The nave has colonnades of fluted Ionic columns, standing on octagonal bases, which divide the nave and the side aisles. These support an entablature and attic, from which spring a late 18th-century barrel-vaulted ceiling with fluted and coffered plasterwork into which is cut a clerestory with oval windows. The plasterwork above the High Altar is embellished with 57 panels, each enclosing a gilded floral motif. The present open bench seating in the Bavarian Rococo style was installed in 1924 to replace the box pews of 1832.
Plan of St Magnus showing the Ionian collonades
The columns were originally arranged irregularly, reflecting the position of the blocked north entrance to the church, but two new columns were inserted in the 1920s to make the spacing of the bays more even. The blocked east window is flanked by fluted Ionic pilasters.
Hear an extract from T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land
T.S. Eliot famously refers to the Ionian columns in The Waste Land:
“This music crept by me upon the waters” And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. O City city, I can sometimes hear Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, The pleasant whining of a mandoline And a clatter and a chatter from within Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.
Until the relocation of Billingsgate Market in 1982, the area around St Magnus was dominated by fish merchants and associated trades along with pubs and cafés.
Billingsgage Fish Market in Lower Thames Street with the steeple of St Magnus in the background
Map of Lower Thames Street from London Bridge to Billingsgate Martket in 1914
Billingsgate porters, wearing ‘bobbin’ hats to carry heavy boxes of fish, outside St Magnus
Billingsgate Market traffic outside St Magnus in 1947 (looking east along Lower Thames Street). The lower storeys of Adelaide House were used at this time by New Fresh Wharf as additional storage for produce (mainly fruit) and later (1978 to 2010) as the City FOB pub. FOB stands for ‘Free On Board’, a shipping acronym.
The Old King’s Head & Mermaid Pub at 116 Lower Thames Street
Joe’s Number One Snack Bar at 1 Lower Thames Street, next to the church, was demolished in the late 1970s but was popular with market traders and porters:
This simple white-tiled place frequented by simple foul-mouthed white-coated fisherfolk from Billingsgate is a real find. Run by Joe and Edna, who are always delighted to discuss orders with customers, it appears to be part of the adjacent Church of St Magnus the Martyr, and the text in the window (‘Our Motto: Cleanliness & Civility’) is equally applicable to both premises.
Jonathan Routh’s Good Cuppa Guide: where to have tea in London (1966)
St Magnus the Martyr and Joe’s Number One Snack Bar
Archaeologists taking a break at Joe’s Number One Snack Bar in 1974 during the excavation of the site of New Fresh Wharf (now St Magnus House). King William Street is carried over Lower Thames Street on a new, wider bridge.
The Mitre Tavern, 38 Fish Street Hill designed in circa 1884 by Thomas Edward Knightley (1823-1905), whose office was nearby in Cannon Street. This pub was demolished around 1985 when the site was redeveloped as offices.
Lower Thames Street looking west towards St Magnus. Billingsgate Buildings, on its triagular site opposite the main market building, is in the foreground. This was built by the Corporation of London as a Dry or Haddock Market in 1888, following the opening of Monument Street in the previous year and in response to a petition from the London Fish Trade Association, and had 5,000 sq. ft. of floorspace.29/06/1980 – Monument from Lower Thames Street, LondonThe conversion of Lower Thames Street into a dual carriageway in the late 1960s / early 1970s – the City Corporation had already widened the road between Fish Street Hill and Botolph Lane from 30 ft to 60 ft in 1900 – necessitated the demolition of the Dry Market. Peninsula House (designed in 1979) now occupies the site.
Map of Lower Thames Street in the 1930s
In addition to Billingsgate Fish Market, Lower Thames Street was also the location of wharves and warehouses in the Pool of London. Large quantities of oranges, lemons and other fruit were landed at Fresh Wharf, with warehouses and fruit merchants occupying premises in Pudding Lane.
Article about Lower Thames Street in 1867
Article on the fruit trade at Fresh Wharf and Pudding Lane in 1879. St Michael’s oranges originated in the Azores Islands. Fellowship Porters, i.e. members of the Fellowship of Porters of Billingsgate (who had to be freemen of the City and whose hall was in St Mary at Hill), were licensed by the Corporation of London until 1894 to measure and carry goods, including fruit, brought into the port of London. The term ‘porter’ for malty dark beer derives from its popularity with these workers.
Poupart House (with clock) at 46 Fish Street Hill in December 2013, shortly before demolition, This was a branch from the 1920s of the fruit business TJ Poupart Ltd (founded by John Poupart in 1895), which traded at Covent Garden and Spitalfields Markets.
The wharves near St Magnus were amalgamated in the 1930s to create New Fresh Wharf.
New Fresh Wharf. The new warehouse was finished in 1953.
Map of the south side of Lower Thames Street in the 1950s. Changes in the industry meant that New Fresh Wharf closed in May 1970 and the warehouse was demolished in 1973. St Magnus House, designed by Richard Seifert, was built on the site and leased by Midland Bank for its international division.
St Magnus House nearing completion in 1979 on the site of New Fresh Wharf, with Billingsgate Market (still operational) in the foreground.
Lower Thames Street shortly before the road was widened, looking eastward through the old arch with the north west facade of St Magnus visible on the right.
In addition to the Fellowship Porters the City was served by Ticket Porters, who were members of a separate Society of Tackle-house Porters and Ticket Porters. A pub called the Ticket Porter stood close to St Magnus until 1970 at the corner of Arthur Street West and Upper Thames Street.
Lower Thames Street, now a dual carriageway, looking east in 1979. St Magnus House has just been finished but the Edwardian buildings on the north side of the road were not replaced until the mid-1980s.
Lower Thames Street is now on the route of the London Marathon
