England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
St Augustine Watling Street

The Parish

The parish of St Augustine Watling Street sits almost centrally within the City of London, immediately east of St Paul's Cathedral. The parish covers a tiny area of the formerly heavily populated city, a few city blocks. Whilst the area was heavily populated at the time of this transcript, today it is the heart of London's commercial area and very few people live within the parish it being occupied largely by business premises and the shops & restaurants needed to support them. The parish was both badly affected in 1666 by the Great Fire and also in the Second World war when enemy bombing destroyed much of the area, as a result it is a place of concrete and glass today. St Augustine parish sits mere yards from the Thames, any drainage being subsurface. The parish acreage was tiny and barely measurable, despite this a population of close to 300 parishioners would have resided within its bounds.

The Church

St Augustine's church, formerly on Watling Street which no longer exists, now resides cheek-by-jowl with St Paul's Cathedral on the western side of New Change and the northern side of Cannon Street. To say the church has had a chequered history is to put it mildly, the first, medieval, church was destroyed by the Great Fire in 1666 whilst the present building was resurrected from near destruction following heavy bombing in World War 2. The church is one by Sir Christopher Wren erected between 1680 & 1687 with a graceful lead spire added in 1695. In Pevsner 1957 edition it sat in ruins with that spire destroyed and only three bays of the outer, southern, wall still standing. It has taken a minumental effort to recreate the building. Like most London churches it is best approached on foot where views are available from the crowded pavements of the City.