St Dunstan-in-the-West Church (to differentiate it from St Dunstan-in-the-East Church, now a City garden in the east of the Square Mile) on Fleet Street dates back to Saxon Times. It's dedicated to the Anglo-Saxon holy man St Dunstan who, prior to Thomas Becket, was probably the most important saint in England.
Dunstan is the patron saint of goldsmiths' (quite a few banks on Fleet Street were founded by goldsmiths'), is known for reputedly tweaking the Devil's nose with hot tongs, and was a former Archbishop of Canterbury, who was able to bring a cessation of hostilities with the invading Danes for a quarter of a century. Oh, and he also came up with the ritual we now know as the coronation ceremony. Dunstan also has a court on Fleet Street named after him and a chapel dedicated to him in St Paul's Cathedral, and going by his workload, who can begrudge him that?
Whilst St Dunstan-in-the-West contains many interesting and historical items inside the church (including some sculptures that date back to the 1530s), outside it is just as fascinating. High up in a small courtyard you will find a statue of Elizabeth I dating back to 1586. Carved in her lifetime the figure of Good Queen Bess, holding an orb and sceptre, is supposedly the oldest complete outdoor statue in London.
Inside a small porchway beneath the Tudor queen are carvings from the same period of the mythical pre-Roman King Lud and two of his sons. King Lud is probably as real as King Arthur, and so far no archeological evidence has been found of any pre-Roman presence in the City of London. Whilst the Lud in Ludgate could possibly be related to flooding, I like to think the mythical king gave his name to a road (Ludgate Hill), a crossroads (Ludgate Circus) and also a City gate. He most definitely gave his name to a nearby ex-pub once called the Old King Lud. Closed for a while now it is currently a branch of Leon's, but King Lud's effigy is still in place.
However, both of these Tudor items weren't first located hard by St Dunstan-in-the-West Church. They were actually located further into the City, not far from St Paul's Cathedral and situated on one of the original city gates: Ludgate.
Ludgate, along with five other original gates, once controlled trade and access to the Square Mile, charging tolls for those vehicles wanting to gain admittance.
In 1554 Ludgate was where the so-called Wyatt Rebellion foundered, proving an obstacle too far for Thomas Wyatt and his rebel forces who had hoped to prevent Queen Mary I from marrying Philip of Spain.
Ludgate was also for centuries used as a debtors' prison. It did however hold a higher class of prisoner, often incarcerating Freeman of the City of London.
However, it was finally demolished in the 18th century, along with most of the other City gates, to help ease the flow of traffic in and out of the increasingly busy City.
The statues of Queen Elizabeth I and King Lud and his boys, which at one time had stood on Ludgate then found their way westwards to Fleet Street and a new home next to St Dunstan's. However, there is a third survivor close by that hardly anyone notices or even knows about.
If you cross over the road from the site of the old Ludgate, and walk a few yards down Pilgrim Street, you will find a short, battered and stubby cornerstone at a bend in the road. It's at the base of a building but doesn't appear to be structurally a part of it. So, how did it get here and where is it from.
Well, whilst nobody can be absolutely certain, some London writers such as Peter Jackson in his 1953 London Explorer, conclude that it does come from the now demolished Ludgate. Whatever the truth, it is certainly an odd and rather out of place addition to the otherwise more modern built environment and I like to think that in the City of London, even if you demolish something, it never completely goes away.