ST.DUNSTAN-IN-THE-WEST,THE LAST MEDIEVAL CITY CHURCH TO BE REBUILT.St.Dunstan-In-The-West, is very different to, but just as important as all the other City of London Churches. A History of this Beautiful Church. The exact date when the church of St.Dunstan-In-The-west, was founded is not known, but it is possible that Dunstan himself, or priests who knew him, actually commenced the construction. It was, nevertheless built during the Medieval Times in London, in what is commonly referred to as the Early Middle Ages, sometime between the death of Archbishop Dunstan in 988 and the consecration of Archbishop Lanfranc in 1070. What is certain though, is that the earliest known reference to the church is in a document held in Westminster Abbey dated 1185. The right of appointing clergymen to the parish, was surrendered by Westminster Abbey to the Crown in 1237 by Richard de Barking, the Abbot of Westminster. This avowdson, was to change hands several times over the following centuries. St.Dunstan-In-The-West has been associated with the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers, since the fifteenth century.
ABOVE: FRONT ELEVATION OF ST. DUNSTAN-IN-THE-WEST It is one of the oldest livery companies of the City of London and today, it pimarily exists for charitable purposes and the promotion of fellowship amongst its members. Their aim commendably, is to improve the prospects and opportunities of young people and disadvantaged groups. There is a service held here every year to commemorate two benefactors to the poor and the children of the parish, Richard Minge and John Fisher. After the services, the children were given a penny for every time they completed a circuit of the church. Cordwainer is the old English word for shoemaker. The word is derived from Cordwain, which was a fine leather produced from goatskin in Cordova in Spain from where they imported their material. In 1666, the church narrowly escaped the Great Fire of London, through a change in the direction the wind was blowing and the quick thinking of the Dean of Westminster. The fire was stopped a bare three doors away. In the middle of the night, the Dean had roused forty scholars from Westminster School, who, having armed themselves with buckets, managed to extinguish the flames, just yards away from the Church. The Great Fire eventually consumed the city from the Temple Church to the Tower of London and as far north as the city wall. In the conflagration, a whole City had been destroyed which included eighty seven churches and St. Paul's Cathedral. The City would have to be rebuilt. In the planning of this new City, a new Cathedral, dedicated again to St.Paul, would be built along with fifty one new churches. St.Dunstan-In-The-West, having been saved from the fire, would not be one of them. The old church would carry on as usual, until wear and tear took its toll and it was demolished in 1829. This was a most welcome occurence for a great many people, as the extract from A typographical Dictionary of London, by James Elmes, clearly shows. A copy of this extract is shown on the next page. Reconstruction commenced in 1831 and it was reconsecrated on January 31st 1833 making it the last church dating from Medieval Times in London to be rebuilt having remarkably survived another fire in 1730.
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