 Included in the building accounts are the items "Dinner for Dr Wren and other Company – £2 14s 0d" and "Half a pint of canary for Dr Wren's coachmen – 6d".It was the first church of the fifty-one lost in the Great Fire to be rebuilt.In 1737, the early Methodist leader George Whitefield preached a sermon on "Profane swearing in church" at St Nicholas Cole Abbey.