ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL

The first St Paul's Cathedral was founded in 604 by Ethelbert King of Kent. This was probably a wooden structure. It was consumed by a fire later on in the 7^thC. A second cathedral was erected. In 962 Vikings destroyed this and in 1067 another conflagration the third. This furnished the Normans with an opportunity to mark their presence. The stone cathedral that they created was larger than today's building.

In 1663 the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's invited Sir Christopher Wren to survey the cathedral. He recommended that the structure should be demolished and that a new one should be built. His proposal was not acted upon. The Great Fire of 1666 carried the matter.

The plan for the new St Paul's became a matter for considerable politicking. Wren's initial design was based upon a Greek cross and was to have been topped by a dome. The Dean and Chapter rejected his proposition. They wanted the old cathedral to be rebuilt and regarded his scheme as being too Roman Catholic in character. For his second design the architect commissioned what became known as the Great Model. This cost 600 to make. The cathedral authorities again regarded his proposal as being too Romanistic.

Wren made a third submission in the form of a drawing. This became known as the Warrant Design. The Dean and Chapter gave their approval to it. The City of London's livery companies also endorsed it. In 1675 King Charles II sanctioned it. However, the architect does not appear to have built what he had depicted. Instead, for the next 35 years he oversaw the cathedral's construction without ever setting down on paper his true design for it. To avoid having to make further compromises, he started by laying out all of the ground plan - it was based upon a Latin cross - and then building upwards rather than starting at one end and then working towards the other. This meant that it was not possible to hold a service in the cathedral until 1697.

Windsor Guild Hall was built by Wren to prove that columns were not needed to support the dome. The dome of St Paul's is not a single structure but rather two separate ones that have up to 60 feet of space separating them. The inner dome, visible from within the cathedral, is made of brick. The outer one is made of a timber frame that is covered with lead. Between them there is a cone-like structure that supports the weight of the lantern that rises above the upper, outer hemisphere. Wren wanted St Paul's to have a copper dome. This was judged to be too expensive and he was told to use lead instead. However, the weight the lead meant that the building had to be reinforced. As a result, the cost was the same as if he had used his preferred metal.

The staircase to the Golden Gallery on the cathedral's roof has 530 steps.

Both of St Paul's towers were meant to have clocks. However, they were so expensive that only one was installed.

The building was completed in 1710.

Location: St Paul's Churchyard, EC4M 8AD (purple, white)

Website: www.stpauls.co.uk

The Cathedral and The Second World War

Prior to the Second World War the Cathedral's exterior had become crowded in by the buildings that had grown up around it. During the conflict the aerial bombing opened a series of vistas, some of which have survived.

In December 1940 Herbert Mason took a photograph of St Paul's from the west in which the Cathedral appeared set amongst clouds of smoke. The picture made it seem unscathed by the bombing raid that had just taken place. The image became renowned for its inspirational qualities.

Vogue was edited by Audrey Withers from 1940 until 1959. She had studied P.P.E. (politics, philosophy and economics) at the University of Oxford and had leftwing politics. In 1941 she commissioned Cecil Beaton to photograph a fashionably clad model in front of the bombed Temple. The image included the dome St Paul's in the background and became iconic.

A one-ton bomb landed by St Paul's south-western tower without exploding. Bob Davies of the War Office's UXB team rendered the device so that it could be moved. It was transported to Hackney Marshes, where it was detonated in a controlled explosion. It left a crater that had a diameter of over 100ft..

The Crypt

Wren was one of the first people to be buried in St Paul's crypt. He is reputed to have been the first architect in the history of Christianity who had lived to see the cathedral that he had designed be completed. His son Christopher wrote his epitaph, Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you .

In the western portion of the crypt, below the centre of the dome, is the burial place of the naval commander Lord Nelson (d.1805). The sarcophagus was originally designed for Cardinal Wolsey (d.1530). The sailor's coffin was made from the mainmast of the French ship L Orient. His corpse is preserved in spirits.

Location: The Crypt's entrance is in the southern transept.

Monuments

The only monument that survived the Great Fire of London relatively undamaged was the figure in the southern aisle of the poet the Rev John Donne (d.1631), who was the Dean of St Paul s.¹ In the southern transept is a statue (1795) of the prison reformer John Howard (d.1790). This was the first new monument to be admitted to Wren's St Paul s. It was carved John Bacon, who also created the second one to be allowed. This commemorated the lexicographer Dr Samuel Johnson (d.1784). The third was by John Flaxman (d.1826) and was to Sir Joshua Reynolds (d.1792). Subsequently, Painter's Corner developed around it. The area contains memorials to Benjamin West (d.1820), Sir Thomas Lawrence (d.1830), John Constable (d.1837), J.M.W. Turner (d.1851), Sir Edwin Landseer (d.1873), Sir John Millais (d.1896), Lord Leighton (d.1896), and William Holman Hunt (d.1910).

¹. This seems appropriate enough in view of the survival of St Dunstan in the West in Fleet Street, where Donne was the Rector.

David Backhouse 2024