We Loved St. Barts

We loved the church of St. Barthomew The Great. Laura commented as we left, "It's a good thing we didn't go here on the first Sunday or we would never have seen anything else." St. Bartholomew boasts the oldest medieval interior of any church in London. It was founded in 1123 as a much larger building. The current church is the remnant that survived demolition in Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries in 1543. It also survived the puritans, and miraculously, it escaped being bombed in World War II. So when you walk in, through the narrow little Tudor-era gate, you know and feel that you are somewhere very, very old. The service itself is "high church"--probably more so than anything we've seen since coming to London. The choir chants, the incense censor is liberally used, the vestments are rich and candlesticks are aplenty. There is even an Angelus (Hail Mary ritual) at the end of the service. Notwithstanding all these trappings, the sermon given by the rector was wry, funny, contemporary and thought-provoking. St. Barts is not on the beaten track for tourists, and we nearly missed it, but it is definitely not to be missed, and if you can can make it for a service, so much the better.