Of the thousands who daily pass by this sacred edifice which divides the vast stream of life flowing from east to west, like a rock in some river which resteth not nor stays its course, “but flows, and as it flows, for ever will flow on,” few are they who ever dream that they are passing one of the most interesting spots in London – the place where the emblem of its old amusements lingered the longest and departed the last; where the poetry of its out-door life flourished in its youth, and died unwilling in age, even when it was compelled to give way before what is called the march of modern improvement.
Reader, on the site of St. Mary-le-Strand, that smoke-blackened church which stands at the end of Drury-lane, and on your right hand, as you pass westward under the shadow of Somerset House, stood once the “Maypole in the Strand.” Visions of olden mirth, vex not our aching sight with shadows of revelry and glee, that not England, far less London, may ever behold again! Here, says the quaint old chronicler, did the ” young men and maidens” of London and Westminster “much resorte,” to do observance to the morn of May, with such dancing, and devices, and minstrelsy, as would by no means find favour in the eyes of those blue-coated functionaries, from whom & hearty laugh at a print shop window is almost enough to excite a “Move on.” The government clerks who, at four o’clock, look up at the steeple to assure themselves that her Majesty has not had a minute more of their ill-paid time than she is entitled to, seldom picture to themselves the pole and garland that would have greeted them, could they have looked up there in the early days of Queen Anne.
Yet so it was; and as regrets for the past are useless, let us to our task, which is to describe the present, or at least the manner in which what is the present, took the place of the past. The old church of “St. Mary and the Innocents in the Strand”, stood to the south of the present structure, nearer the river, and on the ground now partly occupied by one of the wings of Somerset House. It was pulled down by “order” of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, in 1549, to make room for the magnificent pile which he commenced on the site of the present Somerset House. We should like to hear what the Bishops of Exeter or London would say to the “absolute shall” of any noble duke of the present day, who might fancy that a church stood in the way of his prospect or improvements! Even in those times the proud Protector carried his power too far; the people accused him at once of peculation and sacrilege; and the immense sums he lavished on his building, and the recklesness he showed for sacred things in laying its foundation, were the pleas made use of by his enemies to bring him down from his “pride and place.” In this drama the little church of St. Mary in the Strand played an important part.
All that is known of the early history of this edifice is, that it was a church in 1222, how long before that date is unknown. When it was pulled down, as we have stated, it deprived the parishioners of their place of worship, and they joined themselves to the Church of St. Clement Danes, and after that of St. John the Baptist, in the Savoy. They continued to attend this as their parish church for more than one hundred and fifty years, till, in 1723, the act for creating fifty new churches within the bills of mortality was passed. One of the number was appointed for this parish. The first stone of the present building was laid in 1714, so that it must have been commenced in anticipation of the act; it was completed and consecrated in 1723, and instead of the ancient name, was called St. Mary-le-Strand.
Though not large (the builder was probably confined both by space and funds), it is an elegant building, and not without considerable merit as a specimen of metropolitan church architecture. It has an air of solidity about it which makes it look as if built for ages to come, and which still does not degenerate into heaviness. The western entrance is gained by a flight of steps cut in a circular sweep, conducting to a circular portico of Ionic columns, surmounted by & dome, which is crowned by an elegant vase. The columns are continued along the body of the church in pilasters of the same order at the corners, and in the inter-columniations are niches, handsomely ornamented. Over the dome is a pediment, supported by Corinthian columns, which are also continued round the body of the structure, over those of the Ionic order; beneath, and between these, the windows are placed over the niches. The windows have angular and circular pediments alternately. The steeple is light, though solid, and ornamented with composite columns and capitals. A dwarf stone wall runs round the building, surmounted by an iron railing, more useful perhaps than ornamental.
The church is a rectory in the patronage of the Bishop of Winchester. An estimate taken some years since gives the value of the living at £225 a-year, besides the surplice fees: of this £100 a-year was settled by Parliament, and the remainder made up by pound-rate on the inhabitants in lieu of tithes.
Such is a brief account of this church: those to whom the traditions of the spot are interesting, may wish to know what became of the Maypole, the centre of attraction to hundreds, ere summer revelry gave way to Sunday devotion. It is consoling to reflect, that no ignoble end befel this relic of olden time. When it was taken down (and much fell with it), it was found to be a good hundred feet in length, and probably for that reason was obtained by Sir Isaac Newton, and conveyed to Wanstead Park, in Essex, the seat of Sir John Child, afterwards Lord Castlemain, where, under the direction of the Rev. Mr. Pound, it was used in erecting a telescope, 125 feet long, the largest then known in the world, which had been presented to the Royal Society by M. Hugon, a scientific, and, we presume, a munificent foreigner. Thus, after gladdening the heart of man for a long, almost unknown period, it became instrumental in increasing his knowledge of “every star which heaven doth show: ” it was beneficial in both capacities; and at the present moment we can hardly decide in which it was the most worthily employed. What became of the “Maypole,” after the telescope had tired the eyes and exhausted the calculations of some generations of the Royal Society, we have not been able to learn: perchance it rotted into the earth, or, doing good to the last, it fed the winter’s hearth of some poor cottager dwelling by the park side of Wanstead. In whatever manner it disappeared from the earth, few trees of the forest have been destined to minister more to the mirth and knowledge of the world. Would that we could now see the two things blended more frequently than we find them! Neither has gained by parting company; and could we recal the simple mirth and hearty cheerfulness of the olden time, it might be found that a course of most learned lectures on any ology of the list, might be well exchanged for a merry May-morning’s dance round the “old Maypole in the Strand.”
The Illustrated London News, London, England, Week Ending July 16, 1842
