The east front, towards the street, has a portico in the Tuscan order, with a central arch cutting through the entablature and pediment—a motif used in Wren's "Great Model" for St Paul's Cathedral.

[3] A giant order of pilasters runs around the rest of the church, a feature Kerry Downes suggests may have been added by Thomas Archer, who, according to the minutes of the commission, "improved" Hawksmoor's plans.

[2] On the north and south sides of the churchwide projecting vestibules rise to the full height of the building, with steps leading up to the doors.

Hawksmoor's design, published in an engraving in 1714, had an octagonal lantern at the top, a motif he was later to use at St George in the East.

This may incorporate keys from the time of the composer Thomas Tallis,[9] who was buried in the chancel of the medieval church in the 16th century.

[15] In 2015 a fund-raising cream tea garden party for Christian Aid, held in the churchyard after the Sunday sermon, was stormed by armed police.

An attendee said that the vicar's wife was "almost knocked over by a policeman with a huge machine gun”, but "people just carried on drinking their tea" in a display of typical British fortitude even though "all these armed police bursting in was like the film Hot Fuzz”.

The merchant, Lloyd's underwriter and art collector John Julius Angerstein (died 1823), who was a churchwarden in the early 19th century, is also buried here.

In Charles Dickens's novel Our Mutual Friend, Bella Wilfer marries John Rokesmith in St Alfege Church.

In Tom McCarthy's novel C, after a Marinettiesque car crash, Serge Carrefax laughs from his position within the upturned chassis.