Beez Neez now Chy Whella - Top of St Paul's

Top of St Paul's

Beez Neez now Chy Whella

Big Bear and Pepe Millard

Wed 23 Aug 2017 22:37

To the Top of St Paul's Cathedral, London

Our first look at St Paul’s Cathedral from our Hop On Hop Off bus.

We carried no bags so we by-passed the search on the main steps (sad, but this is the way things are in days of high alert......). Once in, we collected our audio equipment and headed straight for the crypt. There is a ‘No Photography’ rule but there are many, many pictures available on the internet and we bought a simple souvenir booklet as an aide memoir.

The vast crypt contains the tombs of many notable figures, including the painters Constable, Turner, and Reynolds. Under the south aisle lies the simple tombstone of Sir Christopher Wren, as well as the tombs of two of England's greatest heroes, the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson (the latter's coffin was made from the mast of the French flagship L'Orient). We each found our favourites – after Bear had listened to the commentary on Wellington and Wren he sought out Florence Nightingale. I wanted to find Sir Edwin Landseer and Harley went in search of Sir Winston Churchill’s Memorial Gates. We spent ages finding everyone who had commentary and then went for a cup of tea before heading upstairs.

St Paul’s Cathedral in 1896.

Seat of the Bishop of London and "parish church of the British Commonwealth," St. Paul's Cathedral is the largest and most famous of London's many churches. Located on the site of a Roman temple, the present structure was built after the original church was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. Designed by Sir Christopher Wren, the resulting masterpiece is today one of Britain's most recognizable landmarks. Wren's version of St. Paul's was begun in 1675 and completed in 1711, approved only after long wrangling with the church commissioners, who turned down his first two designs. The result was a compromise between Wren's original idea of a dome and the commissioners' preference for a plan in the form of a cross.

As built, however, St. Paul's is undoubtedly Wren's masterpiece. It's also a Renaissance church of spectacular dimensions: 515 feet long and 227 feet wide across the transepts, with two 212-foot-high towers and a magnificent 365-foot dome. Since the repair of damage suffered by the cathedral during WWII and the cleaning of the façade to remove 250 years of accumulated grime, St. Paul's has been fully restored to its original majestic beauty.

No visit to St. Paul's would have been complete without scaling the interior of the dome. Just 528 steps to the top - a height of nearly 365 feet. One of the largest such structures in the world, St. Paul's dome weighs almost 65,000 tons and consists of a unique three-dome structure, including a decorated interior dome, a middle dome built of brick (and largely unseen) for strength and support, and the exterior dome. Stunning 360-degree views are available from the exterior platforms accessible from both the Stone Gallery and Golden Gallery.

Between the Stone and Golden Galleries we knelt to look down. The view and on the the zoomed view we could make out chairs.

There are 259 steps leading up to the spectacular Whispering Gallery, which runs around the dome at a height of 100 feet. It's so called because of its remarkable acoustic properties (it's possible to hear a whisper from across the dome's total width of 112 feet). From here, visitors can see Thornhill's paintings up close and gain a breath-taking impression of the size and proportions of the nave far below. From the Whispering Gallery, a further 117 steps lead up to the Stone Gallery around the outside of the dome, and a further 166 steps above this is the Golden Gallery.

Views from the top were incredible.

Exterior features of interest include the 180-foot-long West Front, with its main entrance and columned portico surmounted by an upper colonnade, as well as the statue of St. Paul above the pediment, and the two flanking statues of Saints James and Peter. On either side of the portico are two Baroque towers - the West Towers - one of which houses a peal of 12 bells, the other the largest bell in England, Great Paul, which weighs almost 17 tons and was cast in 1882. Picture of Bear and Harley complete with photo-bombing pigeon.