The ashes of the City were not yet cool from the Great Fire of 1666 when plans for rebuilding were commenced. An Oxford professor named Dr Christopher Wren, skilled in mathematics, astronomy and model-making, was appointed by Charles II as Surveyor General. Wren, together with the bishop of London and the archbishop of Canterbury, made up the committee for reconstructing the City’s churches. Wren designed fifty-one of the churches himself, and others were designed by his surveyors. In each church he emphasized the font, the altar and the pulpit, underscoring the three essential functions of baptism, communion and preaching of the Word of God.
In the seventeenth century the preaching of sound doctrine was considered of first importance, a result of the impact of the Reformation. The churches otherwise show wide variety, though understandably all are built of brick and stone and not of wood. Wren’s masterpiece was the great domed St Paul’s Cathedral, and he carefully designed the exteriors of other churches so as to highlight the effect of St Paul’s on the skyline. Even today, though there are taller modern buildings in London, St Paul’s still dominates London’s landscape.