This is the second blog on our journey on the 43 bus from Friern Barnet to London Bridge.
The automated voice intones that we are approaching St. Peter's Church.
This is surprisingly prophetic for a TFL recorded voice, because until very recently this was, in fact, St Peter-le-poer Church (which is harder to say). Now the former high church with its Solemn Mass has merged with Grace Church, its evangelical Fresh Expressions tenant, so it has adopted the simpler new name that uncannily TFL had prophesied on the adjoining bus stop.
If, unwarily, you were to assume that a Parish Church is an unchanging pivot in a fast-changing landscape the above paragraph is disarming. But not as disarming as this church's actual story.
Granted the stone is hard to read, but it tells the story of a City of London Church which was demolished early in the 20th Century. You can read about it clicking here.
Poer has very many meanings in various languages, some best not dwelt upon. But in this case it simply is a variant of 'poor'. This could refer to monks in poverty vows or to the nearby slums. If the latter, the name ended as ironic for the City parish became fabulously wealthy, today housing office spaces that would rival the cost of almost anywhere on the planet.
And that is not all. The original church from towards a thousand years ago was itself rebuilt and, then rebuilt again and resited to what is now Old Broad Street.
All of which makes me think, as the 43 bus heads down toward Moorgate (barely a stone's throw from Old Broad Street) that few if any passengers realise that the church they are passing has already done the same journey the other way!
