St Paul’s Cathedral is the most prominent edifice in Old London, and one of the world’s great city churches. It is a landmark that symbolizes London, along with Tower Bridge, to millions around the world. The soaring beauty of its interior is viewed by hundreds of thousands of visitors each year, not to mention the vast television audience who watched the wedding of Prince Charles and Princess Diana in July 1981. Its presence atop Ludgate Hill testifies to the central place occupied by the Christian faith in London’s long history. But the building itself is a monument to one man, Sir Christopher Wren.
Christopher Wren was first consulted on the restoration of St Paul’s when the old building was still standing. John Evelyn, who was one of the commissioners, records in his diary on 27 August 1666, that Wren ‘persisted that it required a new foundation’ and proposed also a ‘noble cupola’ in place of the tower. However, the Great Fire, which began on 2 September, reduced the old cathedral to a ruin, and Wren quickly perceived that not only a new foundation but an entirely new building was needed.
He had previously proposed a combination of Gothic and classical styles, intending to carry the Renaissance influence even further than his predecessor, Inigo Jones. With this new opportunity before him, his first plan for the magnificent new church was totally classical, in the shape of a Greek cross with a great dome in the centre. The king approved, but the commissioners could not agree and eventually vetoed the plan. A second design was then submitted, in the shape of a Latin cross with a longer nave on the west side and shorter quire on the east. Again the commissioners were divided, but the king settled the matter by giving a warrant of approval and considerable freedom to the great architect. A model of the first building plan may be seen in the crypt of the present cathedral.
Demolition of the massive ruins was necessary before any work on the new cathedral could commence. The pillars, 200-feet high, which once supported the tower and spire of Old St Paul’s, posed a particular problem. At first Wren tried small charges of gunpowder, which worked better than pickaxes but proved to be somewhat hazardous to the surroundings. The method that finally succeeded was a variation of the ancient battering ram. In excavating the site for the new foundation, Wren was able to learn much about what had previously existed on the site. While there were Roman graves, he exploded the myth that a Temple of Diana once stood here.
Once the mountain of rubble from the old cathedral had been cleared (much of it dumped in the Moorfields to the north of the city), Wren himself took charge of the surveying. He determined where the new dome would stand by laying out a circle, marking the exact centre with a piece of old tombstone that a workman brought him. Observers were struck by the fact that one word could be clearly seen on the stone — Resurgam — ‘I shall rise again.’ It was a prophecy that now had a double meaning!
Construction on the new cathedral began in November 1673 and continued until 1708, when the last stone was laid. The task of decorating the interior went on for another decade or so. By 1723, the year of Wren’s death, the money spent on the new building amounted to £748,000, most of which came from a tax on seaborne coal entering London. After Queen Anne’s death in 1714 Wren had much less influence, and various alterations were made despite his objections. However, he had the satisfaction of seeing the great church completed largely according to his design; as an old man, he came every Saturday to view his handiwork. A tablet above his simple 216 217 S grave in the crypt reads, Si monumentum requiris, circumspice (‘If you seek his monument, look around you’).
The visitor entering St Paul’s for the first time is likely to be drawn to the centre under the great dome. Everywhere—above to the painting of Sir John Thornhill depicting the life of St Paul, eastward to the magnificent quire with wood carving done by the masterful Grinling Gibbons, beyond that to the high altar canopied by a splendid modern baldachino, westward to the spacious nave, and northward and southward to the aisles with their richly decorated bays—the interior is fully deserving of its position as the cathedral of England’s capital city. St Paul’s has tended to be the last resting place of England’s famous military heroes.
Outstanding among these are the duke of Wellington and Admiral Lord Nelson, who are both honoured by impressive monuments as well as splendid tombs in the crypt. The apse at the eastern extremity of the cathedral is a memorial chapel dedicated to the 28,000 Americans based in Britain who lost their lives in World War II. Of particular interest among the military monuments is that of General Charles George Gordon in the north aisle. Visitors will also wish to see the effigy of Dr John Donne in the south quire aisle, Holman Hunt’s painting of Christ (The Light of the World’) in the south aisle of the nave, and the memorial to John Wyclif near the duke of Wellington’s tomb on the north side of the crypt.