History
The history of St Paul's Cathedral
Five cathedrals have stood on this site. Today's church is Wren's rebuild after the Great Fire of 1666. It survived the Blitz and remains a working Church of England cathedral.
Chronology
A timeline of St Paul's
604
The first St Paul's
A wooden cathedral is founded on Ludgate Hill by Bishop Mellitus, the beginning of more than 1,400 years of worship on the site.
1087-1314
Old St Paul's
A vast Gothic cathedral rises in stone, its spire among the tallest structures in medieval Europe until lightning brings it down in 1561.
1666
The Great Fire
Old St Paul's is gutted as the Great Fire sweeps through the City. The medieval cathedral was already in poor condition, and the scale of the destruction ended hopes of repairing it, clearing the way for a wholly new building.
1675-1710
Wren's cathedral
Construction of Sir Christopher Wren's new cathedral begins in 1675 and continues for 35 years under his direction. The English Baroque building is crowned by an ingenious triple-shell dome: an inner dome shapes the interior, a hidden brick cone supports the lantern, and a lead-covered outer dome defines the London skyline.
Featured
29 December 1940
St Paul's Survives
On the night of 29 December 1940, during one of the heaviest raids of the Blitz, around 28 incendiary bombs fell on and around St Paul's as fires raged across the City of London. The cathedral had been protected since 1939 by St Paul's Watch, a volunteer force of firewatchers, many of them architects, who knew every stairway and roof void well enough to fight fires in the dark, after Winston Churchill ordered that “St Paul's must be saved at all costs.” One bomb lodged in the dome's lead outer shell and began to burn through towards the timber structure beneath, but it fell clear onto the Stone Gallery, where volunteers smothered it before it could take hold. Just after 6pm, Daily Mail photographer Herbert Mason, firewatching from a nearby rooftop, captured the cathedral rising intact above the smoke and flames — the image, published two days later as “St Paul's Survives,” became one of the defining photographs of the Second World War and a symbol of London's endurance.
Today
A working cathedral
Daily worship continues alongside state occasions, concerts and around two million visitors a year.
Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice — if you seek his monument, look around you.
Wren's epitaph, in the crypt
Construction
Wren's dome, in short
Three shells
An inner dome for the interior view, a hidden brick cone carrying the weight of the lantern, and the lead-covered outer dome that defines the skyline.
111 metres tall
For over 250 years it was the tallest building in London, and the cathedral remained the city's highest point until the 1960s.
Portland stone
Quarried in Dorset and shipped to the City, the pale stone was chosen to catch London light — and it still does after every cleaning.
Inside the building
What to look for on your visit
The Crypt
Wren's plain tomb sits among monuments to Nelson and Wellington, making the crypt a record of how the cathedral became a setting for national remembrance.
Quire and High Altar
Grinling Gibbons' choir stalls belong to Wren's original interior, while the present High Altar forms part of the cathedral's restoration after wartime damage.
The Light of the World
William Holman Hunt's celebrated painting connects the cathedral to the religious art of Victorian Britain and remains one of its best-known later additions.
American Memorial Chapel
Created behind the High Altar after the Second World War, the chapel remembers the American servicemen and women who died while based in Britain.