Places of worship
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Places of worship

In their buildings, ruins, sites and associations, London’s churches and cathedrals represent nearly 1400 years of Christianity in Britain (the first St Paul’s Cathedral is ascribed to the beginning of the 7thC). Norman work survives in St Helen’s Bishopsgate and Westminster Abbey and at the time of the Great Fire of 1666 there were over 100 churches in the present area of the City of London, a density peculiar to English cities.

The Fire set the scene for Wren’s great rebuilding programme, including St Paul’s Cathedral and 50 churches, most of which have survived later demolitions and war damage. Hawksmoor and Inigo Jones were other 17^th and early 18thC church designers whose work we can still admire.

The Victorians too were great church builders and the 19thC produced a wealth of new churches, many of them in triumphant Gothic style, for Anglican and other denominations. The neo-Byzantine Westminster RC Cathedral of 1903 is outstanding.

Non-Christian religions also have their part in London’s history, with synagogues as at Bevis Marks and, most recently, the Regent’s Park Mosque for London’s growing Islamic community. London’s most important religious buildings are listed below

Abbey’s & cathedrals

St George's RC Cathedral, Southwark

Lambeth Rd (opp Imperial Museum) SE1. 0171-928 5256. By A.W. Pugin, 1848. Spire never completed. Burnt out in last war and interior restored 1958.

St Paul’s Cathedral

Ludgate Hill EC4. 0171-248 4619/2705. Wren’s greatest work; built 1675-1710 replacing the previous church destroyed by the Great Fire. Superb dome, porches and funerary monuments. Contains magnificent stalls by Grinling Gibbons. Ironwork by Tijou, paintings by Thornhill and mosaics by Salviati and Sir William Richmond. OPEN 07.15-18.00 Mon-Sun except during special services.

Southwark Cathedral

Borough High St SE1. 0171-407 2939. Much restored. Built by Augustinian Canons but destroyed by fire in 1206. Beautiful early English choir and retrochoir. Tower built c1520, nave by Blomfield 1894. Chapter House developed in 1988 with restaurant. OPEN 08.30-18.00 Mon-Fri.

Westminster Abbey

(The Collegiate Church of St Peter in Westminster). Broad Sanctuary SW1. 0171-222 5152. Original church by Edward the Confessor 1065. Rebuilding commenced in 1245 by henry III who was largely influenced by the new french cathedrals. Completed by Henry Yevele and others 1376-1506 (towers incomplete and finished by Hawksmoor 1734). Henry VII Chapel added 1503; fine perpendicular with wonderful fan vaulting. The Abbey contains the Coronation Chair, and many tombs and memorials of the Kings and Queens of England and their subjects. Starting place for pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral. Nave and Cloisters OPEN 09.20-16.00 Mon-Fri, 09.00-14.00 & 15.45-17.00 Sat.

Westminster RC Cathedral

Ashley Pl SW1. 0171-834 7452. Early Christian Byzantine-style church by J.F. Bentley, 1903. The most important church in England. Fine marbled interior.

Churches & other places of worship

Bevis Marks Synagoguw

Heneage La (off Bevis Market) EC3. 0171-626 1274. Avis, 1700. Fine windows. Brass chandeliers from Amsterdam.

French Protestant Church

9 Soho Sq W1. 0171-437 5311. By Aston Webb in 1893, exterior surprisingly like an official building.

The Guards Chapel

Wellington Barracks, Birdcage Walk SW1. 0171-414 3228. Original chapel, built 1838 was destroyed 1944 with the loss of 121 lives. New chapel, finished 1963, is austere but complements the original surviving apse.

Holy Trinity

Sloane St SW1. 0171-730 7270. By Sedding in 1890. London’s most elaborate church of ‘Arts and Crafts’ movement.

The Ark

Talgarth Rd W6. Ralph Erskine, 1989-92. A remarkable and ambitious purpose-built office building, the shape of which stems from the shape of the side, bound on one side by the Hammersmith flyover, and on the other by tube tracks. Striking feature is the inclined facade; the cladding comprises alternate bands of clear and tinted triple glazing with copper panels between floors. Internal open terraces overlook a dramatic central atrium; this is the first building in Europe to be treated as one room. A glass-sided wall-climber lift travels through the roof of the atrium to the summit Room which is 220ft (67m) above London; the view sweeps from Docklands to Heathrow. In spite of winning several architectural awards, the building has been mainly empty since construction.

Canary Wharf Tower

One Canada Sq, Canary Wharf E14. Cesar Pelli, 1988-90. At 800ft (244m) this is the tallest building in the UK. Clad in stainless steel and topped with a pyramid, the 50-storey building boasts a magnificent lobby finished in Italian and Guatemalan marble. 32 passenger lifts operate from the lobby and are the fastest in the country. Canary Wharf itself is full of elegant architecture, stately streets, well-planted squares and out-door spaces. Intended as office space, a large proportion of the complex has remained unoccupied, although several international companies have now taken up residence.

Thames Flood Barrier

Unity Way, Eastmoor St SE18. This visually and technologically exciting structure is one of the most impressive examples of modern engineering in Europe. Completed in 1982, its gates swing up through 90 degrees from the river bed and create a stainless steel barrage to stem dangerously high tides which periodically threaten London. The Thames Barrier Visitor Centre houses an exhibition and presentation, illuminating the engineering feats involved in the barrier’s construction.

Abbey Mills Pumping Station

Abbey La E15. 0181-534 6717. An unusual building of cupolas and domes built in 1865 to pump the 83 miles of main sewers draining the 100sq miles of London. This remarkable piece of drainage engineering was the work of the engineer Joseph Bazalgette and still survives intact and perfect after well over 100 years of use. Visit by arrangements.

Albert Memorial

Kensington Gore SW7. Gothic memorial to Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, by Sir George Gilbert Scott 1872. Due to extensive restoration work, the memorial could be covered.

Bank of England

Threadneedle St EC2. 0171-601 5545. The vaults hold the nation’s gold reserve. Outer walls are still the original design by Sir John Soane, architect to the Bank 1788-1833.

Bankside

Southwark SE1. Thames-side walk with the finest views of St Paul’s and the City across the river and ‘The Anchor’, historic riverside inn rebuilt c1750. Here were Shakespeare’s theatres; his Globe is marked by a plaque in Park St and a working reconstruction of it, following the original designs of 15999, is being constructed in Emerson St, now renamed New Globe Walk. Number 49 Bankside is reputed to be the house in which Wren lodged while St Paul’s was being built.

The Blitz

Although the Docks and the City were prime targets during World War II, bombs rained all over London. The Blitz (prolonged intensive attacks by German bombers) lasted for nine months beginning Sep 1940. In June 1944 a renewed assault with V1s (‘Doodlebugs’) began and lasted nearly a year. Later, V2 rockets arrived with such speed (3600mph) that they were virtually invisible; the first fell at Chiswick but was heard at Westminster; another hit a New Cross Woolworth’s and killed 160 people. Many Londoners spent their nights in air-raid shelters or bedded down in tube stations. Ten thousands people could fit into Liverpool street tube station. Over 1.5 million homes were damaged by bombing and 100,000 houses were destroyed. In the City alone, 164 out of 460 acres (66.4 out of 186.3ha) were wiped out. Historic buildings, including churches, wre destroyed and damaged.

London Bridge

The site of many replacements. Wooden construction until 12thC; the famous stone bridge that followed carried houses and shops. Granite bridge built in 1832 by Rennie was shipped off to Lake Havasu City, Arizona in 1971. Latest construction completed in 1973.

Tower Bridge

0171-407 0922. Victorian-Gothic towers with hydraulic twin drawbridge. Jones and Wolfe-Barry 1894. Enter by the tower closest to the Tower of London and take the lift to high walkways for breath-taking views of London and the Thames.

Buckingham Palace

St James’s Park SW1. The official London residence of the Sovereign. Originally built 1705, remodelled by Nash 1825 and Edward Blore 1830-47; refaced 1913 by Sir Aston Webb. Open to the public for the first time; visitors can see most of the state apartments and the Queen’s Picture Gallery. State apartments OPEN Aug & Sep 09.30-17.30 Mon-Sun.

Covent Garden Market

Originally designed by Inigo Jones (with his St Paul’s church) as a residential square in the 1630s. Market buildings dating from 1830 by Fowler. Floral Hall added in 1860 by E.M. Barry, architect of the Royal Opera House (1858). In 1974 the market moved to Nine Elms, but the area survived to become a flourishing new community, with eclectic, though expensive, shopping centre, restaurants, London Transport Museum and Theatre Museum.

The Cutty Sark

King William Walk Se10. 0181-858 3445. Stands in dry-dock. One of the great sailing tea-clippers, built 1869. Gipsy Moth IV, the boat in which Sir Francis Chichester sailed round the world in 1966, stands in dry-dock next the Cutty Sark.

Old Royal Observatory

Greenwhich Park SE10. 0181-858 4422. Formely the Green which Observatory. Part of the National Maritime Museum and includes Flamsteed House. Designed by Wren and founded by Charles II in 1675. Time and astronomical instruments; the Meridian Line; largest refracting telescope in the UK. Most of the pioneer work in the development of astronomy and nautical navigation was done here.

Guildhall

Off Gresham St EC2. 0171-606 3030. 15thC with alterations to the facade by George Dance, 1789, and later restorations by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. The Great Hall is used for ceremonial occasions. Medieval groined vaulting in crypts. Roman amphitheatre recently excavated in the courtyard.

Houses of Parliament

ST Margaret St SW1. 0171-219 3000. Victorian-Gothic building 1840-68 by Sir Charles Barry and A.W.N. Pugin. Westminster Hall was built in 1099 as the Great Hall of William Rufus’ new palace; the roof dates from the late 14thC.

Hyde Park Corner

Consists of Constitution Arch at the top of Constitution Hill, and the lonic screen of three classical-style triumphal arches at the entry to Hyde Park, by Decimus Burton, 1825. Admire too the Duke of Wellington’s former home Apsley House, once known as ‘Number One, London’.

London Wall

Surviving parts of the Roman and medieval wall around the old city of London can still be seen at St Alphage on the north side of London Wall EC2; St Giles Churchyard, Cripplegate EC1; and Tower of London EC3.

Marble Arch

Designed by John Nash, 1827, based on the Arch of Constantine in Rome. Intented to be a great new entrance for Buckingham Palace, it wasn’t until it was finished that it was discovered that the arch was too narrow for the state coach to pass through so it had to be moved to its present site. From the 14thC to 1783 this was the spot for the Tyburn Gallows, the main execution site where hangings took place watched by excited crowds.

Soho

An area bounded by Regents St, Oxford St, Shaftesbury Av and Charing Cross Rd. Lively and notorious but perfectly safe, except for touts for peep show, nude encounter and strip joint customers. Narrow 18thC streets full of fascinating foreign food shops, restaurants, street markets, flashing neon and nightlife of all sorts. Visait London’s ‘Chinatown’ around Gerrard St.

Tower of London

Towe Hill EC3. 0171-709 0765. A keep, a prison and still a fortress. Famous for the Bloody Tower, Traitors’ Gate, the ravens, Crown Jewels, the Armories and the Yemon Warders. Edward I’s Medieval Palace has been restored and is open to the public.