Owner Comments:
Middlesex Skidmore’s Churches and Gates DH #601a
Obverse: A north view of St. Mary, Wollnoth ST. MARY . WOOLNORTH . LOMBARD . ST. Ex: JACOBS in small letters
Reverse: The Skidmore cypher PSCO in script DEDICATED TO COLLECTORS OF MEDALS & COINS . surrounding
Edge: Plain
Diesinker: Benjamin Jacobs
Manufacturer: Paul Skidmore
Weight: 9.84g
Rarity: Common
The original church was built before 1355, rebuilt and restored over the years and destroyed to its outer walls in the Great Fire of 1666 and repaired in 1677. It was eventually torn down about 1716 and the church depicted was built. During the digging of the foundation workmen discovered a Roman temple on the site. The church had a beam for weighing wool in its churchyard, leading to the name. Bank tube station lies beneath 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 462
Bt. Brian Herriott