St Paul's Cathedral

St Paul's Cathedral

Work on this, the most impressive church in London began in 1675 to a design by SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN. It was built to replace old St Paul's which was destroyed by the GREAT FIRE OF LONDON in 1666. The present building has been luckier. It survived the World War II bombings which flattened a great many of the surrounding buildings.

It took 35 years to complete the building. The imaginative Wren had to fight to get his plans accepted. Wren actually wanted to build the Cathedral just North of where it stands and he wanted the dome to be of copper, double gilded with gold. Unfortunately he was overruled on both counts. At the time not everyone liked Wren's design.

This is the fourth Cathedral to stand on this site. The first, a Saxon building, was built in AD 604. The 360ft high dome which dominates the city's skyline is the second largest in the world. The church itself is the largest Protestant church in England. From inside too, the dome is stunning and it is well worth climbing, up to the galleries. The whispering gallery is so named because of the way a whisper will echo there.

Higher still, there is access to the stone gallery on the exterior of the cathedral. At the very top is the Golden Gallery which has arguably the best view in London. The cathedral is packed with fine statues and interior detail. The beautiful woodcarvings are the work of Grinling Gibbons and the exquisite ironwork is by Jean Tijou. The mosaic work is mainly Byzantine and created by Victorian craftsmen to designs by Wren. Many of the rich or great are buried here.

Although in many ways a piece of history and a tourist attraction, the cathedral is still very much in use today. It is a national and international religious focus, a masterpiece of architecture and a centre of musical excellence. It was centre stage world-wide, through television, in 1981 for the fairytale marriage of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.