At its peak before the devastating arrival of the Black Death during the 1340s, the population living within the Square Mile contained by medieval London’s city walls was around 80,000. That’s the same density as modern-day Manila or Mumbai. To serve the spiritual needs of those people the city was divided into 100 parishes, each with a church at its heart, making the average inner-London parish the size of four football pitches — tiny. Today, under 9,000 people live in the same area — albeit half a million people come here to work or visit. Unsurprisingly, the number of active churches has halved. One of those, St Dunstan in the East, has found a new life, but its extraordinary story reflects the wider history of our city.
Our story starts not in London but at Glastonbury because this was where Dunstan, later St Dunstan, was born in 909 CE. Dunstan was musically gifted — appropriate for any resident of Glastonbury — as well as being a talented goldsmith and scribe, but it was the church that beckoned. He became the bishop of the abbey of his birthplace, and eventually rose to take the No 1 spot in the English church, becoming Archbishop of Canterbury in 960. On his death 28 years after taking on the top job, he was sanctified and remained the most popular English saint until becoming eclipsed by St Thomas Becket after the latter’s martyrdom in 1170. Numerous churches were dedicated to Dunstan, including two in London — one to the west on Fleet Street, the other close to the Tower of London in the east.
