The Church of the High Seas

St Dunstan's, Stepney, is an Anglican church located in Stepney High Street, London. Believed to have been founded or re-founded in AD 952 by St Dunstan, the patron saint of bell ringers and metalworkers, it is also known as the Mother Church of the East End. As the local bishop and Lord of the manor of Stepney, Dunstan may have lived nearby and is recorded as having a 'hands on' approach to building the church. It is realistic that Dunstan, perhaps aided by local builders, adjusted the alignment of the church structure within the trenches with his shoulder before it was finished with wattle and daub.

The church is known as the Church of the High Seas due to Stepney’s close historic links to seaborne trade. The registration of births at sea was the responsibility of the Bishop of London, with the recording carried out at St Dunstan’s. This appears to be the origin of the tradition that British warships are part of the Parish of Stepney, and that children born at sea are Stepney parishioners, as recounted on the old rhyme: 'He who sails on the wide sea, is a parishioner of Stepney'.

The existing building is the third on the site and was built of Kentish ragstone mainly in the fifteenth century. While the area around the church was devastated by air raids, the church building suffered relatively minor damage when a V2 ballistic missile landed in the north-west part of the churchyard in January 1945, damaging the tower and destroying stained glass windows. In the mid-1950s, a proposal to turn the churchyard into a park was ultimately shelved in 1969.

As befitting a church dedicated to the patron saint of bell ringers, a ring of ten bells, tuned to C#, hangs in the belfry. These were cast at the local Whitechapel Bell Foundry, founded in 1570, which was the last major survivor of an East End metalworking heritage going back to at least the 1300s. The bells are mentioned in the nursery rhyme Oranges and Lemons, reflecting the enduring heritage of this Grade I listed site.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons