After I wrote my post about Old St Paul’s I realised I had forgotten another important source, the copperplate map dated to 1553-59.
Although no original printed copy survives three of the copper plates used to print it have been rediscovered in recent years. The most recent find was in 1997 and that is the one which shows St Paul’s with its spire. A noteworthy feature are the tress and one must presume grass around Paul’s Cross and the tree the north-west end of the cathedral. Closes with trees and freeware were not just the setting of cathedrals such as Salisbury and Wells but also of urban centres such as London and Exeter.
The copperplate map showing St Paul’s in the reign of Queen Mary I
Image: Lost London Churches Project
2 comments:
That website https://vpcathedral.chass.ncsu.edu/ (virtual Old St Pauls) is very impressive. It's a damned shame Sir Christopher Wren couldn't have saved Old St Pauls, but instead, after the Fire of London, blew up what was left of it with gunpowder, the hooligan! I'm probably in a minority of one, but would have preferred Old St Pauls to be still there instead of Wren's giant upturned tit that replaced it! Perhaps one day the whole of the Fleet Street area (which averages 60 feet deep in the rubble of Old St Pauls) will be excavated and a lot of the stones reconstructed with the help of AI.
I listened to part of an Easter sermon by Launcelot Andrewes, and can well imagine how hypnotic his sermons were said to be, which is just as well considering their tremendous length and liberal peppering of Latin and Greek phrases and maxims! Sadly, I couldn't find a recording of his famous Christmas 1622 sermon which inspired T S Eliot to write his poem Journey of the Magi.
The pronunciation of the spoken words is also fascinating and plausible, and sounds vaguely Irish or perhaps American. I've heard it said that Elizabethan pronunciation, especially of people from the West Country, would sound to us very similar to the US southern accent.
Cheers
John Ramsden (jrq@gmx.com)
I share your regret about the loss of Old St Paul’s, though I wonder if Inigo Jones’ refacing and Wren’s dreadful plan or a dome very like the one on the present cathedral, would have left much of the original structure intact. Of course nineteenth century romanticism might have “restored” it back to something its medieval appearance.
From the few drawings of the ruins it looks as if much of the building had collapsed - but not ironically the central tower which Wren had so recently planned to replace. Attempts were, I believe, made to salvage the west portico added by Jones, but that proved unsuccessful. Some of the drums of the giant order of pillars were found some years ago buried in the church yard.
My last two visits to the present cathedral confirm my sense that it has a cold and rather unwelcoming aspect inside, suitable for Anglican celebrations of State occasions and of the Established Church, but not a place for what the later Middle Ages would have called “ private religion”.
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