3-101-157 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Austin Friars, c1884. Austin Friars was a former Augustinian friary in the City of London. After its dissolution in 1538, some of the precinct and land immediately adjoining it was used to build rented tenements which were occupied by a number of notable figures including Erasmus, the Imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys, and Thomas Cromwell, the principal official of King Henry VIII. '"Then next," says Stowe, "have you the Augustine Friars' Church and Churchyard; the entering thereunto by a south gate to the west porch, a very large Church having a most fine spired steeple - small, high, and straight, I have not seen the like: founded by Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford and Essex, in the year 1253." At the Dissolution the house was bestowed on William Paulet, the first Marquis of Winchester, and from the residence built by him on the site of the Friars' house, cloister and gardens, years ago; the name still survives. "The Friars' Church", says Stow, "he pulled not down, but the west end thereof, enclosed from the steeple and choir, was in the year 1550 granted to the Dutch nation in London, to be their preaching place." The Church, rebuilt after a fire in 1862, still remains the Dutch Church.' Description by Alfred Marks.