HAIL TO ALL HALLOWS

ALL HALLOWS: SHIP SHAPE WITH TREASURES UNDERGROUND.

Another City of London church, All Hallows By The Tower, is wedged in between nasty office blocks and a stream of traffic passing Tower Hill. Once you could stroll down from the church to the Thames’ edge, however now glass and concrete impedes the view.

In 1941 a German bomber reduced the church to rubble. By 1951 plans were underway to rebuild it.  Job done, although the exterior is in dull Gothic, likewise the Nave. 

However, spend time here; we did, for two hours. Treasures are dotted about the place and are yours to savour. Ships hanging from the ceilings and other monuments point to the church's  maritime and trading connections. Across the street is the Merchant Seamen’s War Memorial. 

Treats include

Elizabethan memorial to an Italian trader North wall

Canopied altar tomb just up a bit from the memorial

Flemish altarpiece 1500

Font cover by Grindling Gibbons (now at the back of the church, but do seek it out!

 Many riches actually stored in the church’s crypt, and undershaft.  This is collection of alcoves that display prizes from Roman and Saxon times right up to the last century.

You actually enter this area across a tessellated Roman floor! And further down and in there is a chapel built of the stone from a Crusader Castle!

Do go!

THEY HAVE A BRILLIANT WEBSITE INCLUDING DOWNLOADABLE AUDIO TOURS <LINKY>