St Michael Wood Street

• Described by Stow (1598) as a “proper thing” St Michael’s Wood Street in the Cripplegate Ward was the hurried burial site for the head of King James the IV of Scotland.

• First mentioned in 1225 the church was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren in 1673.

• The organ was built by Thomas Elliot in 1800.

• In 1854 the declining residential population lead to proposals to reduce the number of churches within the “Square Mile and the church was eventually demolished under the auspices of the Union of Benefices Act in 1897. Many bodies were disinterred from the churchyard and reburied at Brookwood Cemetery.

• It was then united with St Alban Wood Street and after the destruction of that church in World War II with St Vedast Foster Lane.