St Olave Hart Street
pepys's own parish church
A rare medieval City church that survived the Great Fire, the burial place of the diarist Samuel Pepys and his wife.
Free to visit · City of London · Tower Hill · EC3R 7NB
Opening: Open select days · respect services
St Olave's is one of the few medieval churches to survive the Great Fire of London, saved when the flames were halted nearby, and it was the parish church of the great diarist Samuel Pepys, who recorded so much of that very fire. He and his wife Elizabeth are buried here, and her memorial bust gazes down from the wall where Pepys himself used to sit.
Its macabre gateway of carved skulls so unnerved Charles Dickens that he nicknamed it Saint Ghastly Grim. Small, ancient and atmospheric, it is free to enter and a moving place to stand for anyone who has read Pepys's vivid account of seventeenth-century London.
Getting there: On Hart Street in the City, a couple of minutes from Tower Hill or Fenchurch Street.
Best time to go: A weekday when it is open, on a walk near Tower Hill.
Insider tip: Look up at the skull-topped gateway on Seething Lane that Dickens called Saint Ghastly Grim. Inside, find the memorial bust of Elizabeth Pepys, positioned so her husband could see it from his pew.
Free things to do in London · London Free Guide