Wren’s Churches, part two.
25 February, 2025 – 9:00 amAfter a sit down in the Sunshine in Paternoster Square, we moved on to St Paul’s Cathedral.
This wonderful vision of Sir Christopher Wren, aided by his chief assistant and surveyor to the City of London, Robert Hooke. The first stone was laid in 1675, and although there was still work to do, it was opened in 1711.
As we entered through the crypt I was delighted to be shown Wren’s stonemason’s mark, something that connects us through time and will always give me goosebumps. Sadly the piece of stone that it is carved into is hiding behind an information board. It doesn’t tell you what is behind it, thankfully I had an expert tour guide.
The memorial stones for Wren and Hooke.
The magnificent Dome and the light the plain glass windows allows in, built out of Portland limestone, a wonderful hard white stone, allowing detail and sharpness to the beautifully carved stone.
Wren didn’t want the Dome painted but he was over-ruled.
The photos of these ceilings do not do justice to the magnificence of the images depicted.
This unassuming piece of stone is one of the survivors of the original medieval building. I recently watched an interesting documentary about the Great Fire of London and they went down a Manhole cover outside at the South East end of the building to some of the original pillars of the crypt, where bookbinders stashed their books and papers in the hope that they would be safe. Sadly they were burnt along with everything else.
Before the Great Fire, Wren had been appointed to oversee the restoration of the then 500 year old medieval building, when disaster struck just 5 years later, he designed this new building.
Sir Christopher Wren wasn’t a fan of stained glass and the reason is self evident. The light that streams into his magnificent buildings, showing off the wonderful architecture, there wouldn’t have been all the sculptures in there as there are now.
The gold and coloured mosaics were added at a later date.
When Wren had marked out the dome on the ground, he called for a labourer to bring him a piece of stone from out of the rubble to mark the centre.
When he turned it over, it had inscribed in it “Resurgam” Latin for I will rise again. In the pediment above the portico on the South side is a relief carving of a Phoenix rising from the flames, below it is carved Resurgam.
(As an aside, William Ramsay who was the stonemason to the king, Edward III in 1332, he designed the cloisters and the crypt of the medieval church. Ramsay was killed by the first plague and his daughter Agnes Ramsay took on the role of Royal stonemason , and supposedly carved the Kings tomb, when Edward died in 1377, but as a woman this was attributed to her brother. When I take part in medieval events, I like to think of her as my inspiration.)
As I left London, the skyline is still dominated by this magnificent building, a testament to the wonderful vision of Sir Christopher Wren and his everlasting memorial.
In my next post I will look at some of the sculptures in the Cathedral from a stonemason’s perspective.
