Welcome to London Discovery Tours

Posts Tagged ‘Sir Christopher Wren’

The Perfect Walk of London.

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

There are so many London walks routes that you could follow. You could, for example, explore the area of the Inns of Court on a Legal London Walking Tour.

You could venture onto the wild expanse of Hampstead Heath and then take a stroll through the village of Hampstead on a Walk.

If you want to have a night out that is totally different then why not consider exploring the old pubs and historic inns and taverns of the City on a fun and fascinating London Pub Walk?

The truth is that, with a City like London the only thing that limits you in your exploration is your imagination.

We have been devising Walks of London for 28 years and, in that time, we have covered almost every square inch of London. Yet, strange as it might seem, things still crop up from time to time on our London Walking Tours that surprise even us!

That is because London as a City evolved rather than being built to a plan. One of the things we always stress to out walkers is that, if you really want to explore London you must not walk around with your eyes glues to the ground, you must look all around you. Up down and sideways.

Take Fleet Street for example. If you walk along it from Ludgate Circus you really should pause and look left at the graceful spire of St. Bride’s Fleet Street. This lovely spire was designed by Sir Christopeher Wren.

But it also the spire that inspired the modern tiered wedding cake, a fact that those who take part in our London walks really get to appreciate. Yet many of them say that they would never have really stopped and really looked at and thought about that lovely, graceful spire had we not pointed it out to them and explained its history.

That is why our  London walks are such a good way to explore London because they make you see beyond the obvious and really look at a City that is both beautiful and fascinating in equal measure.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »

Exploring Paternoster Square - London walks

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Standing in the middle of Paternoster Square and looking up at the mighty and glorious dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, you can’t help but draw breath in wonder and the splendid vision that unfolds around you.

Paternoster Square, which we cover on several of our London walks, is a lovely mix of old and new London.

On one side of the square is an arched gateway which is Temple Bar. It is the only one of London’s City gates to survive and gives you an idea of what London would have looked like when it was a walled and gated City.

Temple Bar used to stand at the junction of Strand and Fleet Street, a little to the west of its current location. For over two hundred years the daily life of London moved in and out through this gate.

It was built in 1672 and designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the same man who designed St Paul’s Cathedral, which towers over you as you stand in Paternoster Square.

It was the gate that separated the City’s of London and Westminster and the statues that you see on it are of James 1st and Anne of Denmark, plus Charles 1st and Charles 11.

From 1684 it was put to a somewhat gruesome use with parts of the bodies (usually the heads) of traitors being displayed on spikes above its arch. One enterprising tradesman actually set up a stall alongside Temple Bar and rented out telescopes for half a penny to enable people to get a closer look at their favourite or most infamous traitor!

In 1805, for the funeral of Admiral Horatio Lord Nelson,  Temple Bar was covered in black velvet as a tribute to the great Naval hero. Nelson, incidentally, is buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

But, by the 1870’s, London’s traffic was increasing and Temple bar was something of a hindrance to the smooth passage of the horse drawn. vehicles. Charles Dickens in his novel Bleak House refers to it as “that leaden headed old obstruction” and he pretty much reflected the attitude of London as a whole. Thus is 1878 it was taken down and moved to Theobald’s Park in Hertfordshire, the mansion of the brewing magnate Sir Henry Meux.

Over the next hundred years it was vandalised and allowed to fall into ruin. But, in 2003 when Pater Noster Square was being rebuilt, The Temple Bar Trust brought it back to central London and it was erected close to St Paul’s Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren’s greatest legacy to the City of London.

The room over the gate can even be hired for private dinners by approaching the Chapter House of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which will be the subject of a later blog and which features, along with Temple Bar on our Historic City of London walks.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »

Look At London Differently on Walks.

Thursday, September 24th, 2009

If you’re Walking to work in London then why not slow your pace down and take a moment to look around you at exactly what can be seen in the streets of  the City of London.

Walks are a great way to get around the City but, let’s be honest, when we traipse our way through the streets we are, more often than not, in a hurry to get from point A to point B. We seldom take the time to actually notice what it is we are passing, and we seldom pause and look up at the buildings that surround us. It’s our loss.

On our City of London walks we are forever pointing out items in the streets and on the buildings that we pass that our clients tells us they would never have noticed had we not pointed them out.

Take Gresham Street for example. Now Gresham Street is a thoroughfare we pass along on several of our Tours of London. At first glance it looks like any other street in London and our Walkers could be forgiven for not paying it much attention.

But Gresham Street contains several true treasures. Walking along it from St Martin Le Grand (which we will be doing a history of in an upcoming blog) you will pass on the left the delightful church of St Anne and St Agnes. If you look up at the white wooden tower that surmounts it you will see its weather vane that is made up of a golden A, commemorating the two saints.

St Anne was the mother of Mary and was therefore the Grandmother of Christ. St Agnes was a 13 year old girl martyred by the Romans in the year 300AD.

The church is delightful. After bombing in the Second World War it was restored and was rebuilt exactly as Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who designed it, had planned it. It is a very simple church which is now a Lutheran church.

Turning left just after the church, a little way along Noble Street, you can look over a waist high brick wall and look down at the remnants of the Roman Fort, built in the year AD120 and incorporated into the City Wall that the Romans built around their City of Londinium in about the year AD200.

Returning to Gresham Street and turning left, you will encounter a metal arch through which is a delightful little garden. Over the arch is a golden cat. It is, in fact, a leopard and it is here because on the opposite side of Gresham Street you will see Goldsmiths Hall. The Goldsmiths had the right to test the quality of gold in London and they gave it their seal of approval by stamping their mark, the leopard onto gold and silver that they had tested here at their hall. This incidentally is where we get the word Hallmark from.

So, with in a few minutes of taking a London walk along Gresham Street, you have encountered three things that are both interesting and pleasing to look at.

That is why in London walks make a great way to explore the city. So next time you stroll down a London street, take your time and just look up, down and sideways. Who knows what hidden treasure you will encounter?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »

London walks Quiz - The Answers

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

Yesterday we set you a little quiz that consisted of questions regarding topics that come up on our various London walks.

From the Jack the Ripper London walk.

1. How many victims is it believed that Jack the Ripper had?

The general consensus, which it has to be said is by no means certain is that Jack the Ripper had five victims.

2. In which part of London did the Jack the Ripper murders occur?

Several of our East End of London walks cover the quarter of London where the murders occurred. The murders occurred in the districts of Spitalfields and Whitechapel, with one murder, that of Catharine Eddowes, the fourth victim taking place in the City of London.

3. Can you name one of the detectives who investigated the crimes?

There are so many that you could choose from but the man in charge of the on the ground investigation was Inspector Abberline. He incidentally was the person upon the character of Johnny Depp in the film From Hell was very loosely based.

If you would like to experience one of our Jack the Ripper London walks, they take place seven chilling nights a week at 7pm

From the Dickens London walks.

1. What was Charles Dickens first major work?

The first major work by Dickens was Pickwick Papers.

2. Which book was he working on when he died in 1870?

Dickens died suddenly in June 1870 whilst he was working on The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

3. What was the name of the magistrate before whom Oliver Twist appeared?

Having been taken for pick-pocketing on Clerkenwell Green Oliver appears before Mr Fang at Hatton Garden Police Court.

From our City of London walks.

1. Where is Christ’s Hospital School now located?

Close to St. Paul’s there is a blue plaque on the wall of what is now Merrill Lynch that marks what was the site of Christ’s Hospital School. However in the 1890’s the school moved to its current location at Horsham.

2. What was Sir Christopher Wren’s first architectural commission?

Wren’s first architectural commission came about as a result of nepotism. His uncle, who was Bishop of Ely commissioned him to design the chapel at Pemroke College in Cambridge in 1663. This was followed in 1664 by a commission to design the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.

3. Which London market became Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter films?

Leadenhall Market, London’s most beautiful Victorian market was used for Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter films.

So there you have it. A handful of questions that really demonstrate the sheer breadth and variety of subjects and facts that you can learn on one of our acclaimed London walks.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »

A quick Quiz from our London walks

Wednesday, September 16th, 2009

Are you in the mood to get quizicle about our various London walks?

One of the intriguing aspects of our recent group bookings on the various London walks that we offer is that a number of offices have been asking us to end the tour with a quiz in a pub or a restaurant.

It really does make a fun ending to a walking tour of London to sit down and be asked a series of questions on the tour that you have just taken.

So, with that in mind, tonight’s blog will take the form of a quiz that you can try on your own and see if you can answer the questions.

All the questions relate to places and people that are seen and discussed on our various Walks in London so, without further a do, why not engage those little grey cells and let’s launch the great Discovery Walks London test.

From the Jack the Ripper Tour.

1. How many victims is it believed that Jack the Ripper had?

2. In which part of London did the Jack the Ripper murders occur?

3. Can you name one of the detectives who investigated the crimes?

From the Dickens London walking tour.

1. What was Charles Dickens first major work?

2. Which book was he working on when he died in 1870?

3. What was the name of the magistrate before whom Oliver Twist appeared?

From our City of London walks.

1. Where is Christ’s Hospital School now located?

2. What was Sir Christopher Wren’s first architectural commission?

3. Which London market became Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter films?

The quiz, incidentally, is purely for fun! You can find the answers to all these questions on our various blog postings.

Of course you can also find the answers by joining us on one of our many and varied London walks that cover all the subjects and the topics featured in the great Discovery Tours London Quiz.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »

Sir Christopher Wren - London walks.

Monday, September 14th, 2009

As our City of London walks wend their way through the City one name crops up time and time again and that name is Sir Christopher Wren, the architect who designed St Paul’s Cathedral and the man who, more than any other helped shape the London skyline that we know today.

You will see examples of his work on virtually every one of our London walks, but who was he and how did he come to transform the London skyline?

Sir Christopher Wren was born on 20th October 1632 in Wiltshire. Given that today he is probably best known as the architect who designed St. Paul’s Cathedral, it might come a something of a surprise to learn that architecture wasn’t his main vocation in life.

He was an astronomer, a mathematician and an enthusiastic pursuer of almost every branch of science and mathematics who came to architecture via his interest in geometry and mechanics.

As a very young man he had been responsible for several inventions. These included a mechanical weather recorder, a device to enable people to read in the dark, and a sign alphabet to help the hearing impaired which was a precursor of modern sign language.

His first architectural commission came in 1663 when his uncle, the Bishop of Ely, invited him to create a design for the chapel of Pembroke College in Cambridge. His next commission was the Sheldonian Theatre in oxford which was begun in 1664.

Had it these been his only design he would, no doubt, have been remembered today but would certainly not have been the man who, more than any other, gave London the look and feel that it has today and which participants on our many and varied London walks can experience and admire.

Our next blog will look at how his opportunity to shine came in 1666 when the Great Fire of London destroyed the City of London and Wren just happended to be the right man in the right place at the right time.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »

Christchurch Rebuilt - more London walks

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

Over the past few days we have been looking at a church that features on several of our London walks Christchurch Newgate Street, also known as Christchurch Greyfriars. Yesterday, we left it a smoke blackened ruin which had been destroyed by the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Today, we look at how it was rebuilt by the great architect Sir Christopher Wren, a figure who looms large on many of our London walks.

As the rebuilding of London began in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London. Christ’s Hospital School was rebuilt, and Sir Christopher Wren commenced work on the rebuilding of Christchurch between 1667 and 1687.

The rebuilt church was the most expensive of all his London churches (many of which are featured on our Sir Christopher Wren London walk) and cost the, for those times, astronomical sum of  £11, 778 9 shillings and 6 pence. It was a very wide church with huge sloping galleries for the pupils from Christchurch to sit in during services. The galleries,  so it is said, were designed thus to enable the Master to keep an eye on his charges during the services.

The Tower itself was built in stages and wasn’t actually fully completed until 1704.

By the 1930’s the church was surrounded by buildings of the post office. Then, on the night of 29th December 1940, the church was again destroyed by the bombs of the Blitz. As it blazed two postmen from the nearby post office raced into the furnace and managed to rescue the intricately carved font cover, which had been the work of Sir Christopher Wren’s master wood carver Grinling Gibbons. This now resides inside the nearby city church of St Sepulchre’s, which we cover on our Historic City of London walks.

After the war the Corporation of London wished to widen the curve at the junction of Newgate Street and thus the eastern wall of the churches was pulled down it position marked by a series of large concrete blocks at the side of the road.

In 2005 Kate Renwick, an Irish-American lady, purchased the Tower and converted it into a magnificent 11 floor family home.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »

Walks in London - Wren and Christchurch

Saturday, September 12th, 2009

The last two blogs about our London walks in the city have focused upon the ruins of Christchurch, Newgate Street. Yesterday we told how, following the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Edward V1 founded Christ’s Hospital School in the buildings of the former Greyfriars Monastery.

In early September 1666 both the church and hospital were destroyed by the Great fire of London.

Our City of London walks feature much about the Great Fire and these were just two buildings that were destroyed by it.

The summer of 1666 had been a hot and dry one. The narrow streets of the old medieval city were crammed with wooden buildings which, by the beginning of September were tinderbox dry.

On the night of 1st September 1666 Thomas Faryner, the King’s Baker, whose bakeshop was situated on Pudding Lane, went to bed and, allegedly, forgot to draw or put out his fire.

In the early hours the household were woken by the smell of burning and found that the building was on fire. The flames quickly spread down to the riverside wharves where items such as timber, brandy, oil, silk and even gunpowder were being stored.

Up until this point Londoners wouldn’t have been to worried about the flames as fire was commonplace in the old Medieval City of London. But the wind grew stronger and, worse still, changed direction, fanning the flames north westerly thorugh the heart of the city where they were fed by the dry timbers of the houses.

The fire raged for four days and destroyed nine tenths of the old City of London. 87 churches were razed to the ground, 44 livery halls were wiped out and 13,200 houses were destroyed. But remarkably, despite the devastation, only nine lives were lost directly in the Great Fire of London.

The old medieval city of narrow streets and picturesque timbered houses was gone for good. But for one man the devastation would provide a longed for opportunity to redevelop the City.

That man was Christopher Wren and one of the many churches he rebuilt was Christchurch.

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »

Wren Churches Lost in the Blitz.

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

London walks around the environs of the Bank of England reveal a mournful succession of blue plaques commemorating the beautiful Sir Christopher Wren Churches that were victims of Victorian arrogance.

But, following the bombing raid of the 29th December 1940, ten more Wren churches stood in ruins.

The principal parish church of the City was a wreck — St Mary le Bow on Cheapside had once been the church of the Archbishop of Canterbury when resident in London. With its great bell, it stood on the main market street (in Old English a ‘cheap’ is a market).

The bell rang out in former centuries to signal the curfew; to be born within the sound of it was to be a ‘cockney’ or a Londoner. When the church was bombed the bell fell out of the tower and melted. In a sense, there would be no more true-born Londoners until 1956, when the bell was recast.

Reference has already been made to the destruction of St Bride’s on Fleet Street. The interior of the church was somewhat marred by the Victorian pews, but it was its steeple that attracted affection.

St Bride’s steeple is a series of concentric drums reducing as they ascend, and it gave rise to the design of the tiered wedding cake, the church itself being known as the ‘wedding cake church’.

St Lawrence-in-the¬Jewry-next-Guildhall, the church of the government of the City, had burned before the eyes of the Guildhall fire- watchers, its steeple crashing down in flames into the body of the church.

St Alban’s, Wood Street, was likewise a shell and later the authorities would seize the opportunity to demolish the remains of the body, leaving only the tower, since the church stood in the middle of a narrow street.

The church of Christchurch, Newgate Street, stood next to the postal headquarters, and as it blazed two postmen rushed into the furnace to rescue what they could. They seized the carved font cover made by Grinling Gibbons, Wren’s master woodcarver, and this now resides in the church of the Holy Sepulchre-without-Newgate.

Here, too, there would be no restoration as the City Corporation wished to broaden the curve at the corner of Newgate Street. The remains of the church are now a garden dominated by the old tower.

St Olave’s church on Ironmonger Lane would have its body replaced by a new one, but finally became an estate agent’s office. St Nicholas Cole Abbey on Queen Victoria Street, the church of the Hudson Bay Company, with a weather vane in the shape of the Nonsuch — the company’s first ship — would be restored to use.

The church of St Andrew by the Wardrobe on Queen Victoria Street, which features on our Shakespeare London walks, had been badly abused by Victorian beautifiers and would now suffer the further indignity of having an office built in its interior to house the Society for Ancient Monuments.

The little brick church of St Anne and St Agnes, the cheapest of Wren’s churches with only a wooden turret instead of a tower, would be restored to become a Lutheran Church with services in Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian.

Tucked away behind the cathedral was the minuscule church of St Augustine, the church of St Paul’s Choir School. Here only the tower was left standing. A committee of architects called the Architects Co-partnership would conspire to erect a bizarre replacement built of concrete and lead in the modernist style. It is difficult to imagine anything more incongruous with the Wren tower and the great cathedral next to it.

Strangest of all was the fate reserved for the church of St Mary Aldermanbury, on Love Lane.

In 1966 the remains of the church were shipped to Fulton, Missouri, USA, where the restored church now stands as a memorial to Winston Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech made at Westminster College, Fulton, in 1946.

The bombing of London and other cities in Britain continued after the night of the ‘Second Great Fire’.

On the 11 January 1941 a direct hit on Bank Underground Station blasted a great crater in the middle of the road, under which lay the station ticket office. Bodies were thrown up from the station and scattered all around. The crater was of such depth that army engineers had to erect a bailey bridge across it for traffic at this major intersection.

During mid-January to mid-March there were a number of minor raids known as ‘nuisance raids’.

On 8 March there was a heavy raid of 125 bombers, then from March through to mid-April an average of one raid per week, the heaviest of these being on 19 March, when there were 479 bombing sorties dropping 400 tons of high explosive.

On 16 and 19 April there were two heavy raids. These were remembered by Londoners as ‘The Wednesday’ and ‘The Saturday’. ‘The Wednesday’ saw the destruction of Chelsea Old Church, the church of Sir Thomas More.

On The Saturday’ St Paul’s was hit again.

We will continue with our London walks Blitz Blog tomorrow.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »

The Blitz in London Continued.

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

Our report on the night of the 29th December when London was devastated as the Blitz got underway continues. Our London walks blog yesterday ended with the area around St. Paul’s Cathedral going up in flames.

Before the war Paternoster Row had been the centre of the publishing trade in England.

Indeed, back in the Great Fire of London in 1666, when Paternoster Row was burned down for the first time, 500,000 books went up in smoke.

On this evening in December 1940 fifteen million volumes were to make a similar exit. The offices and stores of twenty-seven publishing firms were destroyed.

The employees of the publishing firms were members of St Paul’s fire watch, running on ropes around the cathedral dome hacking out IBs as their own workplaces burned down across the street.

After this night, publishing moved out, mainly to the Bloomsbury area around the British Museum, and has never returned.

By 6.30pm, fire-watchers on St Paul’s were reporting ‘fires out of control’ in the buildings without fire-watchers in the area.

By 6.30pm New Change opposite St Paul’s was a continuous blaze. Carter Lane (covered on our Dickens London walks) to the south of the cathedral was an inferno, and on the cathedral itself the fire-watchers were now using wet sacks to put out flying sparks landing from other conflagrations.

At 6.39pm St Paul’s Fire Watch phoned Cannon Street Fire Station to report that the dome was on fire. This was true but turned out to be no real threat. An IB had punched into the lead of the dome and was blazing away.

The blaze lit up the whole dome and shone through the windows at the base of the drum. The IB was only partially embedded in the lead and its own heat melted the lead, causing it to fall to the floor of the Stone Gallery where it burned on harmlessly.

It was this bomb that gave rise to Ed Morrows’ CBS broadcast to America that night.

Morrow was watching the bombing from the roof of the Press Association building in Fleet Street, and, as was his habit, was holding his microphone aloft to catch the sound of the bombs as they fell around him, conveying a vivid impression to his listeners back home in the States.

Morrow said, ‘And the church that meant most to Londoners is now gone. St Paul’s Cathedral, built by Sir Christopher Wren, her great dome towering over the capital of the Empire, is burning to the ground as I talk to you’. Morrow was understandably wrong.

At the same time Prime Minister Winston Churchill had sent out an order to the London Fire Brigade: ‘At all costs save St Paul’s’. Divisional Officer Cyril Demarne responded, ‘He didn’t need to tell us that’.

Our London walks and the Blitz blog will continue tomorrow.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in General Walking Blogs | No Comments »