St Paul’s Cathedral This article is about St Paul’s cathedral in London, sionary saints Fagan, Deruvian, Elvanus, and Medwin. England. For other cathedrals of the same name, see St. None of that is considered credible by modern histori- Paul’s Cathedral (disambiguation). ans but, although the surviving text is problematic, ei- ther Bishop Restitutus or Adelphius at the 314 Council of Arles seems to have come from Londinium.[5] The lo- St Paul’s Cathedral, London, is an Anglican cathedral, the seat of the Bishop of London and the mother church cation of Londinium’s original cathedral is unknown. The present structure of St Peter upon Cornhill was designed of the Diocese of London. It sits at the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest point in the City of London. Its dedica- by Christopher Wren following the Great Fire in 1666 but tion to Paul the Apostle dates back to the original church it stands upon the highest point in the area of old Lon- on this site, founded in AD 604.[1] The present church, dinium and medieval legends tie it to the city’s earliest dating from the late 17th century, was designed in the Christian community. In 1999, however, a large and or- nate 5th-century building on Tower Hill was excavated, English Baroque style by Sir Christopher Wren. Its con- [8][9] struction, completed within Wren’s lifetime, was part of which might have been the city’s cathedral. a major rebuilding programme which took place in the The Elizabethan antiquarian William Camden argued city after the Great Fire of London.[2] that a temple to the goddess Diana had stood during Roman times on the site occupied by the medieval St The cathedral is one of the most famous and most recog- [10] nisable sights of London, with its dome, framed by the Paul’s cathedral. Christopher Wren reported that he spires of Wren’s City churches, dominating the skyline for had found no trace of any such temple during the works 300 years.[3] At 365 feet (111 m) high, it was the tallest to build the new cathedral after the Great Fire, and Camden’s hypothesis is no longer accepted by modern building in London from 1710 to 1962, and its dome is [11] also among the highest in the world. In terms of area, St archaeologists. Paul’s is the second largest church building in the United Bede records that in AD 604 St Augustine consecrated Kingdom after Liverpool Cathedral. Mellitus as the first bishop to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom St Paul’s Cathedral occupies a significant place in the na- of the East Saxons and their king, Sæberht. Sæberht’s un- tional identity of the English population.[4] It is the central cle and overlord, Æthelberht, king of Kent, built a church dedicated to St Paul in London, as the seat of the new subject of much promotional material, as well as post- [12] card images of the dome standing tall, surrounded by the bishop. It is assumed, although unproven, that this first smoke and fire of the Blitz.[4] Important services held at Anglo-Saxon cathedral stood on the same site as the later St Paul’s have included the funerals of Lord Nelson, the medieval and the present cathedrals. Duke of Wellington, Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret On the death of Sæberht in about 616, his pagan sons Thatcher; Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria; peace expelled Mellitus from London, and the East Saxons re- services marking the end of the First and Second World verted to paganism. The fate of the first cathedral build- Wars; the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady ing is unknown. Christianity was restored among the Diana Spencer, the launch of the Festival of Britain and East Saxons in the late 7th-century and it is presumed the thanksgiving services for the Golden Jubilee, the 80th that either the Anglo-Saxon cathedral was restored or a Birthday and the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II. St new building erected as the seat of bishops such as Cedd, Paul’s Cathedral is a busy working church, with hourly Wine and Earconwald, the last of whom was buried in prayer and daily services. the cathedral in 693. This building, or a successor, was destroyed by fire in 962, but rebuilt in the same year.[13] King Æthelred the Unready was buried in the cathedral on his death in 1016. The cathedral was burnt, with much of 1 History the city, in a fire in 1087, as recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.[13] 1.1 Pre-Norman cathedrals A list of the 16 “archbishops” of London was recorded 1.2 Old St Paul’s by Jocelyne of Furness in the 12th century, claiming London’s Christian community was founded in the 2nd Main article: Old St Paul’s Cathedral century under the legendary King Lucius and his mis- 1 2 1 HISTORY The fourth St Paul’s, generally referred to as Old St Paul’s, open-air preaching took place. was begun by the Normans after the 1087 fire. A fur- In the Great Fire of London of 1666, Old St Pauls was ther fire in 1136 disrupted the work, and the new cathe- gutted. While it might have been possible to reconstruct dral was not consecrated until 1240. During the period it, a decision was taken to build a new cathedral in a mod- of construction, the style of architecture had changed ern style. This course of action had been proposed even from Romanesque to Gothic and this was reflected in the before the fire. pointed arches and larger windows of the upper parts and East End of the building. The Gothic ribbed vault was constructed, like that of York Minster, of wood rather 1.3 Present St Paul’s than stone, which affected the ultimate fate of the build- ing. Old St Paul’s before 1561, with intact spire An aerial view of St Paul’s An enlargement program commenced in 1256. This The task of designing a replacement structure was of- 'New Work' was consecrated in 1300 but not complete ficially assigned to Sir Christopher Wren on 30 July until 1314. During the later Medieval period St Paul’s was 1669.[15] He had previously been put in charge of the re- exceeded in length only by the Abbey Church of Cluny building of churches to replace those lost in the Great and in the height of its spire only by Lincoln Cathedral Fire. More than fifty City churches are attributable and St. Mary’s Church, Stralsund. Excavations by Fran- to Wren. Concurrent with designing St Paul’s, Wren cis Penrose in 1878 showed that it was 585 feet (178 m) was engaged in the production of his five Tracts on long and 100 feet (30 m) wide (290 feet or 87 m across Architecture.[16] the transepts and crossing). The spire was about 489 feet Wren had begun advising on the repair of the Old St (149 m). Paul’s in 1661, five years before the Great Fire of Lon- By the 16th century the building was starting to decay. don in 1666.[17] The proposed work included renova- Under Henry VIII and Edward VI, the Dissolution of the tions to both interior and exterior that would complement Monasteries and Chantries Acts led to the destruction of the Classical facade designed by Inigo Jones in 1630.[18] interior ornamentation and the cloisters, charnels, crypts, Wren planned to replace the dilapidated tower with a chapels, shrines, chantries and other buildings in St Paul’s dome, using the existent structure as a scaffold. He pro- Churchyard. Many of these former religious sites in the duced a drawing of the proposed dome, showing that it churchyard, having been seized by the Crown, were sold was at this stage at which he conceived the idea that it as shops and rental properties, especially to printers and should span both nave and aisles at the crossing.[19] After booksellers, who were often Puritans. In 1561 the spire the fire, It was at first thought possible to retain a sub- was destroyed by lightning, an event that was taken by stantial part of the old cathedral, but ultimately the en- both Protestants and Roman Catholics as a sign of God's tire structure was demolished in the early 1670s to start displeasure at the other faction. afresh. In the 1630s a west front was added to the building by In July 1668 Dean William Sancroft wrote to Christopher England’s first classical architect, Inigo Jones. There Wren that he was charged by the Archbishop of Canter- was much defacing and mistreatment of the building by bury, in agreement with the Bishops of London and Ox- Parliamentarian forces during the Civil War, and the old ford, to design a new cathedral that was “handsome and documents and charters were dispersed and destroyed.[14] noble to all the ends of it and to the reputation of the City During the Commonwealth, those churchyard buildings and the nation”.[20] The design process took several years, that were razed supplied ready-dressed building mate- but a design was finally settled and attached to a royal war- rial for construction projects, such as the Lord Protector’s rant, with the proviso that Wren was permitted to make city palace, Somerset House. Crowds were drawn to the any further changes that he deemed necessary. The re- northeast corner of the churchyard, St Paul’s Cross, where sult was the present St Paul’s Cathedral, still the second 1.4 Since 1900 3 largest church in Britain and with a dome proclaimed as the finest in the world.[21] The building was financed by a tax on coal, and was completed within its architect’s life- time, and with many of the major contractors employed for the duration.