Summary

Remains of St Pancras Church, 50m east of No. 6 Queen Street.

Source: Historic England

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 11 September 2014. The record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes a medieval parish church surviving as below-ground remains. It is situated on low-lying ground between Pancras Lane and Cheapside in the City of London. The buried remains of the church are preserved in a courtyard at the rear of 70 to 80 Cheapside. The ragstone walls and foundations of the church are about 1m wide and are preserved at about 0.6 to 0.9m below present ground level. It is approximately 14m long by 7m wide and includes a nave and apsidal chancel at the east end.

St Pancras Church is documented in 1257. It was owned by Christchurch Canterbury, and was a peculiar under the jurisdiction of the Court of Arches at St Mary-le-Bow. The church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666 and the parish united with St Mary-le-Bow. The site was thereafter used as a burial ground. It was partially excavated in 1963-4, which revealed part of the walls of the church and a barrel-lined well to the east. The north wall was externally faced with squared blocks above a plinth, and the length that survived was not pierced by doors or windows. The well was over 1m in diameter and contained 13th century pottery. Partial excavation in 1992, in advance of adjacent redevelopment work, revealed a north-south ragstone wall of the nave or tower and part of a cleared burial vault to the north.

Source: Historic England

Reasons for Scheduling

A parish church is a building, usually of roughly rectangular outline and containing a range of furnishings and fittings appropriate to its use for Christian worship by a secular community, whose members gather in it on Sundays and on the occasion of religious festivals. Parish churches were designed for congregational worship and are generally divided into two main parts: the nave, which provides accommodation for the laity, and the chancel, which is the main domain of the priest and contains the principal altar. Either or both parts are sometimes provided with aisles, giving additional accommodation or spaces for additional altars. Most parish churches also possess towers, generally at the west end, but central towers at the crossing of nave and chancel are not uncommon and some churches have a free-standing or irregularly sited tower. Many parish churches also possess transepts at the crossing of chancel and nave, and south or north porches are also common. The main periods of parish church foundation were in the 10th to 11th and 19th centuries. Most medieval churches were rebuilt and modified on a number of occasions and hence the visible fabric of the church will be of several different dates, with in some cases little fabric of the first church being still easily visible.

The densest clusters of parish churches were found in thriving medieval towns. A survey of 1625 reported the existence of nearly 9000 parish churches in England. New churches built in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries increased numbers to around 18,000 of which 17,000 remain in ecclesiastical use. Parish churches have always been major features of the landscape and a major focus of life for their parishioners. They provide important insights into medieval and later population levels or economic cycles, religious activity, artistic endeavour and technical achievement. A significant number of surviving examples are identified to be nationally important.

The remains of St Pancras Church survive well and will contain archaeological and environmental information relating to the construction, use and history of the church.

Source: Historic England

Sources

Other
Greater London SMR 041516/00/00, 041517/00/00 - MLO9939, 041518/00/00. NMR TQ38SW108. PastScape 404641.,
Keene, D and Harding, V, St. Pancras Soper Lane 145/0: The parish church of St. Pancras Soper Lane', Historical gazetteer of London before the Great Fire: Cheapside; parishes of All Hallows Honey Lane, St Martin Pomary, St Mary le Bow, St Mary Colechurch and St Pancras Soper Lane (1987), 639-644 ,

Source: Historic England