This chapel was made parochial in the year 1456, but continued under the patronage of the prior and canons of Butley, till the suppression of that convent, when it came to the crown. However in the year 1577, Queen Elizabeth granted the patronage, together with the church and rectory to Thomas Paskins and others, and in 1590 to William Daniel, serjeant at law, and other parishioners; which rectory impropriate, and right of advowson, have been held by the parish in fee farm of the crown ever since. _Newc. Repert. Eccless._
This church sharing the common fate in the dreadful fire of London, the present structure was erected in its stead about four years after. It is a plain and solid building strengthened with rustic at the corners, and enlightened by one series of large windows. The steeple is a square tower crowned with a lanthorn which has four faces.
The rector, besides several annual donations, and other advantages, receives 110_l._ _per annum_.
Mr. Munday, in his edition of Stow’s Survey, mentions several monumental inscriptions in this church, among which are the following.
1. Our life is all but death; time that ensueth, Is but the death of time that went before: Youth is the death of childhood; age of youth. Die once to God, and then thou diest no more.
2. Agnes, the wife of Leonard Darr, whose sight, By sickness much impair’d, in heav’nly light, Look’d, liv’d and died, as dimness her were giv’n, That her soul’s eyes might better look to heav’n.
In this church Munday himself lies, and on his monument is the following inscription.
3. To the Memory of that ancient servant to the city with his pen in divers employments, especially the _Survey of London_, master _Anthony Munday_, citizen and draper of London.
He that hath many an antient Tombstone read, (I’th’ labour seeming more among the dead To live, than with the living) that survey’d Obstruse antiquities, and o’er them laid Such vive and beauteous colours with his pen, That (spite of time) those old are new again, Under this marble lies interr’d; his tomb Claiming (as worthily it may) this room, Among those many monuments his quill Has so reviv’d, helping now to fill A place (with those) in his Survey; in which He has a monument, more fair, more rich Than polish’d stones could make him, where he lies, Though dead, still living, and in that ne’er dies.