St. Paul’s Cathedral

We had been always saying we were going to go to St. Paul’s and check it out. We finally decided to head that way. It cost to get into to tour the cathedral, but anyone can enter for free for any of the worship events. We paid and headed off. We have been in many different cathedrals since we arrived back in January, but this one is nothing like the others, and we did not expect that.

The current cathedral is the 4th one on this site. They have determined the first one was most likely built around the 600’s AD by the Roman Christians. Fires mostly destroyed the other three. The third one was huge and was a whole complex but was completely gutted by the great fire of London in 1666. The current cathedral was started in 1667 and finally declared completed in 1711. The cathedral is built in what is called the baroque style compared with more of a gothic style for many of the other cathedrals we have visited. This means that the interior is less ornate and not as heavy and dark. There really is an open and warm feeling inside of St. Paul’s. We were just a few minutes late for one tour and the next would not start for two hours. Becky decided to head down to the crypt, and I decided to head up the stairs. When I say stairs, I mean stairs. There are 3 levels you can get to off the main cathedral floor. The first one is up 257 stairs, is 100 feet from the floor and is called the Whispering Gallery. It overlooks the center of the cathedral below. Supposedly the wall is designed that if one person holds their ear to the wall and someone else goes and around to the other side of this level and whispers into the wall the first person can hear them. I was unable to test this out, but I did see others doing it. They really don’t want anyone taking pictures on this level as they fear people will drop their phones/cameras and hurt people below, even though there is a netting all the way around it. I did get one quick picture in.

The next level up is another 119 steps up. These steps are of stone and are very, very narrow and totally spiral stairs. It is a bit dizzying going up to this next level. I was not ready for the fact that this set up stairs does not dump you out inside looking down into the cathedral but dumps you outside overlooking the city of London. It was a gorgeous day, and the view was wonderful no matter which direction on the compass I looked. This level is referred to as the stone gallery. On the way up you can only see from one side of the building and then on the way down you get to see the other. Traffic going up and then down is all one direction. I could not even begin to imagine what this experience would have been like on a day in the summer when the city is packed with tourist from around the world. It was pretty busy on a Thursday in early April. The last level you go up another 150 steps to again be dumped outside, but this time it is a very narrow little walkway with just a small wall with a single pipe handrail on the top about 4 ft up. This now puts you at 300 feet above the floor of the cathedral. You cannot see the floor of cathedral as you are outdoors, but you are now just below the top spire on the church. This is a single file walkway in one direction. You slow work your way around taking pictures and enjoying the sites. You do get to go all around the whole 360 degrees of the top. This is one of the highest points in the city, since the cathedral itself is on one of the highest points in the city. Until 1963 the top of the cathedral was the highest building in all of London. This level is known as the Golden Gallery.

I then made my slow decent down to the stone gallery again. This time getting to see the city from the other side of the cathedral. I did notice some amazing gardens and lawn areas on top of some of the buildings. I also became quickly aware of the fact that this city has a ton of cranes up in the air. No matter which direction you looked the sky was filled with cranes. I heard many people comment about it. As I took a picture of the cathedral clock, I noticed it was about to strike the noon hour. I decided to stay and listen to it and film it. It really was a great sound from being so close to it.

After I met up with Becky and we had lunch we then joined in with the next 90-minute tour. These tours in so many places in the UK are so worth it. You get to learn so much more than just walking around and reading signs or listening to the little av devices you get. You often get to see sections of the site other don’t get to see. We were taken into a little chapel area, got to see the not often seen spiral staircase, and we learned so much interesting history and some of the politics that went into all the many areas of the church. The building was hit twice by bombs during the blitz and a third unexploded bomb was removed and exploded elsewhere and was believed to have been strong enough to destroy the whole cathedral if it would have exploded.

The church is really divided in half. The west end shows the original design and look of Christopher Wren, while the east end shows the request of queen Victoria to brighten it up. This part has many mosaics in the ceilings. They at first look like paintings on the wall, but the closer you can get to one of the lower ones you quickly realize they are mosaics. They are stunning in their detail.

The crypt under the main floor is also amazing in of itself. Though there are several memorials on the main cathedral floor only in the crypt are people actually buried. So many famous people, but then many people with very little recorded history. All burials in all churches in the UK were ended in the 1920’s. When Sir Winston Churchill died in 1965, he was not buried in the cathedral but received the last big memorial which is a decorative gate.

We ended the day by going to the Drayton Arms pub and attending a show at the little playhouse above the pub. It is a small theatre of maybe 50-75 chairs and is used by people creating and developing works. We saw a show called the “Breathing Room”. Our expectations were very low, and it actually was pretty good. It was what is called a “devised” show. There is no real script, instead the cast just devised it during rehearsals from an idea. We enjoyed it.