The prior partly resolved the problem in 1280[2] by founding St Katharine Cree as a separate church for the parishioners.

Describing the building at the end of the 16th century, John Stow wrote: this church seemeth to be very old; since the building whereof the high street hath been so often raised by pavements that now men are fain to descend into the said church by divers steps, seven in number.

[3] His vestments and the form of service that he used for the consecration were later held against him in his trial and conviction for heresy, when Puritans accused him of having displayed Catholic sympathies through his "bowings and cringings".

[3] The chancel has a rose window, reputedly modelled on the much larger one in Old St Paul's Cathedral (destroyed in the Great Fire).

Tradition says that these Companies used St Katharine Cree for a time after the Great Fire of London of 1666, while their own Guild Churches were being rebuilt.

[8] By the south wall of St Katharine's is a memorial to RMS Lancastria, a troopship sunk at sea with huge loss of life during the Second World War in 1940.

An appeal to raise £60,000 to restore the bells to full ringing order was launched in November 2007, and the project was completed in 2009.

Today St Katharine's is a guild church and has no parish, but chose some years ago to dedicate its ministry to the worlds of finance, commerce and industry.