The Anonymous Widower

Historic Church Tower Suspended On Stilts To Make Way For London Skyscraper

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Times.

This is the sub-heading.

The remaining part of the 700-year-old All Hallows Staining, off Fenchurch Street, will be the centrepiece of the public square below Axa’s £1 billion office

These three paragraphs add more details.

A700-year-old church tower is being suspended on 45ft stilts while developers clear the ground beneath to make way for the City of London’s newest skyscraper.

The tower, which is all that remains of All Hallows Staining close to Fenchurch Street station, is being preserved and will be the centrepiece of the public square at the base of 50 Fenchurch Street — the £1 billion office tower being built by the investment arm of Axa, the French insurer.

More than 125,000 tonnes of earth has been cleared from underneath and around the church — which survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 — into which the foundations will be laid and a basement level built.

The Wikipedia entry for All Hallows Staining, starts with this paragraph.

All Hallows Staining was a Church of England church located at the junction of Mark Lane and Dunster Court in the north-eastern corner of Langbourn ward in the City of London, England, close to Fenchurch Street railway station. All that remains of the church is the tower, built around AD 1320 as part of the second church on the site. Use of the grounds around the church is the subject of the Allhallows Staining Church Act 2010 (c. v).

Note.

1. The Wikipedia entry gives a lot of history and other details about the tower.
2. It was named “Staining”, which means stone, to distinguish it from the other churches of All Hallows in the City of London, which were wooden.
3. The old church survived the Great Fire of London in 1666 but collapsed five years later in 1671.
4. The church appears to have been cheaply rebuilt in 1674.
5. In 1870 the parish of All Hallows Staining was combined with that of St Olave Hart Street and All Hallows was demolished, leaving only the tower.
6. All Hallows Staining seems to have survived World War Two, but St Olave Hart Street suffered serious damage.
7. Between 1948 and 1954, when the restored St Olave’s was reopened, a prefabricated church stood on the site of All Hallows Staining. The tower of All Hallows Staining was used as the chancel of the temporary church.
8. The remains of All Hallows Staining were designated a Grade I listed building on 4 January 1950.

The tower of All Hallows Staining seems to have a very strong survival instinct.

This web page gives more details of Fifty Fenchurch Street,

This morning, I went  to take some pictures of the tower and the construction site.

Note.

1. I walked around the site from the forecourt of Fenchurch Street station.
2. The last three pictures were taken from the top deck of a Westbound 25 bus.
3. There appears to be no accessible bar or roof-top from which you can look down on the site.

So for the present time, the 25 bus seems to give the best views.

This afternoon, I took a train to Fenchurch Street station and looked at the Eastern and Northern sides of the site.

Note.

1. The first picture was taken through the upper windows of the front of Fenchurch Street station.
2. I think I might have got a better view out of the window of Fenchurch Street station, if Great Socialist Railways had cleaned the windows.
3. In pictures three to nine, the “Walkie-Talkie” towers over All Hallows Staining.
4. Some pictures were better than those I took in the morning, as the truck had moved.
5. The last picture shows the sign for the Garden at 120.

The area isn’t short of geometric shapes to photograph.

September 25, 2025 Posted by AnonW | World | All Hallows Staining, City of London, Construction, Engineering, Fenchurch Street Station, Fifty Fenchurch Street, Garden At 120, Great British Railways, London Bus 25, The Walkie-Talkie | Leave a comment