Owner Comments:
Middlesex Skidmore's Churches and Gates DH #559
Obverse: A view of St. Mildred's church on Bread Street. ST. MILDREDS . BREAD ST. BT. 1683.
Reverse: The Skidmore cypher - PSCO in script, 1797 below, DEDICATED . TO . COLLECTORS . OF . MEDALS. & COINS . surrounding
Edge: Plain
Diesinker: Benjamin Jacobs
Manufacturer: Paul Skidmore
Rarity: Common
The church was dedicated to Saint Mildred, the daughter of Merwaldus, a prince of Mercia, and niece to Penda, the Mercian king and Saxon saint. The old church on this location was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, the one illustrated was built by Christopher Wren in 1683. The church was bombed in WW2 and completely destroyed. A Grade II listed office building now occupies the site.
Percy Bysshe Shelley married Mary Goodwin in 1816 in the church.
The family business of the token manufacturer Peter Skidmore was an iron foundry at 15 Coppice Row in Clerkenwell with a shop at No. 123, High Holborn. Skidmore realized that there was a market for tokens as the genuine tradesmen's pieces of the time were very keenly collected as they were issued. As well as making genuine tradesmens' tokens to order, he also made pennies and halfpennies for sale to collectors of the time - especially series of Buildings Tokens for London.
One of a set of 120 pieces - each portraying a well-known church in or around London.
Atkins: Middlesex 429
Bt. John Newman