3-101-187 - "Royal Academy of Arts, London"/Heritage Images

Great Saint Helen's, c1886. The largest surviving parish church in the City of London, parish church of William Shakespeare when he lived in the area in the 1590s, one of only a few churches in the City of London to survive both the Great Fire of 1666 and the Blitz. 'This view shows the south entrance of this most interesting church, and, on the left, a portion of a massive timber-built house. The inscription over the church door is "LAUS. DEO. St. HELENA . REPd. 1633".' Description by Alfred Marks. Although the church suffered considerable damage from IRA bomb blasts in the early 1990s, the doorway, as seen in Dixon's photograph, remains the same today.