When I grow rich. Say the bells of Shoreditch

St Leonard's on Shoreditch High Street is one of London's oldest religious sites. At the time of the nursery rhyme, Shoreditch was a very poor area of London and so the line "when I grow rich" is rather hopeful, ironic or impossible depending on your interpretation.

During the Elizabethan period, the area was popular with artists, such as William Shakespeare and Robert Burbage (who is buried here), as it lay close to London's first-purpose built theatre, imaginatively called 'The Theatre".