Short answers, pulled from the story.
St Helen's Bishopsgate is called the Westminster Abbey of the City because it contains more funeral monuments than any church in Greater London except Westminster Abbey itself. The church holds memorials spanning five centuries, including those of Thomas Gresham, Robert Hooke, and Alberico Gentili.
Yes, St Helen's Bishopsgate was William Shakespeare's parish church when he lived in the area in the 1590s.
St Helen's Bishopsgate was one of only a few City of London churches to escape destruction in the Great Fire of 1666. It also survived the Blitz during World War II without structural damage, and was designated a Grade I-listed building on the 4th of January 1950.
Two IRA bombs in 1992 and 1993 badly damaged St Helen's Bishopsgate. Architect Quinlan Terry led a restoration that returned the interior to Reformation principles, evening the floor, installing underfloor heating and a sound system, and increasing seating capacity from 500 to 1000.
St Helen's Bishopsgate has two parallel naves because a Benedictine nunnery was built alongside the existing parish church in 1210. The two buildings shared a party wall, with nuns worshipping on the north side and parishioners on the south. When the priory was dissolved in 1538, the dividing screen was removed, leaving the distinctive double-nave layout.
Notable figures buried at St Helen's Bishopsgate include John Crosby (died 1476), Thomas Gresham (died 1579), Robert Hooke, Alberico Gentili, and Andrew Judde, founder of Tonbridge School. The church is thought to hold the remains of over 1000 individuals in vaults beneath its floor, most of which were moved to Ilford Cemetery during the 1891-1893 restoration.