An old thing in Aldgate

Last Saturday, at St Botolph’s-without-Aldgate church in central London, I attended the Annual General Meeting of the Organ Club. The church building is home to what is considered to be England’s oldest parish-church pipe organ still in its original position with most of its original insides still present.

Church of St Botolph-without-Aldgate, London (1741-4), c.2015

The church building is named after an East Anglian saint who died in 680 and it is located at the site of a former entrance gate to the City of London, the Aldgate (removed 1761). A church building here was already in existence here by 1115. It was substantially rebuilt during the sixteenth century and survived the Great Fire of London (1665).

Church of St Botolph-without-Aldgate, London (pre-1741)

The City of London’s Aldgate, c.1609

The present church building dates from 1741-45 and was built to the designs of John Dance the Elder (1695–1768) who re-aligned the building from its former east-west axis to a north-south one.

The church of St. Botolph-without-Aldgate, c.1850

Church of St Botolph-without-Aldgate, London (1741-4); interior looking west (c.2000)

The area covered by the parish of St Botolph straddles an administrative border that separates the City of London from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Parish of St Botolph Aldgate, outlined in red, on the1741-5 map of London by John Rocque

The location of the parish of St Botolph-without-Aldgate, shown on the 1741-5 map of London by John Rocque

Present-day location of the church of St Botolph-without-Aldgate c.2017

From the later seventeenth century the parish came to be characterised by poverty, disease and poor housing with only a minority of wealthier inhabitants and was in receipt of substantial poor relief and a high level of charitable giving. As the City of London has developed so the resident population of the parish has dwindled significantly and now the parish is dominated by office blocks and riven by busy roads, but even so the church itself retains an air of calm within.

Church of St Botolph-without-Aldgate, London (1741-4); interior looking east (c.2000)

The keyboards of the organ in St Botolph-without-Aldgate, London, c.2010

The present-day pipe organ was first installed in the sixteenth-century building in about 1704 by the organ builder Renatus Harris (c.1652-1724). It was transferred into the replacement building in the 1740s by the organ builder John Byfield (1694-1751) and in 2005 it was faithfully restored by the firm of Goetze and Gwynn.

YouTube Video: William Boyce 'Voluntary No. 4' from Ten Voluntaries for Organ or Harpischord (London: Thompson, c.1785) performed by Robert Woolley at St Botolph's Aldgate (June 2011)