St Paul's Cathedral

1. St Paul's Cathedral

ST PAUL'S
CATHEDRAL

2.

There are 5 known cathedrals in the name
of St. Paul, who stood in this place. The
first of them, wooden, was built in 604
and burned down in 675. In 685, a stone
cathedral was built, destroyed by the
Vikings during another raid on London in
961. The following year, a new stone
cathedral was built, which was destroyed
during the fire of London in 1087. The
fourth, also made of stone, was laid in
1086 and consecrated in 1240. The
cathedral burned down in 1666
during The Great Fire of London.
Although it was possible to rebuild the
cathedral after the fire, the authorities
decided to build a new building in its
place. The fifth cathedral was designed by
Christopher Wren. The works were started
in 1675 and completed in 1708.

3.

There are three galleries under the dome of the Cathedral: the inner Whispering gallery and the outer
Stone and Golden gallery.

4.

At the crossing, Wren
designed a dome rather than
the customary steeple. 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. This dome
has long dominated the
London skyline and is
composed of three shells: an
outer dome, a concealed brick
cone for structural support,
and an inner dome. At
the apex of the lead-encased
outer dome is an 850-ton
lantern, upon which the ball
and cross stand at nearly 366
feet (112 meters) above
ground level.

5.

Fittingly, Wren was laid to rest in St
Paul’s crypt in 1723. On a nearby
wall, an inscription reads, in Latin,
“Reader, if you seek a monument,
look about you”.
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of
Wellington, and Horatio Nelson –
two British military leaders who
became heroes during the
Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815) –
were both buried there.
Celebrated painters like Joshua
Reynolds and JMW Turner were
buried at St Paul’s. As was
caricaturist and illustrator George
Cruikshank, whose remains were
moved from Kensal Green
Cemetery to the cathedral in 1878.
Many of Cruikshank’s prints are in
our collection.

6.

As an iconic London landmark, the cathedral has
hosted a number of prestigious ceremonies and
spectacles over the years.
Many of these have been happy occasions.
Jubilee celebrations for Queen Victoria, King
George V and Queen Elizabeth II have featured
events at St Paul’s. And Prince Charles and Diana
Spencer chose to get married there in 1981 over
the traditional Westminster Abbey. The cathedral
could fit their large guestlist – and accommodate
the hundreds of thousands of people watching
along the procession route.
St Paul’s has also been a site of mourning. It
hosted large funeral services for Nelson,
Wellington and prime ministers Winston
Churchill, who died in 1965, and Margaret
Thatcher, who died in 2013. In 2017, more than
1,500 people attended a National Memorial
Service there for the 72 people killed in
the Grenfell Tower fire.