St. Bartholomew the Great

St. Bartholomew the Great Review

Reached via a perfect half-timber gatehouse atop a 13th-century stone archway, this is one of London's oldest churches. Construction on the church and the hospital nearby was begun in 1123 by Henry I's favorite courtier, Rahere, who caught malaria and, surviving, vowed to dedicate his life to serving the saint who had visited him in his fevered dreams. With the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Henry VIII had most of the place torn down; the Romanesque choir loft is all that survives from the 12th century. The ancient church has appeared in The Other Boleyn Girl, Four Weddings and a Funeral, and Shakespeare in Love.