This is the only reference that I can find to an Alice Vasey in London, Vasey being that of my maternal ancestry.  Temple Church is a church from the middle ages within the Inner and Middle Temple, it is it’s parish church, the Lawyers’ parish church … now this is a bit of a surprising mystery, accessed for the first time today 31 October 2011, in my research quest into my Vasey ancestry which I started by checking what I could find in around the Parish Churches of the city of London, and any connection to the name Vasey to be found, and the earliest dates which mentioned the name Vasey.   Alice Vasey I can find as born in Wiltshire, Yorkshire…. Is she this Alice?  It would make her around 32 yrs old at the time of the wedding, quite old for embarking on the 'rearing' of new baby lawyers … so why would she end up off the Strand?  This is all a bit of a mystery now.

 Another mysterious wedding… what a strange find it is too:

 27 Mar 1687 Benjamin Whitfeild marries (2^nd time in 10 years?) according to the Parish Register of St Mary Magdalen, Fish Street, a parishioner of the Parish of St Margaret, Westminster from the record.  His new wife too, is a parish outsider; she’s from St Giles in the fields.   Alice Vasey, could very well have been a parishioner of Charing Cross, Clarkenwell, or Castle Banyard since I have found 17^th Century Vaseys receiving their services at each of these parishes, obviously from what exists of their parish registers today.

 St Mary Magdalene Old Fish Street is no more, but if it were, this is a bit of it today:

The era of heresy required its storage facilities: 

Centralised record-keeping only became formalised in London much later, around 1838 – when the first archives were placed in the care of a building which once was opposite St Martin in the fields’ church, on the site of the present day Portrait Gallery… that old archive, eventually got transferred to Richmond but for many years, it sat neglected at St Martins, so documents were lost from history as a consequence of once being stored there.  Apparently a lot of the WWI conscription records were burned during a wartime fire which occurred there, that’s when it was decided to take the National Archives to a place outside the centre of London, for safety of all sorts, including rats. 

I’ve read that the old archives had in their turn a historic past, had been a part of the catacombs where they housed the dead from St Martins in the Fields in earlier times, cleared out, and restored to make way for a charitable school and a proper National Portrait collection [it was Lord Montefiore’s own collection of portraits which started off the National Portrait collection, he bequeathed it to the Nation in his will] … quite a gory place to have housed the national archives in the first place, the idea of a National Portrait collection, for the sake of competition with the French, was a progressive idea of the then nouveau-riche (who perhaps became the nouveau-riche from the middle class having also exploited the free labour of slavery (The Work Programme didn’t exist then, as it does now, but old bad habits die hard among the nouveau-riche I guess – we are now helped into a soft kind of slavery via government contract at a cost per head of up to £1,900 a head – bad behaviour is punishable not with corporal punishment, but with punitive withdrawal of JSA.  History compared): “What goes round, comes round”. 

As an observer, I noticed that at the time the latest digging was happening, what a major project it was, digging up the site around St Martin in the fields, if still full of the remnants of old forgotten cemeteries, catacombs, warehouses for the dead…. It must have been a really unpleasant job to clear all that up during the last restoration to St Martins.  Up until now, I didn’t think anything of it, but now that I have learned that St Martin’s is the old Vasey family parish church, I feel more uncomfortable about the thought that many family members were buried there once, and now that it is personal, I think that it is gory and disrespecting of the dead to have dug them all up with cranes … that’s capitalism and empire I suppose, real-estate is more valuable than people’s graves [remember the Porter scandals about selling two Westminster cemeteries for 1p each?  Perhaps as a site for developers?  Well, part of that cemetery today has luxury services flats on it!]. 

London Churches are not exactly hallowed ground nowadays (probably not so for 400 or 500 years, I can easily get the feeling that London churches seem to be the places where society houses its collective civic pride and puts it in display, as an alternative to religious iconographic gold-plated pride so evident in the Catholic churches – I can now understand why the more puritan Christians wanted to get rid of everything inside their churches related to pride … the great purge of fire clearing out the popery, witchcraft, radicalism and general old rubble in the land to be replaced by buildings that commercially were more favourable to the bourgeois society of a global empire.   [London churches today are stale again; perhaps we are historically due for another great purge of fire, this time to clear out the general old rubble of 200 year old bourgeois society and empire, including the new-build penthouse conversions which equally desecrate them – I know – I hate to see churches converted into trendy domestic or commercial living spaces, but that’s me.] 

Back to the mysterious two weddings: 

What I don’t understand is this Temple Church connection – the Whitfeild or the Vasey people weren’t in that social class as far as I can see, they were independent artisans, self-employed inside family workshops or shop premises, that is when London first became the Europe’s first ‘shopping experience’.  Perhaps Whitfeild was a lawyer’s apprentice?  My Vasey ancestors were literate, perhaps even educated.  Whitfeild of St Margaret, Westminster and his bride of St Giles in the fields… is a bit of a curious couple to end up getting married - St Margaret Westminster is a posh church, St Giles being the equivalent of a Salvation Army soup distribution centre for the destitute and, St Mary Magdalen was Christopher Wren’s reconstructed version of its namesake church destroyed in the Great Fire of London 1666, (two centuries later, broken again in an 1886 fire which spread from an adjacent warehouse, and left for gutted until it was finally put out of its misery seven years after the fire damage, in 1893.  St Martin Ludgate taking over its parish responsibilities. 

Saffron Hill: 

John and Jane Vasey in May 1750 are to be found living in Saffron Hill… which runs along from Hatton Garden down to almost Old Fish Street… further back, John and Mary Vasey were parishioners of St Gregory by St Paul in Aug 1686, so there is a family connection to that part of the City of London and the parish churches there.   Perhaps it was something to do with The Reformation (1599 to 1658) which caused the Vasey family to split between Southwark and Clerkenwell, or perhaps it was the Fire of London (1666) – Saffron Hill and Old Fish Street are both within the neighbourhood of my ancestors, because Saffron Hill into Shoe Lane goes from Clerkenwell down to the City, in parallel to the old path of the River Fleet which had at one side Saffron Hill, and at the other side Turnmill Street into Farringdon, both ending up in Temple-Ludgate Hill, north of the River Thames embankments at Blackfriars, east of St Paul’s… I know that Hannah Vasey, daughter of John and Mary was baptised in Aug 1686 at St Gregory by St Paul, and this church was in the parish of Castle Banyard, the same parish that Old Fish Street was also a part of.  

From Blackfriars to Castle Banyard, which is along the banks of the river Thames, is a relatively short walk in the direction of St Paul’s starting out from Blackfriars.  In that stretch towards the City of London between the Strand and the Victoria Embankment, at either end you can walk past the Temple, Shoe Lane, Farringdon, Ludgate Hill, past the Old Bailey, then turn right before reaching St Pauls to walk down to Blackfriars and Banyard Castle along the line of the River Thames… all this is the area of the City which was burned down in 1666 and which now has the Wren Churches dotted around all over… all a short walking distance from each other.   It is not surprising therefore that my Vasey ancestors ended up living in Charing Cross, because it still forms part of the same route, it being at the beginning of the Strand, and Blackfriars being at the other end or what I would say the other end of the Strand, at Farringdon-Ludgate, and the approach to St Paul’s Cathedral from Westminster, the non-embankment route (of antiquity). 

This is what Wikipedia writes about St Mary Magdalen, Old Fish Street (long segments of): 

St. Mary Magdalen Old Fish Street was the only one of the 8 churches in the post-Fire City of London, called “St. Mary” dedicated to the penitent Mary Magdalene, rather than the Virgin Mary. Old Fish Street formerly ran from the Thames towards St. Paul’s Cathedral and was the location of a fish market since medieval times. The street was incorporated into Knightrider Street in 1872. 

The earliest surviving reference to the church is in a document of 1181, as “St Mary Magdalen”. Other medieval records refer to the church as “St. Marie Magdal in Piscaria apud sanctum Paulum”, "St. Marie Magdal parish at the Fishmarket”, "St. Marie Magdalen Eldefisshestrete" and “St. Mary Magdalen at Lamberdyshel”. 

Among the memorials in the pre-Fire church was a brass plaque of 1586, commemorating the merchant and benefactor, Thomas Berrie. The plaque survived the Great Fire and may now be seen in St Martin, Ludgate. In part it reads: 

How smale soever the gift shall be/

Thanke God for him who gave it thee/

xii penie loves to xii poore foulkes/ 

Geve everie saboth day for aye 

St Martin, Ludgate also has the bread shelves from St. Mary Magdalen Old Fish Street. 

On Easter Day, 1653, John Evelyn recorded in his Diary that he and his family received Holy Communion at St. Mary Magdalen’s. This was during the Protectorate when Anglican services were banned. 

The church was destroyed in the Great Fire in 1666 and the parish combined with that of St. Gregory-by-St. Paul’s, which was not rebuilt. Building of the new church began in 1683, with new foundations for the north wall and tower, but incorporating some of the old walls elsewhere. The work was completed in 1687 at a total cost of £4315. 

Between 1824 and 1842, the rector of St. Mary Magdalen’s was the Reverend Richard Harris Barham, author of The Ingoldsby Legends. He was buried in the church in 1845. 

On the morning of Thursday, 2 December 1886, a fire broke out in a warehouse in what by this time was called Knightrider Street and spread to the church’s roof, causing substantial damage. Although the church was insured and repairable, the event took place during a period in which several undamaged churches in the City of London were being demolished under the Union of Benefices Act 1860. The opportunity was taken to pull down St. Mary Magdalen’s and combine the parish with that of St Martin, Ludgate, which received some of the furnishings from the demolished church. 

The site previously occupied by St. Mary Magdalen’s was built over after the Second World War, and is now covered by Old Change Square. 

The parish still retains a clerkship which is now in the gift of St. Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe and is currently held by Oliver Hylton, a past chairman of the Castle Baynard Ward Club. 

Architecture: 

The plan for St. Mary Magdalen’s was roughly rectangular, with the north wall tapering slightly towards the east. The two street frontages – to the east on Old Fish Street and to the south on Old Change – were faced with Portland stone. Underneath, the material was stone rubble. There were four large roundheaded windows on the south, and three similar windows on the east, each window flanked by pilasters capped by volutes. Entry to the church was through a door under the western window on the south front. The roof was balustraded. 

The tower was erected next to the north western wall of the church and stood 86 ft. high. This had a stone spire, consisting of an octagonal pyramid of five steps on which sat an open octagonal lantern from which emerged a concave steeple. The finial was in the form an urn, in allusion to St. Mary Magdalen’s pot of balm. The inspiration for the spire’s design was the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus. 

Organ: 

Organ by Samuel Green was installed in 1786. It was rebuilt in 1857 by Gray and Davison. 

By accident or by fortune: 

I first of all confused St Mary Magdalen, Old Fish Street with St Mary Magdalen, Southwark… but it was a fantastic error, when I read the historical information which the website of Bermondsey’s St Magdalen’s there contained, again, which I’m quoting long segments of below… it is a fascinating insight into community politics of its time … of how church and state and politics are intermingled together, in reading the extracts I could visualise our political lives today, and in this respect, I found the history to be a humorous distraction to today’s news stories. 

St Mary Magdalen Church, Southwark, Bermondsey: 

Bermondsey has had a place of worship for over 1000 years.  A monastery was in existence in the 8th C and in 1082 Alwyn Child funded the construction of a new building which appears to have been completed by 1089 when there is a first mention of a Prior, Petreius.  This Priory was attached to the French Abbey of Cluny.  A church is mentioned in the Domesday Book as "a new and handsome church"; this "Conventual Church" was dedicated to St Saviour and was situated to the south of the present church on the edge of the present churchyard. 

 In 1399 the Priory became an Abbey, at the request of King Richard II to the Pope.  In 1399 at the request of Richard II, Pope Boniface IX elevated the Prior to status of Abbot, and thus the Priory became an Abbey.  The King also granted the Abbot his own seal of a lion with a crozier and mitre - the "Bermondsey Lion".  This symbol can still be seen in several places in the church today, as seen here on the side of a desk (although the crozier has unfortunately lost its top with the mitre!).  This is one of a pair of desks which date from the early 20th C.   This lion is on the back of the seat in the churchwarden's pew - with complete crozier and mitre.  There is another larger one set in mosaic on the chancel floor, but this is covered by carpet (which at least protects it, although it also means that it has not been seen for several years). 

The Abbey was dissolved in 1537 by Henry VIII, and the estate was acquired by Sir Thomas Pope (who founded Trinity College Oxford) who built a mansion for himself, Bermondsey House.  The Abbey is still commemorated by many local street names. 

The first known record of the church of St Mary Magdalen is in about 1290, when the church appears to have been serving the workers in the Priory.  Little more is known of the following 400 years, although the engravings on the church silver of the late 16th/early 17th C indicate a wealthy congregation.  In 1680 the old church was pulled down (before it fell down?) - the only surviving remnant of the previous building is the late mediæval tower with a gothic window and four arches.  The new building was completed by 1690.  The North gallery was subsequently erected (in about 1705), and in 1794 the South gallery was added.  The last major work was the extension of the chancel in 1882/3.  

 The Churchwardens' Pew is of uncertain date.  It was probably formerly used to conduct parish business in the times when the churchwarden was a person of some importance in the community, in settling minor disputes.   It is thought that the pew was originally in a corner as the carving on the third side is of a distinctly inferior quality.  We would love to have more information on this, if there are any experts out there! 

Could there be a connection between Temple Church and St Magdalen Church?  Was Benjamin Whitfeild a Churchwarden ever?   Did he settle minor disputes within the community as part of an apprentices’ duties who may have been aspiring to be a kind of lawyer?  The new buildings at St Magdalen were completed in 1690, yet his own marriage record is 1687 – when the scaffoldings were still up?  Obviously they didn’t stop services from still taking place. 

[Note:  It is amazing that now that everybody is putting their own local knowledge & histories online, in micro detail, such as here, that one can get a kind of gist of the society’s customs of the past… the importance of the churchwarden’s role in some churches at that time, I could have never guessed such a fact, yet in the context of something else, it may even reveal a pertinent clue… fascinating really.] 

 Here is the Plaque of previous Rectors of the church of St Magdalen, Southwark, Bermondsey… on their website they have typed all the names out – so the contemporary rectors during the time of Benjamin Whitfeild’s wedding in 1687, and the construction works that were completed in 1690, the names were – together with some interesting historical facts about the family names of these rectors.

1654 Richard Parr 
1682 Alexander Forbes
1696 Stephen Heath

 And the historical information supplied: 

 http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924028066847/cu31924028066847_djvu.txt, - "William Browning, a fellmonger, purchases a limited advowson of the Rectory, and presents William Taswell, D.D., who occupies, perhaps as (what is vulgarly called) a warming-pan, from 1723 to 1726-7, and then resigns. The son of the patron-purchaser, the Reverend W. Browning, M.A., is now presented, and continues to be the minister until his death, 1740. Mr. Browning appears to think that he has not as yet had money's worth, and so he presents John Paget, M.A.; a lawsuit ensues, and as Mr. Browning has exceeded his time, his nominee, or clerk, as he is called, is in due course ejected.” 

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Whitaker,_Jeremiah_(DNB00) – says that Jeremiah Whitaker succeeded Thomas Paske in 1644; he served until his death on  1 June 1654, and was buried in the chancel. 

 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Whitaker,_William_(1629-1672)_(DNB00) - says that William Whitaker (son of Jeremiah Whitaker) succeeded his father as rector in 1654, which is at odds with Richard Parr (above).  Possibly this confusion came about because 1654 was the year that Richard Parr became vicar of nearby Camberwell. 

http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924028066847/cu31924028066847_djvu.txt - "The circumstances of the succeeding incumbency are not clear. We are told, on the one hand, that William Whitaker, the son of Jeremiah, was appointed to succeed his father in 1654 ; on the other, that the Rev. Dr. Parr, chaplain to Archbishop Usher, received the vacant benefice.  Mr. Phillips, in his list of the Rectors of Bermondsey, does not include William Whitaker, but represents Dr. Parr as filling the office from 1654 till his resignation in 1682. He does, however, say elsewhere that William Whitaker was ejected at the Restoration. 

Dr. Rendle's account of this divine is as follows: " William, called in 1654 to succeed his father as Rector of Bermondsey, was a minister indeed ; skilled in languages - Greek, Latin, and Oriental; fit to be a tutor at his college, i.e., Emmanuel, at Cambridge; a peacemaker, whose pride it was to settle disputes, and leave no rancour behind; just the man, making a conscience of his work, to be ejected. So in 1662 he was no longer Rector of Bermondsey." 

http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=43026 - gives some interesting and conflicting details of Thomas Paske and his successors: "In 1624 the patronage was exercised by Samuel Paske, citizen and merchant tailor of London, probably for one turn. He appointed Thomas Paske, D.D., master of Clare College, Cambridge.  In 1642 the churchwardens and parishioners petitioned the House of Lords because this Thomas, their rector, had not preached even once a year and had otherwise done nothing to provide preaching or reading in the church or to supply a dwelling for a curate. The expense of such arrangements had fallen on the petitioners. They had lately bought the next presentation to the living and they prayed for a confirmation of their elect.  In the following year a draft order of the House directed the sequestration of Dr. Paske, a non-resident minister and a teacher of heretical doctrines, in order that the parishioners might maintain their own minister. Paske, whose Arminian opinions [Christian Orthodox I imagine] were as obnoxious as his negligence, was ejected accordingly in this year, and the parishioners appointed in his stead Jeremiah Whitaker, an eminent Orientalist, member of the Westminster Assembly, who held the benefice until his death in 1654 and was buried in the chancel of the church. He was succeeded by another distinguished theologian, Dr. Richard Parr, who resigned the living in 1682."  

"The history and antiquities of the parish of Bermondsey" - By G. W. Phillips, 1841, It would seem that William Whitaker succeeded his father as rector in 1654 and remained in post until 1662, being then succeeded by Richard Parr. 

My goodness, what a trip! 

Perhaps I will never solve the mystery of the two Benjamin Whitfeilds and the two Benjamin Whitfeild brides… but that is the fun that is contained in such mysteries.