Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
the
Duke of Wellington
, begun in 1857 but only topped with the statue of the duke
astride his faithful steed, Copenhagen, in 1912. Both men are buried in the crypt.
The best place from which to appreciate the glory of St Paul's is beneath the
dome
,
which was decorated (against Wren's wishes) by Thornhill's monochrome trompe-l'oeil
frescoes, now rather upstaged by the adjacent gilded spandrels. St Paul's most famous
work of art, however, hangs in the north transept: the crushingly symbolic
Light of the
World
by the Pre-Raphaelite
Holman Hunt
, depicting Christ knocking at the handleless,
bramble-strewn door of the human soul, which must be opened from within. The
original is actually in Keble College, Oxford, though this copy was executed by the
artist himself, some fifty years later in 1900.
The chancel
By far the most richly decorated section of the cathedral is the
chancel
, in particular
the spectacular, swirling, gilded Byzantine-style mosaics of birds, fish, animals and
greenery, from the 1890s. The intricately carved oak and limewood choir stalls, and
the imposing organ case, are the work of Grinling Gibbons. The north choir-aisle
contains Henry Moore's
Mother and Child
sculpture and allows you to admire Jean
Tijou's ornate black-and-gold
wrought-iron gates
that separate the aisles from the high
altar. The latter features an extravagant Baroque baldachin, held up by barley-sugar
columns and wrapped round with gilded laurel, created after the war to a design by
Wren. Behind the high altar stands the
American Memorial Chapel
, dedicated to the
28,000 Americans based in Britain who lost their lives in World War II (check out the
space rocket hidden in the carved wooden foliage of the far right-hand panel, a tribute
to America's postwar space exploration). Leaving via the south choir-aisle, you'll find
the upstanding shroud of
John Donne
, poet, preacher and one-time Dean of St Paul's,
the only complete e
gy to have survived from Old St Paul's.
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The galleries
From the south transept, a series of stairs lead to the dome's three
galleries
, and they're
well worth the climb. The initial 259 steps take you to the
Whispering Gallery
, so called
because of its acoustic properties - words whispered to the wall on one side are audible
100ft away on the other, though it's often so busy you can't hear much above the hubbub.
Another 119 steps up bring you to the exterior
Stone Gallery
, around the base of the
dome, while the final 152 steel steps take you inside the dome's inner structure to the
Golden Gallery
, just below the golden ball and cross which top the cathedral. The views of
the City and along the Thames are surprisingly good - you should be able to identify the
distinctive white facade of Wren's London house, next to the Globe Theatre, from which
he could contemplate his masterpiece. Before you ascend the last flight of stairs, be sure
to look through the peephole in the floor, onto the monochrome marble floor beneath
the dome, a truly terrifying sight.
The crypt
The entrance to the cathedral's vast
crypt
is on your left as you leave the south
choir-aisle. The whitewashed walls make this one of the least atmospheric mausoleums
you could imagine - a far cry from the nineteenth century, when visitors were shown
around the tombs by candlelight.
The crypt boasts as many painters and architects as Westminster Abbey has poets,
most of them stuffed into the southern aisle, known as
Artists' Corner
. Appropriately
enough, it was Wren himself who started the trend, with a tomb inscribed: “
lector, si
monumentum requiris, circumspice
” (reader, if you seek his monument, look around).
Close to Wren are the graves of Reynolds, Turner, Millais, Holman Hunt, Lord
Leighton and Alma-Tadema; nearby there's a bust of Van Dyck, whose monument
perished along with Old St Paul's. Over in the north aisle is the grave of Alexander
Fleming, the discoverer of penicillin.
