An immediate neighbour of the Tower of London, All Hallows by the Tower is the oldest church in the City, founded as early as 675. Its nearness to the scaffold of Tower Hill gave it a tragic role under the Tudors: it was here that, after executions, the bodies of the great condemned were brought.
The oldest church in the City
Founded in 675, All Hallows keeps a Saxon arch — one of the oldest architectural remains in London — and a crypt turned into a museum (undercroft). But its Renaissance history is inseparable from its neighbourhood: a few steps away stood the gallows of Tower Hill, where many enemies of the Tudor Crown were beheaded. The church received the remains before their final burial, often at St Peter ad Vincula, within the very walls of the Tower.
The martyrs of 1535
The year 1535 marked the place for ever. Sir Thomas More, former Lord Chancellor, and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, both refused to acknowledge the religious supremacy of Henry VIII over the Church of England. Beheaded at Tower Hill, their bodies were first buried at All Hallows — Fisher's thrown without ceremony into a rough grave in the churchyard — before translation. Both would later be canonised by the Catholic Church. In a quite different register, Lancelot Andrewes, future chaplain of Elizabeth I and one of the great translators of the King James Bible, was baptised here. To see: the Saxon arch (675), the crypt-museum and the site of the Tudor burials.
Did you know?
The body of Bishop John Fisher, beheaded in 1535 for defying Henry VIII, at first knew no honour: it was thrown naked into a rough grave in the churchyard of All Hallows, without shroud or coffin. Four centuries later, the man so treated was proclaimed a saint by Rome.
Notes
All Hallows by the Tower lies on Byward Street, beside the Tower of London, City of London; a working church with a crypt-museum, usually free to enter.
Quiz
- How old is the foundation of All Hallows?
- It goes back to 675 (oldest church in the City)
- To the seventeenth century
- To Roman times
- Which two martyrs of 1535 were first buried here?
- Thomas More and John Fisher
- Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard
- Cranmer and Latimer
- Why were they executed?
- For refusing Henry VIII's religious supremacy
- For military treason
- For counterfeiting