History and Architecture

St Mary-at-Hill dates to 1336. The north aisle was rebuilt at the end of the 15th century, and a south aisle and steeple were added a little later. John Stow, writing at end of the 16th century, described it as "the fair church of Saint Marie, called on the Hill, because of the ascent from Billingsgate".

The Great Fire of 1666 started in the neighbouring street of Pudding Lane severely damaging the church. After the blaze, the parish of St Mary's was united with that of St Andrew Hubbard, whose church was not rebuilt.

Sir Christopher Wren rebuilt the church's interior and east end, managing to retain its medieval walls on the other three sides, and the west tower to which he added a lantern. Wren included in his design a venetian window at the east end, now blocked up, and a pediment, now broken. His interior displays four free-standing corinthian columns, supporting barrel vaults in a Greek cross pattern, and a coffered central dome. The church is 96 ft long and 60 ft wide.

There have been considerable further alterations since the 17th century. In 1787–88, George Gwilt rebuilt the west wall and replaced the tower in brick and in 1826–27 James Savage installed round-headed iron-framed windows in the north wall and replaced the vaults, ceilings and plasterwork. In 1848–49 he added a cupola to the dome and cut windows through the chancel vault. In 1849, the 17th century woodwork was sympathetically augmented and adapted by W. Gibbs Rogers. In 1904 the church's parish was united with that of St George Botolph Lane, and St Mary-at-Hill received the sword rests, plate, royal arms, ironwork, organ and organ case from St George. In 1939, the writer Dornford Yates used the church as a setting for some of the action in his thriller Gale Warning, calling it “St. Ives”. Use is made of the open-work screens on the roof.

The church survived the Blitz in the Second World War unscathed, but was severely damaged by a fire in 1988, after which its roof and ceiling required rebuilding. Though much of the woodwork, including box pews, survived the fire, it has not been reinstated and remains in store.

Writing before St Mary's 1988 fire, John Betjeman said of the church: "This is the least spoiled and the most gorgeous interior in the City, all the more exciting by being hidden away among cobbled alleys, paved passages, brick walls, overhung by plane trees…"

Faith in the City

Today, St Mary-at-Hill is a place of lived ecumenism: it is home to an Anglican congregation, which holds a weekday Communion service for City workers on Mondays , as well as to a multicultural, multilingual Lutheran congregation whose Sunday services (in English) and congregational life take place here in the heart of London. For further information, please visit http://www.stmary-at-hill.org and http://www.stanneslutheranchurch.org.uk respectively.

Open House Programme '24

Join us on our Open House Sunday for our Sunday morning sung Eucharist service (11am), accompanied by the historic William Hill organ or time your visit for 'Music on the Hour', a programme of short musical performances to liven up your visit and to demonstrate the stunning acoustics of the building.

Performances range from freestyle beatboxing and music for voice and guitar, to favourites from musical theatre and film, a ladies barbershop singing songs by the Beatles David Bowie, as well as a hymns in Cantonese / Mandarin performed by the London Chinese Lutheran Church and an organ recital (see programme entries for details).

Light refreshments (tea, coffee, home-baked goods) will be available throughout the day - swing by and relax in the soaring splendour of St Mary-at-Hill!