[3] The church is first recorded in the 13th century as St Olave-towards-the-Tower, a stone building replacing the earlier (presumably wooden) construction.

[2] The Norwegian connection was reinforced during the Second World War when King Haakon VII of Norway worshipped there while in exile.

The merchant mark of the Cely family was carved in two of the corbels in the nave (and were extant until the bombing of World War II).

[3] The church was a favourite of the diarist Samuel Pepys, whose house and Royal Navy office were both on Seething Lane.

In 1669, when his beloved wife Elisabeth died from fever,[11] Pepys had a marble bust of her made by John Bushnell and installed on the north wall of the sanctuary so that he would be able to see her from his pew at the services.

[13] However, the church was gutted by German bombs in 1941 during the London Blitz,[14] and was restored in 1954, with King Haakon returning to preside over the rededication ceremony, during which he laid a stone from Trondheim Cathedral in front of the sanctuary.

[15] St Olave's has retained long and historic links with Trinity House and the Clothworkers' Company.

[16] The novelist Charles Dickens was so taken with this that he included the church in his book of sketches The Uncommercial Traveller, renaming it "St Ghastly Grim".

Most of the church fittings are modern, but there are some significant survivals, such as the monument to Elizabeth Pepys[18] and the pulpit, said to be the work of Grinling Gibbons.

It honors Monkhouse Davison and Abraham Newman, the grocers of Fenchurch Street who shipped crates of tea to Boston in late 1773.

These crates were seized and thrown into the waters during the Boston Tea Party, one of the causes of the American War of Independence.

[2][21] On the east side of St Olave's, there is a stained glass window depicting Queen Elizabeth I standing with two tall bells at her feet.

She held a thanksgiving service at St Olave's on Trinity Sunday, 15 May 1554, while she was still Princess Elizabeth, to celebrate her release from the Tower of London.

When it was recognised, the sale was frozen and negotiations took place via the Art Loss Register to return the bust to the church.