St Mary Abchurch
St Mary Abchurch is a small but extraordinarily beautiful Anglican church tucked away in a quiet courtyard just off Cannon Street in the City of London. It is one of the finest surviving works of Sir Christopher Wren, generally dated to between 1681 and 1686, and is notable above all for possessing what many architectural historians consider the finest reredos ever carved by Grinling Gibbons — a fact that makes this modest, easily overlooked building one of the genuine treasures of English Baroque art. The church stands within the Square Mile and belongs to the dense cluster of Wren churches that survived or were rebuilt after the Great Fire of London in 1666, which destroyed the medieval predecessor on this site. For anyone with an interest in seventeenth-century craftsmanship, sacred architecture, or the history of the City of London, it is an almost unmissable destination.
The history of the site stretches back to the medieval period, when a parish church dedicated to the Virgin Mary stood here, the suffix "Abchurch" likely deriving from a corruption of "up-church" or from an early patron's name, though the etymology remains a matter of gentle scholarly debate. The medieval building was utterly consumed in the Great Fire of September 1666, along with most of the surrounding neighbourhood. Wren was tasked with rebuilding dozens of City churches and approached St Mary Abchurch with particular ingenuity given its awkward, almost square footprint. His solution was a broad, shallow dome resting on eight arches, covering the entire interior and creating a sense of serene, unified space that belies the modest exterior. The dome was painted by William Snow with a trompe-l'oeil scheme depicting celestial glory, and it remains largely intact today.
The Grinling Gibbons reredos is the undisputed centrepiece of the interior. Gibbons, the greatest virtuoso woodcarver of the English Baroque, created a towering composition of limewood featuring swags of fruit, flowers, cherubs, garlands and drapery that frames the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer and the Creed in a display of breathtaking technical bravado. Unusually, this reredos is documented and authenticated with confidence as Gibbons's work, making it rarer and more significant than pieces attributed to him on stylistic grounds alone. The church was damaged during the London Blitz in 1940, and the reredos was shattered into over two thousand fragments. The painstaking restoration, completed in 1953, is itself a remarkable story of post-war dedication to heritage.
Physically, the church is a study in discreet understatement from the outside. The exterior is of warm red brick with Portland stone dressings, set within a tiny, paved courtyard that feels remarkably secluded for a site barely two minutes' walk from the heaving thoroughfare of Cannon Street. The entrance through the court is easy to miss, and the quietness of the space — birdsong, the distant rumble of the City — contrasts sharply with the bustle of the surrounding streets. Inside, the atmosphere changes immediately: the space is warm-toned and hushed, the dome overhead drawing the eye upward to Snow's painted heavens, the woodwork glowing with the peculiar honey-amber depth of aged limewood. On a clear morning, light falls through clear and coloured glass in ways that make the carvings seem almost three-dimensional.
The surrounding area is densely historical. Cannon Street runs immediately to the south, while King William Street and the Monument to the Great Fire of London are just a short walk away. The church of St Stephen Walbrook, another Wren masterpiece (and often considered his finest church interior), is barely five minutes on foot. The Bank of England, the Royal Exchange and Mansion House are all within a very short walk, making this part of the City one of the most concentrated assemblages of historic architecture and financial history anywhere in the world. The nearest underground stations are Cannon Street (District and Circle lines) and Bank (Central, Northern and Waterloo & City lines), both of which are within comfortable walking distance.
Visiting is free, though opening hours can be limited and vary by day and season, so checking in advance is advisable. The church is not simply a museum; it continues as an active place of worship with regular services. The Friends of the City Churches organisation and the Diocese of London maintain information about access. Because of its small size, the space rewards a slow, attentive visit — it rewards looking closely at the carving, reading the memorial tablets that line the walls, and simply sitting quietly beneath the dome. The best light tends to be in the morning. The courtyard itself, with its old plane trees and weathered paving, is a pleasant spot for a moment's pause in a working day, and it represents something increasingly rare in the modern City: a pocket of genuine, unhurried historical atmosphere.