In Hart St., leading east from Mark Lane, is the church of St. Olave, consecrated to St. Olaf of Norway (995-1030), one of the few survivals of the score or so of City churches that escaped the Great Fire. Ths time of its original foundation is uncertain, but most of the present edifice seems to date from the 15th century (Perpendicular; open 8-9.30 & 11-4). The oldest of the many monuments in the very interesting INTERIOR (some of them brought from All Hallows Staining) is a brass of 1524 (south wall). Samuel Pepys (16321703), the diarist, who lived in the adjacent Seething Lane, was a regular attendant at this church; the former position of the gallery with his pew is indicated by a memorial to him, unveiled by James Russell Lowell in 1884. On the north side of the chancel is the monument, with a charming bust, of Mrs. Pepys (1640-69), erected by her husband. Both are buried in the vaults below the high-altar. The vestry door (15th century), four wrought-iron sword stands (1715-81), the carved oak pulpit (ascribed to Grinling Gibbons), the communion plate, and the quaint epitaph on the Ogborne brass (1584; south-east corner) are among other objects of interest. Over one of the pillars on the south side of the nave is the monument of John Watts (1789), 'President of the Council of New York.' The skulls over the churchyard gate in Seething Lane (Dickens's 'St. Ghastly Grim') are supposed (somewhat doubtfully) to refer to the burials during the Plague in 1665. The Master and Brethren of Trinity House attend service here on Trinity Monday.
When Pepys was Secretary of the Admiralty the Navy Office stood in Crutched Friars (i.e. 'Crossed Friars,' from an old monastery), the street prolonging Hart St. towards the north-east Sir Francis Drake's quadrant is preserved in the National Maritime Club, No. 4 Rangoon St., at the north end of Crutched Friars.
Railway Place leads to the right from Fenchurch St. to Penchurch Street Station, for trains to Blackwall, Tilbury, Southend, North Greenwich, etc. The church of St. Katherine Coleman (rebuilt in 1734), on the same side, is about to be pulled down to make way for an extension of the offices of Lloyd's Register OF BRITISH AND FOREIGN SHIPPING, at the corner of Lloyd's Avenue.
This society (distinct from Lloyd's Underwriter's) was founded in 1760 and reconstituted in 1834. Its primary object is to secure an accurate classification of merchant shipping, but it now discharges many other important functions, for which it maintains 'surveyors' at the chief ports of the world. The affairs of the society are managed by a general committee, consisting of 76 members, and comprising shipowners, underwriters, merchants, shipbuilders, and marine engineers elected to represent all the principal shipping and shipbuilding centres of the United Kingdom. There are committees also at Liverpool, Glasgow, New York, Paris, Gothenburg, and Trieste. The society's Register Book is published annually and contains full particulars of all vessels classed by Lloyd's Register (which total over 64,000,000 tons), and of all sea-going vessels. The volume for 1925-26 enumerates 10,989 British ships and 21,927 foreign. The highest class for steel and iron vessels is 100 A1 and for wooden vessels A1, the letter A referring to the hull and the figure 1 to the equipment. A prefixed cross (+) means 'built under special survey' of the society's surveyors.
Fenchurch St. ends at Aldgate Pump.
