[6] In 1348, John Thavie, a local armourer, "left a considerable Estate towards the support of the fabric forever", a legacy which survived the English Reformation, was invested carefully through the centuries, and still provides for the church's current upkeep.

[9] The medieval St Andrew's survived the 1666 Great Fire of London,[10] saved by a last minute change in wind direction,[11] but was already in a bad state of repair[12] and so was rebuilt by Christopher Wren anyway.

[14] In 1741, the philanthropic sea captain Thomas Coram set up the Foundling Hospital for abandoned children in a house in nearby Hatton Garden.

It was on the church's steps in 1828 that the surgeon William Marsden found a homeless girl suffering from hypothermia, and sought help for her from one of the nearby hospitals.

[18] As part of this improvement scheme the church received compensation to replace its assets, and the Gothic architect Samuel Sanders Teulon was commissioned to build a new rectory and courthouse on the south side of the church – this now operates as the offices for the foundation, the associated charities and the Archdeaconry of Hackney, as well as the rectory and the conference rooms.

[20] In Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist Bill Sykes looks up at this church's tower (an episode referenced by Iris Murdoch in Under the Net, though from where her character stands such a view is almost impossible).

In Dickens' Bleak House, Mr Snagsby's deceased partner, Peffer, is buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's.

In 1955, the Foundling Hospital, which had originally been founded in St Andrew's parish, sold its premises at Ashlyns School in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire.

The casing of the organ, which had originally been given to the Foundling Hospital by George Frideric Handel, was also dismantled and installed in St Andrew's, along with the pulpit and the baptismal font.

In September 2017 controversy occurred when a London Fashion Week show which took place at the church included runway models sporting satanic images and symbols.