St Olave's Crypt Chapel

Submitted by Alan Marsden on Sat, 09/08/2025 - 00:00

Towards the back of St Olave’s Church on Hart Street, London, is a narrow staircase which leads down to the crypt. This was built in the 12th century and retains an ancient feel. It is now a chapel with attractrive vaulting, though it is dark and cold (a welcome respite to a warm London above and beyond).

Next to the altar is a round piece of stoneware, which I took to be an old font, but it is actually a well. It seems a strange place to come in order to obtain water, but the well might be older than the church. In John chapter 7, the Lord Jesus decribed Himself as 'the water of life':

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water". (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (vv37-39)

A few chapters earlier, He conversed with a Samaritan woman:

Jesus answered and said unto her, "If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water".

The woman saith unto him, "Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?"

“Yes”, is the implication, and an explanation follows:

"Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

Many today drink of the church’s water rather than Christ’s. It might look the same, and it might come from ancient and venerable holes, but it is Christ we preach, not Church; He is the water of life, not some institution, hierarchy or organisation.