This is part of a continuing series of photographs from my 21-day, three country, five city
winter vacation to Europe with my ladyfriend Serena.
After arriving in London (finally!) and checking into the Leonardo Royal Hotel London St Paul’s, we started our exploration of England’s iconic capital city at its iconic symbol of resilience – St. Paul’s Cathedral.
St. Paul’s Cathedral sits on top of Ludgate Hill, at the highest point in the City of London. Its dedication in honor of Paul the Apostle dates back to the original cathedral church on this site, founded in AD 604. It’s the same site as the important medieval cathedral, now known as Old St Paul’s, which was destroyed as the Great Fire of London swept through the city in 1666.
Construction started on Old St Paul’s Cathedral in 1087, after the previous three cathedrals were destroyed by fire or Vikings (that’s right, Vikings!!!). It was eventually completed in 1314 and featured Europe’s highest spire at the time – which stood even taller than the current dome does.
St. Paul’s Cathedral
The task of designing a replacement structure was officially assigned to architect Sir Christopher Wren on July 30, 1669. The final design for the building took nine years to develop. It combines different architectural styles, with slender towers typical of theatrical Baroque churches, and a grand colonnaded entrance influenced by ancient Greek temples.
Wren also took on the challenge of building a dome, rather than a steeple, on the cathedral. He had to call on the help and expertise of his scientific friends in the Royal Society, including Isaac Newton, who’d recently decoded the laws of gravity. The final dome was made from an outer dome, an inner dome and a supporting brick cone concealed between the two. It’s one of the largest domes in the world.
The cathedral is 111 meters high – and for over 250 years, it was the tallest building in London. Its skyscraper crown was stolen in 1963 by the 118-meter-tall Vickers Tower (now known as Millbank Tower) in the City of Westminster. But it’s now completely dwarfed by The Shard, which stands 309.6 meters high.
It took 35 years to build St Paul’s – actually a relatively short time to build a cathedral of that size. It was completed in 1710. Writer James Wright recorded his impressions of the cathedral that year in a poem. “Without, within, below, above, the Eye / Is fill’d with equal Wonder and Delight,” he wrote, “… such a City fits a Church like Pauls”.
The Statue of Queen Anne, located in the forecourt outside the west front of St. Paul’s Cathedral, was created in 1886 by sculptors Richard Claude Belt and Louis Auguste Malempré. Queen Anne was the reigning monarch in 1710 when the cathedral was completed.
The nave is 91 feet in height and is separated from the aisles by an arcade of piers with attached Corinthian pilasters rising to an entablature.
The dome rises above a gilded cornice at 173 feet to a height of 214 feet. Its painted decoration by Sir James Thornhill shows eight scenes from the life of St Paul set in illusionistic architecture which continues the forms of the eight niches of the drum. At the apex of the dome is an oculus inspired by that of the Pantheon in Rome.
The carvings on the choir are the work of Anglo-Dutch sculptor Grinling Gibbons with Jean Tijou, a French metalworker, providing various wrought iron and gilt grilles, gates, and balustrades of elaborate design.
38 steps down from the cathedral’s main floor is where you’ll find the crypt, which contains more than 200 memorials and numerous burials, including the tombs of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, and Horatio Nelson, a British Royal Navy officer widely regarded as one of the greatest admirals in history. Christopher Wren was the first person to be interred in 1723.
The Chapel of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire features a distinctive black and gold wrought-iron screen designed by W. Godfrey Allen. Members and Medalists can request use of the Chapel for weddings, baptisms and memorial services.
‘St Martin Divides His Cloak’ (2018) by British artist Hughie O’Donoghue adorns the Chapel of the Imperial Society of Knights Bachelor, also located in the crypt.
The southwest tower also contains several famous bells, including Great Paul, the UK’s largest ringing bell (16.7 tons!) in the South West Tower. It was cast by John Taylor and Co in 1881 and its note is E flat. Three clock bells, also in the south west tower, strike the hours and quarters. The largest, Great Tom, weighs over 5 tons and is in A flat. It was cast by Richard Phelps of the Whitechapel Foundry in 1716 and is the successor to a much older bell, acquired from the Palace of Westminster in 1698, which was cracked in transit to the Cathedral.
Here’s what they sound like…
St. Paul’s Cathedral St Paul’s has become a symbol of London’s resilience. Reborn after the Great Fire, the cathedral escaped major damage when the German air force bombed the city during the First and Second World War. Photographed among London’s smoky skyline in 1940, it provided the powerful image to match the city’s ‘Blitz spirit’. An adult ticket to St. Paul’s Cathedral will set you back a well-spent £26.00. It is open Monday, Tuesday and Thursday to Saturday from 8.30am to 4.30pm, and Wednesdays from 10am to 4.30pm.
Check out the full gallery below…
Stay tuned for more galleries from our time in London including a look inside the Tate Modern and National Gallery.
SUBSCRIBE HERE to not miss it. All the cool kids have already done it. Just saying…Photographs taken with (mainly) the Sony a7RV and the Xiaomi 13 UltraFor more information on all that London has to offer, visit the official tourism site
