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The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great, sometimes abbreviated to St-Barts-the-Great, is a medieval church in the Church of England's Diocese of London located in 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.
St Bartholomew the Great is named to distinguish it from its neighbouring smaller church of St Bartholomew the Less, founded at the same time and now a chapel of ease. The two parish churches were reunited in 2012 under the benefice of Great St Bartholomew. Today the buildings houses a parish with services taking place in both buildings.
The church was founded in 1123 by Rahere, a prebendary of St Paul's Cathedral and an Augustinian canon regular. While at the Vatican, Rahere dreamed that a winged beast came and transported him to a high place, then relayed a message from "the High Trinity and...the court of Heaven" that he was to erect a church in London's Smithfield. Rahere travelled to London and was informed that the area in his vision – then a small cemetery – was royal property, and could not be built upon. Henry I, however, granted title of the land to Rahere upon hearing his divine message.
Rahere started construction on the building with the use of servants and child labourers, who collected stones from all over London.
The priory gained a reputation for curative powers, with many sick people filling its aisles, notably on 24 August (St Bartholomew's Day). Many miracles were attributed to occur within and without the walls of the building, including "a light sent from heaven" from its first foundation, and especially miraculous healings; many serious disabilities were claimed to be cured after a visit. Many of these cures were undertaken at the church hospital, the still existing St Bartholomew's Hospital.
The Peasants' Revolt meeting between Wat Tyler and King Richard II on Saturday, June 15th 1381, in Smithfield, is where the revolt directly touches the history of St. Bartholomew's. The king's retinue, with the Mayor of London William Walworth, were drawn up on the east side of Smithfield, immediately in front of the doors of St. Bartholomew's church, whilst Wat Tyler's men were in battle array on the west side. When Tyler, for his insolence in drawing his dagger before the king, had been struck down by Walworth, the accounts differ as to what was done with his body. Henry Knighton, a contemporary compiler, says in his chronicle that he was 'rudely drawn by his hands and feet into the church of St. Bartholomew which was at hand', but the 'Anominal Chronicle of St. Mary's York', written probably by an eye-witness, says that Tyler was 'carried by some of the commons to the Hospital for poor folks, by St. Bartholomew's, and was put to bed in the chamber of the master of the hospital', and this is probably correct. Neither the priory nor the hospital buildings were damaged by the rioters, so far as is known.
The last Prior was Robert Fuller, the Abbot of Waltham Holy Cross. He was favoured by King Henry VIII, indeed was invited to attend the christening of Prince Edward, and acquiesced in the dissolution of his Priory.
While many of the Priory's buildings survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries, about half of the priory's church was ransacked for building materials then demolished in 1543.. The nave was pulled down up to the last bay although the lofty crossing arches and choir survive largely intact from the Norman and later Middle Ages, enabling the surviving parts to be converted from priory for use as a parish church.
The dissolved Priory's buildings to the South and East were granted in December 1546 to a newly founded and royaly endowed St Bartholomew's Hospital which continues to the present day the care for the sick initiated by the medieval Priory.
The church and some of the priory buildings were briefly used as the third Dominican friary (Black Friars) of London, refounded by Queen Mary I of England in 1556 and closed in 1559. Having escaped the Great Fire of London of 1666, the surviving parts of the church fell into disrepair.
Fragmentary remains of the West entrance to the church remain on West Smithfield, recognisable by its half-timbered, late 16th-century, Tudor frontage built on top of the 13th-century stone archway. This adaptation may have been carried out by the Dominican friars in the 1550s, or by the post-Reformation patron of the advowson, Lord Rich, Lord Chancellor of England (1547–51).. From this gatehouse to the west door of the church, the modern entrance path leads roughly along the alignment of the demolished south aisle.
In the early 1720s, at the suggestion of Governor of Pennsylvania Sir William Keith Bt, the American polymath and patriot Benjamin Franklin worked as a typesetter in a printer's shop in what is now the Church of St Bartholomew-the-Great.
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 of the present church was formerly used as a blacksmith's forge, then occupied by squatters in the 18th century.
In 1888, new parish school rooms, with basement rooms for youth clubs and a soup kitchen, were built on part of the former burial grounds. The works were funded by in part by the Rector, the Revd Sir Borradaile Savory. The foundation stone was laid on 5 July 1888 by the Duchess of Albany.
From 1889, the church was extensively restored under the direction of architect Sir Aston Webb. This saw the restoration of the Lady Chapel and surviving fragments of the south transept and the construction of a new flint-faced north transept, both to stabilise the structure of the crossing and to hide the scars at the West end where the demolished nave had once connected. The south transept was re-dedicated by Frederick Temple, Bishop of London, on 14 March 1891; and the south transept in February 1893 in the presence of the Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Alexandra of Denmark (Princess of Wales), Edward White Benson (Archbishop of Canterbury) and other dignitaries. During Canon Edwin Savage's tenure as rector in the 1920s, the church was further restored at the cost of more than £60,000..
The Priory Church was one of the few City churches to escape major damage during the Blitz of the 1940s.
Charitable distributions in the churchyard on Good Friday continue a 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,. Hot cross buns are nowadays given not only to widows but others.
The Priory Church was designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950. In April 2007 it became the first Anglican parish church to charge an entrance fee to tourists not attending a worship, an experiment that was discontinued. The church is open free of charge daily except during events and services.
For a few years the rector of St Batholomew the Great church was simultaneously priest-in-charge of the nearby St Bartholomew the Less. On 1 June 2015 the two parishes were dissolved and replaced with the new united benefice of Great St Bartholomew. The Rector of the former parish of St Bartholomew the Great became Rector of the united benefice and the parish boundary follows those of the two former parishes. A single Parochial Church Council and churchwardens are responsible for both churches. The parish church is St Bartholomew the Great, and St Bartholomew the Less is a chapel of ease within the parish. The latter sits within the curtilage of St Bartholomew's Hospital and now participates in an eucumenical and inter-faith chaplaincy to the patients and staff at the Hospital.
The brick clock tower was constructed in the South West corner of the truncated church in 1628. It has a small timber cupola and houses the earlier ring of pre-Reformation bells that were cast between 1500 and 1514.
Immediately to the North of the high altar is the monument to founder Rahere. This is in a mixture of the Decorated Gothic and Perpendicular Gothic styles. A painted effigy lies on top of the tomb under an elaborate canopy. It is unclear whether it is the resting place of Rahere's remains, or his monument, since it was constructed c.250 years after his death in 1144.
The interior Oriel Window was installed in the early 16th century by Prior William Bolton, allegedly so that he could keep an eye on the monks. The Prior's lodgings were adjacent to the south of the church. The symbol in the centre panel is a crossbow "bolt" passing through a "tun" (or barrel), a rebus or pun on the name of the prior. William Camden wrote:
It may be doubtful whether Bolton, Prior of St Bartholomew, in Smithfield, was wiser when he invented for his name a bird-bolt through his Tun, or when he built him a house upon Harrow Hill, for fear of an inundation after a great conjunction of planets in the watery triplicity
Said to be 'newly built' in 1336, the Lady Chapel extends to the east of the choir; the remains of the original medieval crypt are located underneath. The building was in secular use after the Dissolution of the Priory and divided into workshops and houses. Re-acquired by the parish in the late nineteenth century it was restored by Sir Aston Webb to something close to its original appearance, with much original stonework surviving.
Very little evidence of the monastic buildings now survives above ground. Three bays of the semi-derelict c.15 cloister were restored and extended by a further five bays in replica in the 1920s as a war memorial the new work using the surviving medieval footings. The approximate footprint of the cloister quadrangle was recreated as a grassed area when adjoining buildings were redeveloped in 2019. The approximate extent of the monastic enclosure is defined by the modern street of Bartholomew Close and Cloth Fair.
The principal remaining area of the churchyard is a raised garden on Cloth Fair laid out by the Metropolitan Public Gardens Association's landscape gardener Fanny Wilkinson in 1885.
St Bartholomew the Great is the adopted guild church of various City livery companies who host services there throughout the year: the Worshipful Company of Butchers (one of the seven oldest livery companies), the Worshipful Company of Founders (whose Hall is beside the church), the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers (incorporated 1448, one of the Great Twelve City Livery Companies) whose Hall is on the opposite side of West Smithfield, the Worshipful Company of Fletchers, the Worshipful Company of Farriers (incorporated 1674), the Worshipful Company of Farmers (incorporated 1955). More recent companies with a connection to the church are: Worshipful Company of Information Technologists (incorporated 1992), the Worshipful Company of Hackney Carriage Drivers (incorporated 2004), the Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers (incorporated 2005), the Company of Public Relations Practitioners (incorporated 2000).
The Priory Church served as the chapel of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor before the establishment of the Society's permanent chapel in St Paul's Cathedral in 2005.
Starting in 1133, a yearly public disputation was held to mark the start of the Bartholomew Fair. The disputation was typically on theological matters, but later shifted to consider more political matters. Notable speakers included Thomas More. The yearly debate was ended along with the fair in 1855, but was revived in 2023 as part of a wider revival of Bartholomew Fair traditions.
The church was the location for the fourth wedding service in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and of scenes in other films: Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Shakespeare in Love, the 1999 film version of Graham Greene's 1951 novel The End of the Affair, Amazing Grace (2006), Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Sherlock Holmes (2009), Richard II of The Hollow Crown (2012), Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), Testament of Youth (2014), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Transformers: The Last Knight (2017). It was also used in Taboo. It was used by T-Mobile as a stand-in for Westminster Abbey in its "royal wedding" advertisement (2011). It has also been the location for six music videos of Libera.
Text from the Wikipedia article “St Bartholomew-the-Great”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.