Undershaft; St. Catherine Cree; St. Dunstan’s, Stepney; St. Giles’, Cripplegate; All Hallows, Staining; St. James’s, Aldgate; St. Sepulchre’s; St. Mary Woolnoth; all the old City churches were destroyed by the Great Fire, and some of the above were damaged and repaired.  “Destroyed by the Great Fire, rebuilt by Wren,” is the story of most of the City churches of London.  To him fell the task of rebuilding the fallen edifices.  Well did he accomplish his task.  He had no one to guide him; no school of artists or craftsmen to help him in the detail of his buildings; no great principles of architecture to direct him.  But he triumphed over all obstacles and devised a style of his own that was well suitable for the requirements of the time and climate and for the form of worship of the English National Church.  And how have we treated the buildings which his genius devised for us?  Eighteen of his beautiful buildings have already been destroyed, and fourteen of these since the passing of the Union of City Benefices Act in 1860 have succumbed.  With the utmost difficulty vehement attacks on others have been warded off, and no one can tell how long they will remain.  Here is a very sad and deplorable instance of the vanishing of English architectural treasures.  While we deplore the destructive tendencies of our ancestors we have need to be ashamed of our own.

We will glance at some of these deserted shrines on the sites where formerly they stood.  The Rev. Gilbert Twenlow Royds, Rector of Haughton and Rural Dean of Stafford, records three of these in his neighbourhood, and shall describe them in his own words:—­

“On the main road to Stafford, in a field at the top of Billington Hill, a little to the left of the road, there once stood a chapel.  The field is still known as Chapel Hill; but not a vestige of the building survives; no doubt the foundations were grubbed up for ploughing purposes.  In a State paper, describing ’The State of the Church in Staffs, in 1586,’ we find the following entry:  ’Billington Chappell; reader, a husbandman; pension 16 groats; no preacher.’  This is under the heading of Bradeley, in which parish it stood.  I have made a wide search for information as to the dates of the building and destruction of this chapel.  Only one solitary note has come to my knowledge.  In Mazzinghi’s History of Castle Church he writes:  ’Mention is made of Thomas Salt the son of Richard Salt and C(lem)ance his wife as Christened at Billington Chapel in 1600.’  Local tradition says that within the memory of the last generation stones were carted from this site to build the churchyard wall of Bradley Church.  I have noticed several re-used stones; but perhaps if that wall were to be more closely examined or pulled down, some further history might disclose itself.  Knowing that some of the stones were said to be in a garden on the opposite side of the road, I asked permission to investigate.  This was most kindly granted,