V. THE CHURCH OF ST. MARTIN OUTWICH.
This, and the Almshouses at the Hall (to be referred to
presently), are both Institutions of the Past. The advowson of
St. Martin's Rectory in ancient time was, as Stowe informs us,
in the gift of John, Earl of Warren and Surrey, who presented
to it in the reigns of Edward the Second and Edward the
Third. Dying without issue in the year 1347, the last of
that noble and ancient family, he devised his Lands to the
Crown, from whence this Advowson was purchased by John
Churchman, probably acting as a Trustee for William and John
Oteswich, who by Licence of Henry the Fourth, in the 6th year
of his reign, gave the Advowson, with four messuages and
seventeen shops, to the Master and Wardens of Taylors and Linen
Armourers, Keepers of the Guild and Fraternity of St. John
Baptist in London, and to their successors in Perpetual Alms,
to be employed upon their poor Brethren and Sisters. In virtue
of this Grant, the Company continued Patrons until the removal
of the Church and the union of the benefice with St. Helen's,
under the scheme to be mentioned hereafter.
The church of St. Martin Outwich
The church is said to have been rebuilt by the Oteswiches
(whose name became corrupted into Outwich) (fn. 1) in the 14th
Century. It was Gothic, 60 feet in length, 42 in breadth, and
31 in the height of the roof. "The body of it consisted,"
according to Ellis, "of brick and stone strengthened at the
corners by a massy rustic, the windows large and of the coarse
Gothic, and a battlement of square, plain workmanship round
the building. The turret rose plain from the top, arched and
supported by four piers. The dome consisted of a sort of
moulding in architecture, of a round and a hollow, and its
crown ornamented with a ball from which rose the fane."
It was known in 1558 by the name of St. Martin's "with
the well and two (fn. 2) bokettes," though when Stowe wrote his
" Survey," these had been "turned to a pump." To this
church the Company resorted for dirges and obites before the
Reformation, and for funerals and election days after it. The
almsmen of the Company (as we shall see hereafter) had also
to give constant attendance, "there serving God and his Saints,
keeping all Divine Service said and sung there weekly, and
praying every day" for the rulers of the Company (inter alia).
The Oteswiches were interred there, and as the church escaped
the Fire of London their monument remained nearly in situ
(though the church was rebuilt in 1796) until removal in
1874 to the Church of St. Helen's, there to be re erected in the
Chapel of the Holy Ghost, appropriated as a mortuary chapel
of St. Martin's.
By the Order in Council of the 5th. May 1873 the parish
and benefice was united to those of St. Helen's. The tithes,
amounting to 2,250l., raised under the 37th Henry VIII., c. 12,
and the London Tithe Act, 1864, were apportioned to the
endowment of St. Helen's, and to three other parishes mentioned in the Council Order. (fn. 3)