ALL HALLOWS by the TOWER

All Hallows by the Tower was founded in 675AD - it is the oldest church in the City of London. An arch from this original church remains and, beneath that, a fragment of Roman pavement. The church has looked after the bodies of those beheaded on nearby tower hill, including Thomas More's and, from the tower of the church, Samuel Pepys watched London burn in 1666. The founder of Pennsylvania, William Penn, was baptised here and notable weddings included those of John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the USA, and Judge Jeffries, famous for his 'bloody assizes' in the aftermath of the Battle of Sedgemoor of 1685. All Hallows survived the Great Fire, thanks to the efforts of Pepys' friend Admiral Penn, but was fairly comprehensively bombed during WW2 and rebuilt in the 1950s. A long-serving vicar of the church was 'Tubby' Clayton, founder of 'Toc H', the rest and recuperation centre for troops in Belgium during WW1.