Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
The Blitz destroyed the area immediately to the north of St Paul's, including Paternoster
Row, which had been the centre of the topic trade since 1500. The postwar o
ce complex
that replaced it was torn down in the 1980s and supplanted by the softer, post-classical
development of
Paternoster Square
, centred on a Corinthian column topped by a gilded
urn, and, since 2004, home to the London Stock Exchange. One happy consequence of the
square's redevelopment is that
Temple Bar
, the last surviving City gateway which once
stood at the top of Fleet Street (see p.155), found its way back to London after a century of
languishing in a park in Hertfordshire. Designed by Wren himself, the triumphal arch now
forms the entrance to Paternoster Square from St Paul's, with the Stuart monarchs, James I
and Charles II, and their consorts, occupying the niches.
The crypt's two star tombs - those of
Nelson
and
Wellington
- occupy centre
stage. Wellington's porphyry and granite monstrosity is set in its own mini-chapel,
surrounded by memorials to illustrious British field marshals, while Nelson lies in a
black marble sarcophagus originally designed for Cardinal Wolsey and later intended
for Henry VIII and his third wife, Jane Seymour. As at Trafalgar Square, Nelson lies
close to later admirals Jellicoe and Beatty (the last person to be buried in the cathedral,
in 1936). Beyond are the cathedral shop, a café and the exit.
11
St Paul's Churchyard
St Paul's Churchyard
, to the northeast of the cathedral, was also destroyed in the Blitz.
The churchyard's most arresting feature now is a column, erected in 1910, topped by a
gilded statue of St Paul, and diplomatically inscribed “amid such scenes of good and
evil as make up human affairs, the conscience of the church and nation through five
centuries found public utterance”. This is a reference to
Paul's Cross
, a polygonal
open-air pulpit - its groundplan is marked out in the paving - from which o
cial
proclamations and religious speeches were made. Heretics were regularly executed on
this spot, and in 1519 Luther's works were publicly burnt here, before Henry VIII
changed sides and demanded the “preaching down” of papal authority from the same
spot. The cross was destroyed by the Puritans in 1643.
Cheapside
It's di
cult to believe that
Cheapside
, which connects St Paul's with Bank, was once
London's foremost shopping street, the widest thoroughfare in the City, and site of the
medieval marketplace. Nowadays only the names of the nearby streets - Bread Street,
Milk Street, Honey Lane, Poultry - recall its former prominence, which faded when the
shops and their customers moved to the West End from the eighteenth century onwards.
One New Change
1 New Change • Mon-Fri 10am-7pm, Sat 10am-6pm, Sun noon-6pm •
W
onenewchange.com •
!
St Paul's
Commerce has recently returned to Cheapside in the form of
One New Change
, an
uncompromisingly modern building by Jean Nouvel, whose opaque brown glass
facade is reminiscent of a Stealth bomber. Even if you've no interest in the formulaic
franchises which fill this multistorey shopping mall, it has one great thing going for it:
a sixth-floor, sun-trap roof terrace that's open to the public, has a few mosaics by Boris
Anrep and views over to St Paul's, Tate Modern and the Shard.
St Mary-le-Bow
Cheapside • Mon-Thurs 7am-6pm, Fri 7am-4pm •
T
020 7248 5139,
W
stmarylebow.co.uk •
!
St Paul's
One of the distinguishing features of Cheapside is Wren's church of
St Mary-le-Bow
,
whose handsome tower features a conglomeration of pilasters, a circular colonnade, a
