Saint Pauls Cathedral - Wren’s masterpiece

The Great fire of 1666 destroyed 59 churches within the City of London. Many of those to be rebuilt during the following years were designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and Saint Pauls was to be his most famous, the one building that most people up to and including the present day, remember him for.
It is still an imposing building even by today’s standards. At one time it was the world’s largest unsupported dome (it may still hold that record, I’m not sure). There has been a cathedral church on this site from ancient times, the present one has stood here for over three hundred and fifty years.
A cathedral dedicated to Saint Paul was founded by King Ethelbert around the year 604 AD and there have been four built on the same site. Two of the churches suffered the same fate of being destroyed by fire.
The present building, finished in 1710, took 35 years to complete although services were held there years before it was finally finished.

The previous cathedral is referred to as ‘Old St. Paul’s’, and was built mainly by the Normans. It was a large impressive building with a 489 ft. spire. Building was started in 1087 when fire destroyed the existing church, and took 150 years to fully complete, although the spire came some years later and wasn’t completed until the year 1314.
In 1561 the tall spire was struck by lightening and destroyed. Although the rest of the building remained intact the spire was never replaced. This cathedral was completely destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666.

The first bishop of the East Saxons, Mellitus took charge of the small wooden church built on this site in the year 604 and that building lasted for 70 years before being destroyed by fire.
The bishop of that time, St. Erkenwald spent ten years building it's replacement from 675 to 685. This, the second Saint Paul's was destroyed by invading Vikings in the year 962 A.D.
That church was also destroyed by fire in 1087, which led to the building of the old St. Pauls (left).
The cathedral saw many changes in the years leading up to the 1666 fire, from attack and rampaging by mobs spurred on by over zealous Protestant preachers, to merchants turning it into a market place for their wares. It was even used as a barracks by Cromwell’s soldiers during the Civil War.

The Saint Paul’s we see today is basically the same building that took 35 years to build three centuries ago. Additions and alterations have been carried out over the years but the basic structure and layout remain the same. Even the original organ, installed in 1695 is still in use. One of the most recent significant additions are the mosaics which were installed after Queen Victoria commented on how dingy the decor was. A second altar has also been added to enable the congregation to be nearer the services.