London - Crypt of St. Batholomew the Great Church - RP postcard c.1960s

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  St. Bartholomew the Great, London, founded 1123 - The Crypt 
• Publisher: Valentines (M 3892)
• Postally used: no
• Stamp:  n/a
• Postmark(s): n/a
• Sent to:  n/a
• Notes / condition: 

Please ask if you need any other information and I will do the best I can to answer.

Image may be low res for illustrative purposes - if you need a higher definition image then please contact me and I may be able to send one. No cards have been trimmed (unless stated).

------------------------------------------------

Postage & Packing:

Postage and packing charge should be showing for your location (contact if not sure).

No additional charges for more than one postcard. You can buy as many postcards from me as you like and you will just pay the fee above once. Please wait for combined invoice. (If buying postcards with other things such as books, please contact or wait for invoice before paying).

Payment Methods:

UK - PayPal, Cheque (from UK bank) or postal order

Outside UK: PayPal ONLY (unless otherwise stated) please.   NO non-UK currency checks or money orders (sorry).

NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

I will give a full refund if you are not fully satisfied with the postcard.

----------------------------------------------

Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

*************

The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, sometimes abbreviated to Great St Bart's, is an Anglican church in West Smithfield within the City of London. The building was founded as an Augustinian priory in 1123. It adjoins St Bartholomew's Hospital of the same foundation.^[1]

It was founded in 1123 by Rahere, a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral and an Augustinian canon regular, its establishment recorded as being in gratitude for his recovery from fever. His fabled miraculous return to good health contributed to the priory gaining a reputation for curative powers and with sick people filling its aisles, notably on 24 August (St Bartholomew's Day).

The surviving building had comprised part of a priory adjoining St Bartholomew's Hospital,^[4] but while much of the hospital survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries about half of the priory's church was ransacked before being demolished in 1543.^[5] Its nave was pulled down up to the last bay but the crossing and choir survive largely intact from the Norman and later Middle Ages, enabling its continued use as a parish church. Part of the main entrance to the church remains at West Smithfield, nowadays most easily recognisable by its half-timbered Tudor frontage, which was erected by the post-Reformation patron of the advowson,^[6] Lord Rich, Lord Chancellor of England (1547–51).^[7]From there to its west door, the church path leads along roughly where the south aisle of the nave formerly existed. Very little trace of its monastic buildings now survive, although parts of the cloister now house a café.^[8]

St Bartholomew the Great is so named to distinguish it from its neighbouring smaller church of St Bartholomew the Less which was founded at the same time within the precincts of St Bartholomew's Hospital to serve as the hospital's parish church and occasional place of worship. The two parish churches were reunited in 2012 under one benefice.

Having escaped the Great Fire of London of 1666^[9] the church fell into disrepair, becoming occupied by squatters in the 18th century. W. G. Grace, however, was one famous congregant before its restoration in the late 19th century,^[10] when it was rebuilt under Sir Aston Webb's direction.^[11] During Canon Edwin Savage's tenure as rector the church was further restored at the cost of more than £60,000.^[12]

The Lady chapel at the east end had been previously used for commercial purposes and it was there that Benjamin Franklin worked for a year as a journeyman printer. The north transept was also formerly used as a blacksmith's forge in order to make ends meet. The Priory Church was one of the few City churches to escape damage during the Second World War and, in 1941, was where the 11th Duke of Devonshire and the Hon Deborah Mitford were married.

The poet and heritage campaigner Sir John Betjeman kept a flat opposite the churchyard on Cloth Fair. Betjeman considered the church to have the finest surviving Norman interior in London.^[13]

In 2005 a memorial service was held for Sir William Wallace, on the 700th anniversary of the Scottish hero's execution, organised by the historian David R. Ross.

Charitable distributions in the churchyard on Good Friday continue. A centuries-old tradition established when twenty-one sixpences were placed upon the gravestone of a woman stipulating that the bequest fund an annual distribution to twenty one widows in perpetuity,^[14] with freshly-baked hot cross buns nowadays being given not only to widows but others.^[15]

The church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.^[16] In April 2007 it became the first Anglican parish church to charge an entrance fee to tourists not attending worship.^[17]

After a few years in which the rector of the church was simultaneously priest-in-charge of the nearby St Bartholomew the Less, which retained its own PCC and churchwardens, on 1st June 2015, the parishes of both churches were dissolved and replaced with the united benefice of Great St Bartholomew. The Rector of the former parish of St Bartholomew the Great became rector of the united benefice. The boundary of the new parish incorporates precisely both former parishes. There is now a single PCC and churchwardens responsible for both buildings. The parish church is St Bartholomew the Great, while St Bartholomew the Less is a chapel of ease within the parish.