As an admirer of Norman architecture, I put St. Bartholomew’s at the top of my list. It is the best-preserved Norman church in London, just as the Tower is the best secular building.
Many churches were originally built in the Romanesque style brought to England from Normandy by the Conqueror, Westminster Abbey for example. But time, fires and fashion led to remodels in styles more contemporary to the times of their renovators. What we see now at St. Bartholomew is the choir (“quire”) of the original building. (When I visited, the pews were facing each other instead of forward, in keeping with the architectural purpose of the space.) What had been the nave is now an outdoor walkway through a half-timber gate leading up to today’s entry.
For most visitors, however, the fun part is that the church has been used as a location in over two dozen films. Four Weddings and a Funeral anyone? This is church where Hugh Grant dumps Duckface. I didn’t know this before my visit, but the square at Smithfield in front of the church used to be a place of execution. For film buffs, think Braveheart and Mel Gibsons’s last gasp, “Freedom!”