Owner Comments:
Middlesex Skidmore's Churches and Gates DH #645
Obverse: A south east view of St. Michael's, Cheapside - ST MICHAEL WOOD . ST. BUILT . 1671
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 located on the west side of Wood Street and the corner of Huggin Lane, the old church dated back to at least 1225 and was destroyed in the Great Fire of London. The church was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren and was one of his least expensive churches. Due to declining membership the church was eventually demolished in 1894 and the parish merged with St Alban Wood Street.
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 496
Bt. Ernest Latter