There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned spat between neighbours to bring out the worst in people.
Stand on Cornhill facing number 54-55, look up, and you’ll spot the extreme measures taken by the architect of this building against the church next door. They are known as the Cornhill Devils.
While they may sound like the nickname of a local football team, they are in fact three fiendish figures high up on the building next to St Peter-upon-Cornhill Church.
The story goes that in the late 19th century, the Vicar of St Peter-upon-Cornhill objected to the plans for the redevelopment of a new building being built next door, claiming that it would encroach fractionally onto the Church’s property.
A lengthy dispute followed until eventually the architect of the new building was forced to revise his plans at great cost, and as way of revenge, installed three demonic creatures who would forever look down at the church and leer at the parishioners as they entered. As a final insult, one of the grotesques was supposed to bare a passing resemblance to the Vicar.
Whether this had any effect on the church’s attendance is hard to say, and though it still operates – allbeit now only in a satellite capacity for St Helen’s Bishopsgate – the church building itself looks like it’s definitely seen better days. So maybe the Cornhill Devils did their work.
