the service, children were given a penny for each time they ran around the church. Rebuilding In the early 19th century the medieval church of St Dunstan was removed to allow the widening of Fleet Street, and a new church was built on its burial ground. An Act of Parliament was obtained in July 1829 which authorised the demolition of the church, and trustees were appointed to carry it into effect. Auctions of some of the materials of the old church took place in December 1829 and September 1830. The first stone of the new building, to the design of John Shaw Sr. (1776–1832), was laid in July 1831 and construction proceeded rapidly. In August 1832 the last part of the old church, which had been left as a screen between Fleet Street and the new work, was removed. Shaw dealt with the restricted site by designing a church with an octagonal central space. Seven of the eight sides open into arched recesses, the northern one containing the altar. The eighth side opens into a short corridor, leading beneath the organ to the lowest stage of the tower, which serves as an entrance porch. Above the recesses Shaw designed a clerestory, and above that a groined ceiling. The tower is square in plan, with an octagonal lantern, resembling those of St Botolph's Church, Boston, and St Helen's, York. George Godwin suggested that the form of the lantern might have been immediately inspired by that of St George's church in Ramsgate (where Shaw was architect to the docks), built in 1825 to the designs of H. E. Kendall. John Shaw Sr. died in 1833, before the church was completed, leaving it in the hands of his son John Shaw Jr. (1803–1870). The communion rail is a survivor of the old church, having been carved by Grinling Gibbons during the period when John Donne served as vicar (1624–1631). Some of the monuments from the medieval building were reinstituted in the new church, and a fragment of the old churchyard remains between Clifford's Inn and Bream's Buildings. Twentieth century Apart from losing its stained glass, the church survived the London Blitz largely intact, though bombs did damage the open-work lantern tower. The church was damaged again on 24/25 March 1944, during Operation Steinbock, a lower-intensity attack on London late in the war. The building was largely restored in 1950. An appeal to raise