The 18th-century church is in St Marychurch Street and is dedicated to Mary, mother of Jesus, and it is particularly proud of its connections with the Pilgrim Fathers.

Following the break with Rome under Henry VIII in 1538, the vestments, silver and gold plate and other gifts of the cathedral were sold to provide money to repair the mediaeval church.

As money was short, the tower (above right) was not finished until 1747, when Lancelot Dowbiggin, a City joiner and surveyor, completed it, perhaps to his own design, following the general plan of James.

The two had journeyed far from home to evade ecclesiastical difficulties; she was his first wife's sister, and the marriage was forbidden by canon law, but not void if no one objected when the banns were read.

[1] St Mary's Church, Rotherhithe is fortunate to possess a fine pipe-organ dating from 1764 installed by the organ builder John Byfield II.

The ship's final journey to the breaker's yard at Deptford was made famous by Turner in his evocative painting The Fighting Temeraire, now in the National Gallery.

In the church a memorial marks the final resting place of Christopher Jones, captain of the Mayflower, which took the Pilgrim Fathers to North America in 1620.