St Bartholomew-the-Great
— — Norman stone the Great Fire never reached.
Not only on a wall.
“A priory church founded in 1123 by Rahere, a courtier of Henry I, and the oldest surviving parish church in the City of London. The half-timbered gatehouse on Little Britain leans over the lane; behind it the Norman choir keeps its round arches and squat columns intact. Smithfield's meat market still runs at dawn just outside. The interior is dim enough at any hour that candles do the work.
St Bartholomew-the-Great, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
St Bartholomew-the-Great stands at West Smithfield in the City of London, founded in 1123 as the church of an Augustinian priory by the courtier Rahere. The nave was lost in the Dissolution under Henry VIII in 1539, but the Norman choir, ambulatory, and Lady Chapel survived, making it the oldest parish church still standing within the historic City walls. The Tudor gatehouse on Little Britain dates to 1595 and was rediscovered in 1916 when a Zeppelin bomb shook plaster from its half-timbered front.
The choir is pure Norman Romanesque: round arches on cylindrical piers about 1.5 metres across, carrying a heavy triforium above. The masonry is Kentish ragstone faced with Caen limestone, the same combination Bishop Gundulf used at the Tower of London a generation earlier. The Great Fire of 1666 stopped a few streets short of Smithfield, sparing the choir. Centuries of City coal smoke darkened the stone before the 1860s restoration by Sir Aston Webb, who pulled back the worst of the Victorian additions and left the twelfth-century bones visible.
The church is open to visitors most weekdays and Saturday mornings, with an admission charge of around £6 that supports the parish. Choral Eucharist runs Sunday mornings at 11; Choral Evensong on alternate Sundays at 18:30. Closest Underground stations are Barbican and Farringdon, both about five minutes' walk. The building has stood in for medieval London in films including Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), so first-time visitors often recognise the choir before they place it.