St Bartholomew-the-Great

The story

St Bartholomew-the-Great lies in Smithfield, on the north-western edge of the City of London, directly beside St Bartholomew's Hospital, which grew from the same 12th-century foundation. It is a medieval church still used for worship today, an Anglo-Catholic parish of the Church of England belonging to the London diocese, and it is listed Grade I.

Its founder was Rahere, one of the more colorful figures of Norman London. He was a canon of St Paul's Cathedral and later an Augustinian canon, but medieval and later writers also paint him as a member of Henry I's court, an entertainer who made music, even a royal jester. His foundation story comes in more than one version. In one, he fell ill while on pilgrimage to Rome and, in a vision, St Bartholomew told him to build a church and hospital at Smithfield. In another, he dreamed in Rome that a winged beast carried him up to a high place and passed on a command from heaven to build a church there. Either way, on returning to London he learned that the land he had seen, at the time a small burial ground, belonged to the king and could not be built on. Henry I, hearing of the vision, granted it to him. The priory was founded in 1123 (Wikidata gives 1101, but 1123 is the date normally cited), and Rahere led it as prior until his death, which the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography places between 1143 and 1145.

The priory survived until 1539, when it was dissolved in the English Reformation. Mary I briefly revived the church and some of the surviving buildings as London's third Dominican friary, the Black Friars, in 1556, but it closed again in 1559. The church escaped the Great Fire of 1666, yet what remained was then badly neglected and put to secular uses. The north transept became a blacksmith's forge and later housed squatters in the 18th century. The Lady Chapel at the east end was let for business, and in the mid-1720s it held a printer's shop where a young Benjamin Franklin, who reached London in 1724 on the suggestion of Pennsylvania's governor, Sir William Keith, worked for a year as a journeyman typesetter.

In 1888 new parish school rooms were built over part of the old burial ground, with basements for youth clubs and a soup kitchen. The rector, the Revd Sir Borradaile Savory, helped fund them, and the Duchess of Albany laid the foundation stone on 5 July 1888. The smaller sister church founded at the same time, St Bartholomew-the-Less, now serves as a chapel of ease, and since 2012 the two have been united as the benefice of Great St Bartholomew.

The legend

The church has one ghost, and it is the founder himself. According to the tradition, during repair work in the 19th century Rahere's tomb was opened and one of his sandals was taken away. The sandal was eventually given back to the church, but, as the story pointedly adds, his foot was not, and Rahere has walked ever since.

The apparition is described as a shadowy, hooded figure in a monk's cowl that steps out of the vestry, brushes past surprised onlookers and slowly fades away. The tale even gives him a timetable: he is supposed to appear every year at 7 a.m. on 1 July.

The story is thin on evidence, and it is worth saying so plainly. As far as our research goes, it rests on a single published source, the ghost-walk guidebook Walking Haunted London by Richard Jones (2001), which Wikipedia relays. No date or record of the 19th-century tomb opening has been found, no witness is named, and no paranormal investigation or television program has looked into the church. The church's own history pages do not mention a ghost at all.

There is also a historical problem at the heart of the legend. The tomb monument to Rahere on the north side of the high altar was made around 1400, roughly 250 years after his death, and the effigy that lies on it was added about a century after that. It is not certain that the tomb contains his remains at all, which makes the story of his disturbed bones and missing sandal harder to credit.

What gives the legend its staying power is the setting. The priory was built on a former cemetery, later buildings went up on part of its burial ground, and the medieval interior has made the church a favorite with filmmakers, from Four Weddings and a Funeral and Shakespeare in Love to Sherlock Holmes and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Those appearances have nothing to do with ghosts, but they have made the interior familiar to many people who have never been inside.

What remains today

Only part of the great priory church survives, and the way in tells the story. Visitors enter from West Smithfield through what is left of the old west entrance: a 13th-century stone arch with a half-timbered Tudor frontage built on top in the late 16th century. That conversion may be the work of the Dominican friars in the 1550s, or of Lord Rich, Lord Chancellor from 1547 to 1551, who held the church's patronage after the Reformation. From the gatehouse, the path to the west door follows roughly the line of the vanished south aisle, so you walk where part of the medieval church once stood.

Inside, the church keeps Rahere's tomb monument north of the high altar, the setting for the ghost story, with its later effigy. The building remains a working parish church, with services held both here and at St Bartholomew-the-Less beside the hospital.

Visiting

St Bartholomew-the-Great is an active church, and visitors are welcome within its arrangements; check the official website for opening times, services and any admission charge before you go, and remember that worship takes priority. Be quiet during services, follow any guidance on photography, and keep out of any areas that are closed to the public.

Anyone hoping to catch the founder on his annual walk should note that 7 a.m. on 1 July may fall outside normal opening hours. Because the ghost story comes from a ghost-walk guide, the church is likely to feature on City of London ghost walks, though we could not confirm a specific tour.

Sources

1. Historic England list entry (List entry 1180873) — Historic England · Open Government Licence
2. A history of the Smithfield gate of the parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, E. C. .. — Internet Archive · Webb, Edward Alfred, 1908-01-01 · Public domain (pre-1929)
3. The priory church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield. A short history of the foundation and a description of the fabric and also of the church of St. Bartholomew-the-Less; — Internet Archive · Worley, George, 1908-01-01 · Public domain (pre-1929)
4. The records of St. Bartholomew's priory and of the church and parish of St. Bartholomew's the Great, West Smithfield — Internet Archive · Webb, Edward Alfred, 1921-01-01 · Public domain (pre-1929)
5. The records of St. Bartholomew's priory and of the church and parish of St. Bartholomew the Great, West Smithfield — Internet Archive · Webb, Edward Alfred, 1921-01-01 · Public domain (pre-1929)
6. Wikimedia Commons category : St Bartholomew-the-Great — Wikimedia Commons
7. History of St Barts — The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great (official site) — The Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great (official site
8. Official website
9. Rahere — Wikipedia — Wikipedia (cites Oxford DNB, J. Etherton 2004
10. Wikipedia article — Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Text written by AI from the sources above and checked by a separate AI fact-check (how we work). Images: credits and licenses under each picture.