What is 'Amen corner'?

[aadenny]

I hear regularly of 'Amen Corner' . I first heard of it as a pop group in the 1960s, and I've since found it's a neighbourhood of Tooting. Brewer's Dictionary says it's the corner of Paternoster Row in London, where monks on their way to St Pauls would complete the Lord's Prayer as they walked. I've hunted on Google and got a series of other ideas, but none very convincing about the origins of the phrase. I'd be interested to hear other ideas of whence comes the expression and what it means.

[geofbob]

If you look at a map of the City of London, you will see that Amen Corner is off Ave Maria Lane, near St Paul's Cathedral. It is thought that those two locations, along with Paternoster Row and Creed Lane, acquired their names because they formerly housed clerks who copied out prayers and religious texts, and/or shops which sold texts, rosary beads etc.

[aadenny]

'geofbob's Amen Corner is the same as the one Brewer refers to, albeit for slightly different reasons. But is it the original? Or is 'Amen Corner' just a metaphor for a crowd of bible-punchers?

[geofbob]

"Amen Corner" is also an American expression originally meaning an enclosure in a (possibly gospel) church reserved for people who led the responses to prayers; and which is now used generally for any group of people who tend to agree unthinkingly with somebody else (ie yes-men and women). But I doubt if this usage would predate the naming of the street near St Paul's.

[mikewith]

The most famous Amen Corner these days - now that Andy Fairweather-Low no longer sings with the group - is probably the series of holes of that name at the Master's Course in Augusta. (That's a golfing answer!)