Scars of Glass
Exploring the neighborhood of London's bank district conjures within me a dark fascination as skyscrapers of incredible design stand in stark contrast to their elder neighbors - glass monuments to the sections of city touched by fire and shrapnel that cleared the way for their construction.
As I wandered through I happened to end up on Lombard street passing by a small, unassuming building featuring a beautiful stained glass window. Intrigued, and seeking shelter from the rain, I poked my head in and was welcomed by a lovely woman named Helen who was more than happy to tell me the story of the Church of St. Edmund King and Martyr.
Photo taken by Rhys Chapman
It begins with this curious factoid: St. Edmund is the only church in London that faces directly North. During the church's first construction in the 9th century it was in direct competition for space with a massive Roman forum which encircled the entire block, and which blocked the spaces directly east and west of the only spot on which the church could be built.
Later it burnt down along with 48 other churches in the great fire of 1666, and the Lombard family (the rich merchant family for which the road was later named) paid to have it rebuilt as a specifically church for bankers as part of an effort to make their neighborhood into the financial center of London.
It was destroyed again in WW1 by Göerter bombers; an early of German plane that the crew had to physically lean out of the cabin and lob bombs at their target by hand. When the church was re-rebuilt once more after the war, the shrapnel they found was gathered together and placed at the center of the alter with an inscription:
"Let nothing disturb you.
Let nothing frighten you.
All things pass away.
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
They who have God find they lack nothing:
God alone suffices."
Another interesting tidbit is that during the re-reconstruction many years after WW1, several dozen bodies were found beneath the floorboards of the kitchen. Archaeologists believe that these were hastily buried plague victims, and they still remain beneath the new flooring of the kitchen today.
The window is of german construction, and was once housed in the church of St. Bartholomew prior to its deconstruction. Originally it was planned to be put up in Saint Paul's Cathedral, but on the day it arrived the curator at St. Paul's rejected it because it depicted angels with red wings instead of white. A bit petty, but there you have it.
I suppose all of this is my verbose way of trying to convey the sense of incredible history that permeates every facet of this city.
Although I manage to make it sound boring, it's all intensely enthralling. I've grew up in California where we consider buildings less than a century old ancient... and yet here in London even a tiny, almost insignificant church with a relatively tiny following has literally over a millennium of lore and bodies in the basement to prove it.
Whether presented through the darkly telling dichotomy of clashing architecture standing shoulder to shoulder in a mad skyline, or the myriad stories of millennia preserved within hallowed halls, in London the past is palpable.