Qualla: Old St Paul's Cathedral

Old St Paul's Cathedral: Introduction

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Man vyi, Public domain. On the night of 4 September 1666, John Evelyn watched a six-acre sheet of lead melt off the cathedral roof and pour through the vaulted ceiling into the crypt below. Inside St Faith's, the stationers' booksellers had stacked their entire stock - believing the great Gothic building above them was the safest vault in London. The books burned for a week. Old St Paul's Cathedral, perhaps the fourth church to stand on Ludgate Hill since the seventh century, had taken more than 200 years to build and was 586 feet long - one of the largest churches in Europe. It died in a single night. The walls survived a little longer, leaning and groaning, while Christopher Wren came up to inspect what was left.

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Image: Man vyi | Public domain

Old St Paul's Cathedral: Stone from a Vanished Tower

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit James William Edmund Doyle / Edmund Evans, Public domain. Work began after a fire destroyed the previous church in 1087. William the Conqueror, in what tradition holds was one of his last acts, donated stone from the demolished Palatine Tower on the River Fleet toward the new Romanesque cathedral. Construction stretched across more than...

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Image: James William Edmund Doyle / Edmund Evans | Public domain

Old St Paul's Cathedral: Paul's Walk: The Marketplace of Gossip

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Long before it burned, the cathedral was already failing as a sacred space. By the fifteenth century the nave - known as Paul's walk - had become the social hub of London. Bishop Braybrooke, who served from 1381 to 1404, issued an open letter complaining that the building was bei...

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Image: Public domain

Old St Paul's Cathedral: Royal Weddings, Anglo-Saxon Kings

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 'Shakespearesmonkey', CC BY 2.0. The Gothic cathedral was not only a market. Anglo-Saxon kings were buried inside - Sebbi of the East Saxons and Æthelred the Unready. The shrine of the seventh-century bishop Erkenwald drew pilgrims from across England; under Bishop Maurice, reports of miracles increased dramatic...

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Image: 'Shakespearesmonkey' | CC BY 2.0

Old St Paul's Cathedral: The Spire Falls, Then Inigo Jones Arrives

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wenceslas_Hollar_-_St._Paul's_from_the_south_showing_the_spire_(State_1).jpg: Original upload by User:Dcoetzee, revision by User:Bob Castle derivative work: Bob Castle (talk), Public domain. On 4 June 1561, the spire caught fire. According to a newsheet published days afterward, a lightning strike was to blame. The flames crashed through the nave roof. Bishop Edmund Grindal gave £1,200 for repairs, but the spire was never rebuilt. The cathedral now stood truncated, a...

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Image: Wenceslas_Hollar_-_St._Paul's_from_the_south_showing_the_spire_(State_1).jpg: Original upload by User:Dcoetzee, revision by User:Bob Castle derivative work: Bob Castle (talk) | Public domain

Old St Paul's Cathedral: Four Days of Fire

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wenceslaus Hollar, Public domain. The Great Fire reached the cathedral on the night of 4 September 1666. The scaffolding caught first, then everything. Samuel Pepys recorded the building in flames in his diary. John Evelyn returned to the site on 7 September and found "that goodly Church St Paules now a sad ruine...

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Image: Wenceslaus Hollar | Public domain