STEPNEY
St. Dunstan's Church
from an original photograph by Kathleen Andersen
St Dunstan and All Saints Church, in Stepney High Street, is a church
of great antiquity. About the year 952 Dunstan, Bishop of London and Lord of the Manor of
Stepney, replaced the small wooden church on this site with a new stone church dedicated
to All the Saints. When Dunstan was canonised in 1029 the name was changed to St Dunstan
and All Saints.
Until the early 1300s, when new churches were built at Whitechapel and
Bow, this church served the whole of Middlesex east of the City of London - an enormous
area.
The present church is the third one on this site and dates mainly from
the 1400s although the chancel, where the altar stands, is 200 years older. The church has
been much repaired outside including porches and an octagonal parish room added in 1872.
There have been a number of interior renovations over the years and the
latest ones have cleared out many of the earlier additions and have tried to show the
original architecture to its best advantage. In the 1700s galleries were put in and the
walls were panelled - many of the present-day pews were made from that dismantled
panelling.
The font is over 1,000 years old and has Norman work on two sides
(overlapping Romanesque arches) interspersed with later carvings (crosses within circles)
from the 19th century.
The bells are commemorated in the rhyme 'Oranges and
Lemons'...."When will that be, say the bells of Stepney". The oldest of the ten
bells was recast in 1385.
The churchyard was once famous for its crowded mass of tombstones, of
which only a few 18th century table tombs remain. In the 1600s the churchyard was enlarged
to make room for victims of the plague - no less than 6,583 within an 18-month period and
154 on one day alone. As you can tell, there is not much chance of finding an ancestor's
grave here but the grounds are pleasant and park-like if you need a rest after too much
walking.
The parish was part of the Stepney Registration District until October
1, 1857 and then became part of the newly-formed Mile End Old Town Registration District.
In 1900 it became part of the Borough of Stepney and, since 1965, has been part of the
London Borough of Tower Hamlets.
The parish registers are at the London Metropolitan Archives and the dates
available are:
Baptisms 1568-1954
Marriages 1568-1962
Burials 1568-1929
Baptisms from 1954 and marriages from 1962 are with the incumbent vicar.
The church is usually locked but there are various activities going on
during the week and the kindly caretakers will let you look around at those times,
otherwise contact the vicar for access.
Kathleen Andersen
December 1999 |
