Whilst the effectiveness of the parliamentary drive against images in the country at large remains difficult to ascertain exactly, it might be imagined that in the capital itself there would be evidence of both an active response to, and a more thorough enforcement of, iconoclastic legislation. It is fortunate that a large number of records have survived for the period: there are extant churchwardens' accounts and/or vestry minutes for 80 of the 110 City parishes (including thirteen outside of the wall but within the jurisdiction of the City), plus four surviving sets of records for Westminster (from a total of ten parishes) and important records for St Giles in the Field (Holborn).

The problems inherent in using parish records have already been discussed. On the whole those for the City tend to be much better kept and more informative than those of country parishes, reflecting no doubt the better standard of literacy and more sophisticated concept of record keeping that might be expected in the capital. The records for only some twenty parishes were devoid of any reference to the removal of rails, imagery or other ‘monuments of superstition’ at some point during the period, and it is noticeable that these are almost invariably parishes where only vestry minutes survive, or where the crucial years are missing from the churchwardens' accounts. Nonetheless, some accounts are sparse and lack detail. At Allhallows Honey Lane in 1641, for example, an entry reads: ‘Glazier paid for taking downe and putting up glass’.