Owner Comments:
Middlesex Skidmore's Churches and Gates DH #636
Obverse: A south east view of the Chapel Royal of St. Peter ad Vincula, the parish church of the Tower of London THE . CHAPEL . IN . THE . TOWER Ex: JACOBS. in small letters BUILT . 1371 . in two lines
Reverse: The Skidmore cypher - PSCO in script, 1797 below, DEDICATED . TO . COLLECTORS . OF . MEDALS. & COINS . surrounding
Edge: Plain
Diesinker: Benjamin Jacobs
Manufacturer: Paul Skidmore
Weight: 11.44g
Rarity: Common
St. Peter ad Vincula is the former parish church of the Tower of London. Henry I built a chapel on the site in 1100 but the plain stone building depicted dates from 1272 in the reign of Edward I and it became the chapel for the inhabitants of the Tower during the reign of Henry III. The chapel serves as the regimental church of The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
The Chapel is probably best known as the burial site for many who met their end in the Tower and on Tower Green. The list incudes: Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Catherine Howard, Queen Lady Jane Grey and her husband Lord Guilford Dudley as well as Sr. Thomas More.
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 488
Bt. Merfyn Williams