Fight your way through the crowds surrounding the Tower of London and you might just make it through to one of London’s oldest churches.
All Hallows by the Tower seems to be able to trace its foundation back to 675CE, when Erkenwald, the bishop of London, created it as a chapel of the Abbey of Barking, whose abbess was his sister Ethelburga. (This is why the church is sometimes known as ‘All Hallows Barking’.)
It has, as one might imagine, a rich history. Pepys climbed its tower to see the destruction wrought by the Great Fire; the sixth president of the USA, John Quincey Adams, was married here; the church saw the baptism of William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania. All Hallows is the guild chapel of the international Christian organisation ‘Toc H’, founded by a previous vicar of the church Philip ‘Tubby’ Clayton.
Continue reading “The crypt museum in All Hallows by the Tower”