11th November, 1535 on which date, “by command of the king,” a solemn procession was held in the church to inaugurate its downfall by a Litany, in which the Prior and Canons took part, “with their crosses, candlesticks and vergers before them,” as if in mockery of the state of which they were so soon to be deprived. The “Act of Suppression,” passed in 1536, sealed the fate of the smaller foundations, to be followed three years later by the “voluntary surrender” of their property by the larger monasteries, thus making a clean sweep of the whole. The last Prior, Linstede, has been blamed for so far acquiescing in the measure as to accept a pension from the royal bounty; but with the fate of the last Abbot of Glastonbury before him, who had been hanged for his resistance, he probably thought that his own opposition would only have led to a useless martyrdom without averting the fall of his priory. It may be mentioned, as having some bearing on our history, that part of the wealth released by the Act was applied to the foundation of six new bishoprics, thus by a strange coincidence bringing up the English dioceses to the number of twenty-four, originally fixed upon by Pope Gregory the Great, while his successor was set at defiance by the measures through which they were created.

St. Mary Overy now enters on a new phase of existence. We have seen that it had become a double church, by union with the church, or chapel, of St. Mary Magdalene, the one a conventual, the other a public, place of worship. In the immediate neighbourhood there was a third church, dedicated to St. Margaret, which had been founded by Bishop Giffard in 1107, and granted to the fraternity at St. Mary’s by charter of Henry I. By an Act of 1540, the year of Linstede’s surrender, the whole were united into a single parish, under the title of St. Saviour’s, thenceforward the official designation of the Collegiate Church and surrounding district. The new dedication was suggested by, and intended to perpetuate the memory of, the convent of that name in Bermondsey (founded by Alwin Child, a London citizen, in 1082), which shared the fate of its companions at the Dissolution.

Soon after the amalgamation, St. Margaret’s Church was secularized, and divided into three portions for use respectively as a Sessions’ Court, a Court of Admiralty, and a prison. It stood on the ground where the old Southwark Town Hall was afterwards built, itself a perpetuation of the secular uses to which the deconsecrated church was put before it was destroyed. A relic of St. Margaret’s survives in the shape of a monumental slab to Aleyn Ferthing, five times Member for Southwark, about the middle of the fourteenth century. The stone was discovered in 1833 during some excavations on the site of the old church, and transferred to St. Saviour’s, where it is imbedded in the pavement of the retro-choir. From 1540 the Priory Church and Rectory were leased to the parishioners by the Crown, at a rental of about L50 per annum, till 1614, when the church was purchased right out from James I for the sum of L800.

The Corporation into whose hands the newly constituted parish of St. Saviour’s passed in 1540 consisted of thirty vestrymen, of whom six were churchwardens.

The latter, as representatives of the ancient Seniores Ecclesiastici, were charged with the protection of the edifice and church furniture, but the records show that they had no special veneration for either. The Act of 1540, appointing them to St. Saviour’s, had formed them into a Corporation in continuation of the Perpetual Guild or Fraternity of the Assumption, incorporated in 1449. This Guild was afterwards merged in the Churchwardens of St. Margaret’s, whence the existing officers were transferred to St. Saviour’s on the amalgamation of the parishes, and others added to their number. With the help of their fellow vestrymen they soon set to work to render the Collegiate Church more convenient. To secure an easy communication between that church and the adjacent chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, they cut through the south wall of the choir, and constructed four clumsy arches in it, thus opening the way from one building to the other. From that time forward the smaller of the two was used as a vestibule, and the other chapels and chantries pertaining to the larger church were doomed to destruction, as being no longer required under the altered conditions. The proceedings which strike us as most sacrilegious occurred in the Lady Chapel. Perhaps they cannot be better described than in Stow’s graphic words:

The chapel was leased and let out, and the House of God made a bakehouse. Two very fair doors ... were lathed, daubed, and dammed up, the fair pillars were ordinary posts, against which they piled billets and bavens. In this place they had their ovens, in that a bolting place, in that their kneading trough, in another (I have heard) a hog’s trough, for the words that were given me were these: “This place have I known a hog-stie, in another a storehouse to store up their hoarded meal, and in all of it something of this sordid kind and condition.”

That the description is not exaggerated is proved by the parish registers, which also show that the state of things went on for some years and did not improve with time. On 15th May, 1576, for instance, a vestry order is recorded in which the lessee of the chapel is called upon to repair certain broken windows and remove nuisances. In the following December, a further entry states that fourteen members of the vestry went in a body to the chapel to see whether their orders had been attended to, having allowed the lessee more than six months to act on the notice. They found the place turned into a stable “with hogs, a dung-heap and other filth” about, and were thereupon empowered to take legal proceedings to keep the tenant up to his contract.

In the reign of Edward VI the Prayer-book and its vernacular services were introduced. The people had hardly got used to them before the accession of Queen Mary, and the consequent papal reaction, restored the Latin mass, around which most of the religious controversies of the time were furiously raging. During that brief reign the retro-choir was turned to more respectable use as a Spiritual Court, though the memories attaching to it in that character constitute a gloomy chapter in its history which we would gladly eliminate.

On Monday, 28th January, 1555, and the two following days, a commission, appointed by the Cardinal Legate, sat there for the trial of certain preachers and heretics. It was presided over by Bishops Gardiner, of Winchester, and Bonner, of London, and included eleven other Bishops, besides several eminent laymen. On the first day the proceedings were open to the public, but as the crowd was inconvenient, and the example or logic of the accused thought likely to be contagious, the doors were closed on the Tuesday and Wednesday, except to a few privileged spectators. The trials ended in the condemnation of six clergymen of high standing, viz.:

1. The Rev. Lawrence Saunders, Rector of Allhallows’, Bread Street.

2. The Rev. John Bradford, Prebendary of St. Paul’s Cathedral.

3. The Rev. John Rogers, Prebendary of St. Paul’s, and Vicar of St. Sepulchre’s, Newgate Street.

4. The Rev. Rowland Taylor, Rector of Hadleigh, Suffolk.

5. The Right Rev. Robert Ferrar, Bishop of St. David’s, and

6. The Right Rev. John Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, all of whom were afterwards burnt. They are commemorated in the windows of the chapel, which include the Ven. John Philpot, Archdeacon of Winchester, who suffered at the same time, though his examination was held elsewhere. The odium of this melancholy transaction of course rests on the presiding Bishops, neither of whom was afterwards anxious to take the undivided responsibility. Bishop Gardiner did not long survive it. He died on the 13th November, in the same year, at Whitehall, whence his body was conveyed, via Southwark, to Winchester for interment. The funeral procession went by water from Westminster to St. Mary Overy, where his obsequies were performed, and his intestines buried before the high altar, in order that the honour of holding his remains might be shared by the two principal churches in his diocese.

Immediately on the accession of Queen Elizabeth, steps were taken to reconcile the conflicting elements within the Church of England, whose extreme representatives had been brought into violent collision in the previous reign. A compromise was offered to them in a new Prayer-book, which aimed at combining the principles of the first and second books of Edward VI, in order to comprehend within the pale of the Church those who had been excluded from it by a rigid interpretation of the rubrics on either hand. On one side the rubrics of Edward’s second book were modified so as to allow greater liberty in the use of ornaments and vestments, while on the other, the sentences employed at the distribution of the elements in Holy Communion, which had been held to support two opposite theories of the Sacrament in the previous books, were united in the new one, as involving no real contradiction.

Notwithstanding the rubric which was inserted in Elizabeth’s book for the retention of the ornaments in use under Edward VI, an order was issued in the first year of her reign (18th September, 1559), for the sale of certain “Popish ornaments” at St. Saviour’s, to meet the expenses of repairing the church, and in consideration of the purchase of the new lease. A list of the ornaments so disposed of may be interesting:

Two small basons of silver, parcel gilt, weighing 22 ounces, with a salver, double gilt, and a paten, parcel gilt.

Two altar-cloths, and a vestment of black velvet and crimson satin, embroidered in gold and silver.

A cope and vestment (deacon and sub-deacon) of green velvet, with flowers of gold.

Three copper cases, 43 pieces of stuff, and 4 “aules.”

The whole of which were sold for L14 5s 8d.

Other articles sold included:

A painted cloth from before the rood, realizing 7s.

Two altar-cloths of white fustian, 16s.

Two altar-cloths of white damask, with flowers of green and gold, 21s.

Two altar-cloths, pea-green and white damask, 17s.

Two altar-cloths of green and white satin, with letters of gold, 58s.

One altar-cloth of satin, 17s.

Three vestments of blue damask, with crimson velvet crosses, 42s.

A white damask cope; “a little narrow thing like a valance,” with the name of Jesus in gold sold for 8d.

Candlesticks, censers, with “other broken brass,” “as little bells and such like,” containing in weight, 34 lb., sold at 6d. a pound.

In pursuance of this destructive work an order was given on 31st May, 1561, “That all the church books in Latin be defaced and cut according to the injunctions of the Bishop”; the effect of which has been to deprive us of many valuable parish records which happened to be written in the Latin language, in addition to the more distinctly ecclesiastical books expressly included in the order.

On the very next day another order followed to the effect, “That the Rood Loft be taken down, and made decent and comely as in the other churches in the City.” The changes which all this implies in the adornment and accessories of religious worship under Queen Elizabeth, were supplemented by the teaching from the pulpit. This was chiefly done by the “Preaching Chaplains” introduced at St. Saviour’s in that reign. The first appointments were made in 1564, when two Chaplains assumed office, and divided the preaching between them.

The arrangement, allowing two men to act simultaneously but quite independently of each other, remained in force till our own times, though its disadvantages soon began to appear. The Chaplains, though committed by their appointment to the general doctrines of the Reformation, were by no means bound to agree on the many debatable questions to which the Reformation had given rise, and did not always convey the same doctrines to their people, or work harmoniously together. It was not, however, till the year 1868 that this inconsistency was corrected by merging the two offices into one; and in 1883 the measure was supplemented by an Act which abolished the office of Chaplain altogether, and made him who then held it the first Rector.

It may here be added that the parishioners had acquired the right of appointment to the pastorate by their purchase of the church in 1614; but the scandals attending the public election at every vacancy led to its abolition in 1885, when the right was transferred to the Bishop of the diocese by Act of Parliament.

In 1618 Dr. Lancelot Andrewes was appointed Bishop of Winchester, where he died in 1626. During his episcopate he often visited St. Saviour’s, as the most important church in his diocese, next to his own cathedral. His pronounced churchmanship occasionally brought him into strong contrast with the Chaplains, who usually went much further in the Puritan direction than their Bishop, while they were themselves apt to be pushed forward or restrained by the parishioners. The latter, as holding the appointment in their hands, had established a sort of censorship over their pastors, which they were not slow to exercise against any tendency to “unsound” teaching. The records of the parish show that the Chaplains had to ask leave of absence when they wanted a holiday, and were otherwise kept in excellent order by their lay superiors.

About this time considerable alterations were made in the interior of the church to bring it into line with the current spiritual discipline. In or about 1615 galleries were set up for the first time across the north and south transepts, and in 1618 a screen and gallery in place of the old rood loft between the nave and choir, were “worthily contrived and erected.” Somewhere between this date and 1624 an inner porch, of semi-classical design, was inserted at the west end.

That closed and rented pews were introduced at this period may be inferred from the following Representation, made by the churchwardens to the Bishop of the diocese in 1639:

“We assure your Lordship that a Pew wherein one Mrs. Ware sits, and pleads to be placed, is, and always hath been, a Pew for Women of a far better rank and quality than she, and for such whose husbands pay far greater duty than hers, and hath always been reserved for some of the chiefest Women dwelling on the Borough side of the said Parish, and never any of the Bankside were placed there, the Pews appointed for that Liberty being for the most part on the North side of the body of the Church."

The Prayer-book services were suspended at St. Saviour’s, as elsewhere, during the Commonwealth, by the Act of Parliament passed on 3rd January, 1645, which established the “Directory” in their place.

“The Directory for the Public Worship of God in the three Kingdoms” was not so much a book of devotions as a set of instructions to the minister, who was allowed the discretion of using what the book provided, or extemporising a service of his own upon its principles. On the Restoration of Charles II, an attempt was made at the Savoy Conference (1661) to reconcile the conflicting religious parties into which the country had been divided an attempt which was not at all successful with those outside the Church of England. The result of the Conference, as far as the Church was concerned, was the issue of the revised Book of Common Prayer in 1662, which restored, with certain modifications, the form of services withheld during the inter-regnum.

The sacraments had been much neglected under the Protectorate; baptism was seldom administered, and the records of St. Saviour’s show that marriages were then performed by the magistrates instead of the ordained ministers, the banns being published in the market-place.

During the next few years various structural alterations were made within and without the edifice. The chief of these were the rebuilding, in 1676, of the Bishop’s or Lady Chapel, which had been damaged by fire; and some alteration in the tower pinnacles in 1689, when new vanes (bearing that date) were also set up. Mr. Dollman conjectures that the buttresses, if they ever existed, were then removed from the tower.

The “Bishop’s Chapel” was a small building projecting eastward from the retro-choir. The name was popularly conferred upon it as the place of Bishop Andrewes’ interment, but there can be no reasonable doubt that it was the true Lady Chapel, and that its more correct designation, though popularly disused, was the “Little Chapel of Our Lady.” This small building was destroyed in 1830, as interfering with the approach to new London Bridge, when the body of Bishop Andrewes was transferred to its present place in the retro-choir.

In the eighteenth century the interior was altered in various details, with the object of bringing it into harmony with the current notions of ecclesiastical beauty, and the classical forms which architecture had assumed. In the year 1703 a new altar-piece, in the Corinthian style, was erected in front of Bishop Fox’s fine stone screen, which it completely concealed. A wooden framework of classical pillars, with figures of Moses and Aaron on either side, and the Creed, Lord’s Prayer, and Ten Commandments in the spaces between them, the whole surmounted by flaming censers and a circle of flying cherubs, made up a composition not at all bad in itself but utterly out of character with the Gothic work behind and around it. At the same time the sanctuary was railed and paved with black and white marble, the body of the church newly paved and galleried, a pulpit with sounding-board erected, and the whole church “cleaned, white-washed, and beautified throughout, at the charge of the parish.” That the work was generally approved may be inferred from the remark of Stow’s “Continuator”: “This is now a very magnificent church since the late reparation”; while another exponent of public opinion, speaking of this and some later improvements of the same kind says, “Though the church hath been often repaired, yet the beauty for which it is justly admired consists in this repair.”

In May, 1821, the restoration of the choir was proposed and entertained for the first time, a restoration which the dilapidated state of the clerestory and triforium showed to be necessary. The proposal was not allowed to pass without opposition, for a counter motion was submitted for the complete destruction of the whole building except the tower, to which a brand-new church was to be adapted. Fortunately this latter scheme was negatived by a large majority of the parishioners, and the work of restoration was committed to the then famous Gothic architect Mr. George Gwilt. He did his work most carefully and conscientiously, adhering as far as possible to the original, though hampered throughout his progress by contradictory instructions from the managing committee, who, like most bodies of that kind, were apt to fluctuate between motives of economy and a sense of what was due to the ancient fabric. The Gothic revival was then in an incipient stage, and Mr. Gwilt, or his committee, must be held responsible for the removal of the old east gable, with its five-light Tudor window, erected by Bishop Fox, in place of which a new window of three lights was inserted. During this restoration the Church of St. Mary Magdalene was demolished in 1822, together with some old houses, which are less to be regretted as having encroached too closely on the walls of the choir.

In 1825 the restoration of the nave began to be seriously considered, its dilapidated state having been made more conspicuous by contrast with the restored chancel. Tenders for the work were invited by public advertisement, but nothing important was done while the vestry were discussing the respective advantages of “rebuilding” and “repairing,” and the nave was neglected till it got beyond repair. In the meantime the two transepts were restored by Mr. Robert Wallace in 1830.

He substituted new designs of his own for the original tracery in the most important window in the south transept; and (probably influenced by an economical committee) made the fatal mistake of employing cement instead of stone for the interior mouldings, and a soft Bath stone for his repairs to the exterior. The action of time and weather has shown the false economy of the work. In the same year the “Bishop’s Chapel” was destroyed, as before mentioned. In 1832 a much graver act of vandalism was threatened by the Bridge Committee in their proposal for widening the roadway, which meant the entire destruction of the retro-choir. The suggestion was to leave a space of sixty feet wide, afterwards extended to seventy, between the east end of the church and the bridge. This was too much for the inhabitants of Southwark, who rose to the occasion in a vigorous protest by which the venerable building was saved.

At their first meeting on the subject (24th January) the vestrymen endorsed the proposal of the Bridge Committee by a large majority. At a subsequent meeting, held within a week, public opinion had been aroused on the subject, and the majority was reduced to three. The moral victory for the Church and Borough of Southwark, headed by Bishop Sumner, was secured by the poll there and then demanded, the result of which was announced, in two days’ time, as: “For the retention of the building, 380; against, 140; majority for the retention, 240.”

The retro-choir was saved, and Mr. Gwilt completed the good work by restoring it, giving his services gratuitously. The nave had been already doomed. It had got into such a ruinous state by 1831 that at a Vestry Meeting holden on the 3rd, and confirmed on the 10th, of May, it was resolved:

“That the whole of the roof, from the western door to the west end of the tower, called the nave, consisting of ceiling, roof, walls, and pillars, as far as dangerous, be sold and cleared away; the remainder of the walls, pillars, and family vaults to be left open to the weather. And that the choir, north and south transepts, be enclosed, to the eastern part of the church, for divine service; and that the pews, situated in the nave, be removed into such part, for the accommodation of the inhabitants.”

In 1838 the nave, having been sufficiently operated on by the climate and other destructive forces, was taken down; and in the following year the foundation stone of a mean and flimsy substitute, in the “Gothic” of the period, was laid by Dr. Sumner, then Bishop of Winchester. The interior, thus limited and reduced, was fitted up with timber staircases, wainscoting, galleries, high pews, and a “three-decker” pulpit, which answered the double purpose of obscuring the sanctuary and enabling the preacher to command his audience in the galleries.

The barbarous result did not escape the sensitive eye of Mr. A.W. Pugin, the great Gothic revivalist, who gave vent to his indignation in a scathing article in the “Dublin Review.” He said:

“It may not be amiss to draw public attention to the atrocities that have lately been perpetrated in the venerable church of St. Saviour’s, Southwark. But a few years since it was one of the most perfect second-class cruciform churches in England, and an edifice full of the most interesting associations connected with the ancient history of the Metropolis. The roof was first stripped off its massive and solemn nave; in this state it was left a considerable time, exposed to all the injuries of wet and weather; at length it was condemned to be pulled down, and in place of one of the finest specimens of ecclesiastical architecture left in London with massive walls and pillars, deeply moulded arches, a most interesting south porch, and a splendid western doorway we have as vile a preaching-place ... as ever disgraced the nineteenth century.

“It is bad enough to see such an erection spring up at all, but when a venerable building is demolished to make way for it, the case is quite intolerable. Will it be believed that, under the centre tower, in the transepts of this once most beauteous church, staircases on stilts have been set up, exactly resembling those by which the company ascend to a booth or race-course?... Nothing but the preaching-house system could have brought such utter desolation on a stately church; in fact, the abomination is so great that it must be seen to be credited.”

Strange as it may appear, the seating accommodation under this arrangement was even greater than it is at present, and the congregations at the Sunday services were almost as large as they are to-day. It would be quite wrong, therefore, to suppose that no religious work was going on in the parish. But beyond the parishioners, and the few antiquaries who visited the church from time to time, it was scarcely known to the outside world, except when the bells rang out the old year on the 31st of December, or when a dismal light in the windows proclaimed the Christmas distribution of bread, coals, and blankets to the poor of the neighbourhood.

It was impossible, however, that an edifice with the history and associations of St. Saviour’s, should escape the religious and artistic revival of which the Oxford movement was the cause or the outcome; and the restoration of this fine church to its original beauty, and more than its original usefulness, has followed almost as a matter of course. The scheme for its restoration, although in the air for some time previously, began to take a definite shape in 1877, when St. Saviour’s, Southwark, with other South London parishes, was transferred from the diocese of Winchester to Rochester. Dr. Anthony Wilson Thorold was appointed to the See of Rochester in the same year, and very soon lent his full energies to the work. In 1889 a meeting of the chief parishioners was summoned to inaugurate the scheme, and a subscription list was at once opened, headed by his Lordship with L1,000. An appeal to the public was immediately issued, and was generously responded to by great and small. Among the larger donations may be mentioned the sum of L5,000 from Lord Llangattock, L2,000 from Messrs. Barclay, Perkins and Co., with several gifts of L1,000 each from Sir Frederick Wigan and others. These large amounts were supplemented by the equally acceptable offerings of humbler people, for which collections were made at numerous churches within and without the diocese. Perhaps the most important of these, in a money sense, was that at a Masonic Service, held in the Collegiate Church itself on Ascension Day, which yielded over L2,000. On 3rd November, Bishop Thorold preached at St. Saviour’s on behalf of the fund, and in the same month Sir Arthur Blomfield was chosen as architect for the restoration. The miserable structure of 1839 was at once swept away, and on 24th July, 1890, King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, laid the foundation stone of the new nave. It was completed within seven years by Messrs. T.F. Rider and Sons after the design of Sir Arthur Blomfield. Guided throughout by the remains of the old work, and many existing drawings of the ancient nave, as a whole, and in its separate details, the architect has succeeded in a practical reproduction of the original building. The erection, with other reparatory work, was accomplished at a cost of over L40,000; but he who had initiated it was not spared to witness its completion. Shortly after its commencement, Bishop Thorold was transferred from Rochester to Winchester, and died in the summer of 1895.

His successor in the See of Rochester, Dr. Randall Thomas Davidson (appointed in 1891), did not allow the work to flag under his administration, which came to an end with the death of Dr. Thorold in 1895. The episcopal changes then made resulted in the translation of Dr. Davidson to the See of Winchester, and the appointment of Dr. Edward Stuart Talbot to Rochester. By a happy coincidence, the parish church at Leeds, from which he was transferred, bore the same dedication as that of the Collegiate Church whose completion it was his good fortune to celebrate.

On Tuesday, 16th February, 1897, the building was reopened after restoration, and reinstated in its position as a Collegiate Church, with the added dignity of a pro-Cathedral, in anticipation of its becoming the Cathedral Church of the new diocese of Southwark already in view.

The Collegiate Chapter was formed by Statutes promulgated by the Bishop of Rochester in February, 1897. The following were the members of that body immediately before the changes consequent on the formation of the new diocese:

Dean:

The Lord Bishop of Rochester, the Rt. Rev. Edward Stuart Talbot.

Sub-Dean:

The Lord Bishop of Southwark, the Rt. Rev. Huyshe Yeatman-Biggs.

Canons:

Rev. William Thompson, D.D. Chancellor.
The Archdeacon of Southwark (Ven. S.M. Taylor, M.A.) Precentor.
Rev. R. Rhodes Bristow, M.A. Canon Missioner.
Rev. Allen Edwards, M.A.

Lay Members of the Chapter:

Sir Frederick Wigan, Bart. Treasurer.
W.A. Bell, Esq. Assistant Treasurer.
J.T. Scriven, Esq. The Warden of the Great Account.
George Newton, Esq. The Rector’s Warden.

Other Officers:

Rev. W.A. Chaplin, M.A., Mus. Bac. Succentor and Sacrist.
A. Madeley Richardson, Esq., M.A., Mus. Doc., Oxon. Organist and
Director of the Choir.
Rev. J.H. Greig, M.A. Librarian.
A.W. Dodwell Moore, Esq. Chapter Clerk.
Mr. Hutching and Mr. Spice. Vergers.
Mr. Coombes. Chapter House Verger.

The Collegiate Church and Chapter, being dependent on voluntary contributions for their maintenance, a fund was raised which assured a sum of about L2,000 per annum for all purposes for five years. As that period has already expired, a like sum has again to be secured. It may be added that this fund does not suffice to meet the expenses incurred by the daily choral Evensong, which was started in June, 1899. The contributions received for this purpose ("The Daily Choral Service Fund”) have hitherto been just sufficient, and it is hoped that by help from a somewhat wider circle of those interested in the efficiency of the Collegiate Church, this service, which has been increasingly appreciated, will not have to be discontinued. The Treasurers are the Bishop of Southwark and the Precentor.

A Collegiate House has also been purchased, in which the unmarried members of the Chapter may reside as well as the Collegiate body. The latter consists of clergy in Priest’s Orders, who undertake to place themselves at the disposal of the Bishop for work in connection with the diocese or Collegiate Church.

A valuable addition has been made to the Collegiate buildings in view of the elevation of the church to the rank of a cathedral. The old church of St. Thomas, adjoining the Collegiate House, which would have been pulled down, has been saved and turned into a Chapter House. It serves for diocesan meetings, and will hold about 400 people. It is connected by a corridor with the Foster Hall of the Collegiate House, and thus forms a convenient series of rooms for large or small conferences. It is a plain red brick building, with stone dressings, at the west end of which is a three-storied tower of the same materials. The ground floor of the tower forms the porch. Entering by this way we find ourselves in a lofty oblong hall, about 60 feet by 30, with a gallery on the north and west, and the altar-piece before us at the east end, shut in by a wooden partition, in front of which stand two chairs one for the Bishop, the other for his Suffragan. The history of the present building dates from 1702, when it was erected on a monastic foundation, the funds being provided by a grant of L3,000 out of the coal dues, pursuant to a Statute of William and Mary, the Governors of St. Thomas’s Hospital providing the balance. The date is given on the central panel of the old pulpit, which is preserved, in reduced form, as a reading desk. Both this and the altar-piece are made of oak. The altar-piece is rather a fine specimen of wood-carving in the Corinthian style, with the usual tables for the Creed, etc. (now blank) between two pilasters, surmounted by the arms of George I. The old pews were demolished, as no longer required, when the church was transformed into a Chapter House, but the fine grained oak of which they were made was turned to account for doors and panelling. Below all this there is a crypt, of much earlier date, which now answers the purpose of a refreshment department on special occasions.

Behind the eastern wall a smaller hall has been erected between the Chapter House and the adjacent Collegiate House. This serves the double purpose of a vestibule and a place for smaller gatherings. The generous donor wishes to remain anonymous, but is partially revealed in a tablet over the fireplace, which says:

“As a Thank-offering for many blessings during a long life, a merchant of the City of London constructed this Meeting Hall, and munificently contributed to the purchase of the Collegiate House of St. Saviour, Southwark, Sep 4, 1898,” surmounted by his arms and the legend “Watch and be ready.”

A library, already consisting of several hundred volumes, is being formed in the Chapter House, for the use of the clergy and licensed Readers of the diocese in addition to the Collegiate Library proper, which at present is kept in the same place.

With all its advantages, the present Chapter House is acknowledged to be an unworthy representative of the original, as being at an inconvenient distance from the Cathedral, and out of character with it in design. Unfortunately no trace of the old house, or of its exact site, is left to us. The Cloisters and the College, or Priory, are known to have been on the north, the Prior’s residence at the north-west angle of the Cloisters, and the Refectory at the north-east end. The whole formed a splendid group of buildings and covered a large area, bounded on the north by the Thames; on the south by the church and churchyard; on the east by the “Bishop’s Chapel,” with a wall beyond it (at about the distance of the present roadway); and on the west by a small creek (St. Saviour’s dock), beyond which lay the Bishop of Winchester’s palace and garden.

By an instrument dated 15th July, 1545, the whole of the Priory lands were made over to Sir Anthony Browne, Knt., in the following comprehensive terms: “Totum situm septum circuitum ambitum et precinctum nuper Monasterii sive Prioratus beate Mariae Overey in Com. Surr.”

The work of demolition dates from that time, and the old buildings have gradually disappeared to make way for the modern wharves and warehouses which have since occupied the ground. The finishing strokes were put to the destruction during the first half of 1835, when Mr. E.J. Carlos, the archaeologist, visited the ruins, and describes them as then showing scarcely one stone upon another. They had previously been visited by another antiquary (Mr. John Carter) in 1797 and 1808, when there was a little more to be seen. Both gentlemen gave their experience in the pages of the Gentlemans Magazine, with a conjectural description of the group of buildings as it had been, contrasted with the desolation they then witnessed.