One of the joys of guiding is getting to know a building. Often I notice something only after many visits. Some weeks ago, at St Paul’s, I was staring up at the high altar and looking at a detail which had previously not caught my eye. It was a gothic church, and looked very much like the model of Old St Paul’s you can see in St Paul’s crypt. Lacking a stepladder or pair of binoculars, I peered at it for clues.
Last week, when I was back at the cathedral I remembered to take my pocket camera with the zoom lens. And this is what I photographed:
So yes, it is Old St Paul’s, distinctly less gloomy looking than the blackened model in the crypt, shown complete with the spire that rose one hundred feet higher than the current dome. That spire was struck by lightning in the reign of Elizabeth I, and lost.
The altar was designed by Christopher Wren, but not executed until after the Second World War when the east end of the cathedral was restored after bomb damage. Did Wren’s design include the old cathedral? And if it did, did it also include the Globe Theatre shown across the Thames? The theatre associated with William Shakespeare which was closed in 1642 and demolished in 1644, twenty-two years before the Great Fire which destroyed Old St Paul’s. I’d like to know.
Guided By Isobel 