Like its neighbour and contemporary, St Paul’s Cathedral, St Vedast-alias-Foster survived the blitz in the second world war when much of the local area was devastated amd destroyed.
There has been a church here for almost a thousand years and this was built to replace a predecessor fatally damaged in the Great Fire of 1666 by Christopher Wren who also designed the nearby Cathedral, which was similarly done down by the fire.
Its the oldest building in the neighbourhood now, the church is surrounded by bland monstrosities of concrete, steel and glass and looks out on a busy main road.
If you step through some blue doors on Foster Lane by the side of the church you pass through a hallway before coming quickly to a sweet little courtyard which is perfect for a quiet five minutes of rest and contemplation. Benches look out from under their cloisters upon a tidy, tiny garden and invite you to sit on them.
On the Sunday I last visited, I could hear the muffled sound of the service seeping through the walls of the church into the courtyard. Birds sang. A plane flew silently overhead, its contrail scorching a white line in a blue, almost cloudless, sky. And nothing else. I had the courtyard to myself for half an hour and read my book and drank a takeaway cup of coffee.
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