The London Traveler

St Paul’s Cathedral is one of the great sights of London. But many visitors don’t get to see tenth of the interesting things that the cathedral contains. So here’s a quick checklist.

• Nelson’s monument in the South transept, by the English neo-classical sculptor Flaxman. Note how the cloak Nelson is wearing cleverly conceals his missing arm, and how his blind eye has been shown. Below, you can see a gruff-looking British lion and the figure of Brittania showing young midshipmen their hero and example. If you’re a completist, you’ll also want to find the monument for vice-admiral Collingwood, who took over at Trafalgar after Nelson was killed.
• The wrought iron grilles to the choir, by Jean Tijou.  England never really took to the baroque style – except in metal; both silversmiths and blacksmiths fell in love with baroque and rococo, and produced some lovely work in the styles.  These gates are probably  one of the four or five best examples of baroque wrought ironwork in the country. The whispering gallery balcony is also by Tijou.
• The Great Model. St Paul’s was a battleground between Sir Christopher Wren, who wanted to build a centralised church completely in classical style, and the cathedral chapter, which wanted something more conservative  – with a spire, like the old cathedral. It took several different designs before Wren came up with a compromise. This is a massive wooden model of one of his designs -  you can see from the curving sides that  it was much more baroque than the current design, and with a starkly pedimented west front instead of the more Gothic-styled twin towered facade that was built. Admire the quality of the woodwork, including the beautifully carved capitals and foliage swags.
• The whispering gallery. Climb up here and you can test the acoustic qualities of the dome – whisper at the wall, and someone standing exactly opposite you  on the other side of the huge empty space can hear everything you say!
• John Donne, the Metaphysical poet, was also Dean of St Paul’s. The small monument in the choir aisle, showing him in his shroud ready for burial, is the only one to survive the Great Fire.
• The choir stalls, by Grinling Gibbons, are one of the great works of English woodcarving from the baroque period.
• Wellington’s monument, in the nave, is a severe classical work. You can’t really miss this one, even if you try!
• As well as the Nelson monument, Flaxman worked on the monument to painter Sir Joshua Reynolds in the North transept. Preachers used to told to project their voices towards this monument so that the sound will carry. Neoclassical art can often be rather cold and difficult to love – but Flaxman is probably the best English sculptor in the style.
• The crypt contains Wellington’s funeral carriage, made out of melted-down guns, and Nelson’s tomb. Nelson is said to have been pickled in navy rum so that his body could be brought back from Trafalgar; on the way, it’s said, sailors drilled holes in the barrel to extract the rum, so that at the end of the journey there wasn’t much of it left! That may be a myth, though. An equally interesting true story is that Nelson is buried in a second -hand tomb. The fine sixteenth century Italian sarcophagus was originally intended for Cardinal Wolsey’s tomb -  but when Wolsey fell from power, it was remaindered, and centuries later, used to give Nelson a hero’s burial.
• The grave of Sir Christopher Wren, in the crypt, is covered by a simple circular marble slab, with the words ’si monumentum requiris, circumspice’ -’if you want to see his monument, look around you’. One tourist guide used to explain the last word in Latin as ‘Sir-come-spy-see’ – say it out loud, it works!
• Personally I really hate Holman Hunt’s ‘The light of the world’ – Victorian religiosity at its worst. And it’s not the original version, which is in Keble College, Oxford. But you do have to see it – if only to dislike it.

When: 0830-1600 daily,except Sundays

How much: £9.50 (£8.50 concessions, £3  children)

Photo credit: Steve Cadman on flickr

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