St. Michael Bassishaw was one of seven churches in the City of London dedicated to the Archangel Michael. "Bassishaw" comes from Basing’s haw, Basing being the name of a prominent family in medieval London and ‘haw’ meaning yard. From the fifteenth century the dean and chapter of St Paul's Cathedral were patrons of the church.
Medieval church
The earliest surviving reference to the church is in a deed of 1196, as “St Michael de Bassishaghe”. A 14th-century parish priest of St Michael’s, by the name of William, dug a ditch outside the church to assert his right of way. He was obliged by civic authorities to fill it in again. Excavations in the late 19th century and again, in 1965, showed that the north wall of the 12th-century church had been built over Roman and medieval rubbish pits, so had to be strengthened by buttresses. The church was rebuilt in the 15th century. John Burton, a mercer who died in 1460 and was buried in the choir, and his wife Agnes were major contributors to the cost "as appeared by his mark placed throughout the whole roof of the Choir, and the middle Isle of the Church" A chapel was built on the north side of the choir by Sir James Yerford, Lord Mayor in 1520. He was buried there in 1527. The building restored in 1630, but all was lost in the Great Fire of 1666. In 1662, Francis Hall - a chaplain to Charles II - was appointed Rector. He fled the parish upon the outbreak of the Great Plague of London in 1665, and returned only in 1670 to collect his stipend. His substitute, a priest called Williams, succumbed to the plague in September 1665, along with this wife and three children.
Rebuilding
Rebuilding began in 1675 and completed four years later. The work was unsatisfactory. The contractor, John Fitch, encountered problems with the foundations on the east end, so removed them and piled the ground. The walls were faced with brick, instead of the usual stone, and the load-bearing Corinthian columns were described as "specimens of…jerry-building…made up of several sorts of materials and plastered over." By 1693, the parish was lobbying Wren to provide resources for repairs. By the turn of the century, the church was being shored up and in need of repair. This was undertaken in 1713, when the upper parts of the walls were taken down and rebuilt, the slate roof replaced with a lead roof and a steeple added. The total cost of rebuilding was £5,704. The tower, also of brick, was to the west of the church. The steeple, probably designed by Robert Hooke, took the form of an octagonal drum surmounted by a lantern, from which emerged a trumpet shaped cone. On top of this was a ball and finial, now perched on the spire of St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe. George Godwin described St Michael's as " a plain substantial building without any striking features". It was 70 feet long and 50 feet wide, divided into nave and aisles by Corinthian columns supporting an elaborate entablature and a coved ceiling. The plan was irregular, being smaller than the pre-Fire church. The main front was on the east, facing Basinghall Street and was unadorned, except for a large round headed window flanked by two round windows. In 1821 the brickwork was rendered with stucco and pointed in imitation of stone.
Burials
Sir John Gresham, 1556
Thomas Storer, 1604
Thomas Wharton, anatomist, 1673
The Harleian Society copied the parish registers and compiled a series of books in 1944. Volume 74. The work was transcribed and edited by A.W Hughes Clarke F.S.A. It lists the baptisms, marriages and burials in this parish between 1733-1852. It comprises 189 pages of names dates and other details.
Demolition
In the late 19th century, sanitary regulations obliged the church to clear its crypt of human remains. The work revealed the weakness of the foundations, and in 1892, the church was judged unsafe and closed, and its parish combined with that of St Lawrence Jewry. St. Michael Bassishaw was demolished in 1900 and the land sold to the City for £36,000. Part of the proceeds were used to build two new churches in Edmonton, in north London. These are:
- St Michael's church, Bury Street, London, N9. St Michael's was declared redundant in 1982 and converted into flats. An office building called Bassishaw House was built on the site of the City church. This was demolished in 1965. An archaeological excavation was carried out, during which some remains of the church's mediaeval foundations were uncovered. Today the site once occupied by St. Michael’s lies beneath the courtyard of the Guildhall offices and the Barbican highwalk. A plaster coat of arms from St. Michael Bassishaw – the grandest of those in any Wren church – can now be found in the Guildhall complex.
