St. Paul's Cathedral

Sir Christopher Wren

London

The present Church was designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and begun in 1673, was opened for divine service on Sunday, Dec. 5th, 1697, and completed in 1710. The ordinary statement that the whole building was completed by one architect, Sir Christopher Wren, and one master mason, Thos. Strong, under one bishop, Dr. Compton, is correct only as far as Wren is concerned. The greater part of the cost of construction was defrayed by a tax on coal. Sir Christopher Wren received during the building of the Cathedral a salary of �200 a year

The west front fowards Ludgate Hill was brought to better view, by the removal of the railings in 1873. [text accompanying photograph]

Image and text scanned by Nathalie Chevalier.

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

The volume containing these images by an unidentified photographer bears the imprint "With H. and C. F. Feist's compliments" but no name, date, or place of publication, though the Feists were dealers in port wine, and Plate 30 demonstrates that the photograph must have been taken after 1902, and John R. Mendel offers evidence that it dates before mid-1906 [GPL].

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Last modified 10 October 2001