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 | Religious architecture of London: A small, plain tablet in the crypt of St Paul's Cathedral is inscribed with a brief epitaph: Lector, si monumenturn requiris, Circurnspice (Reader, if you seek a memorial, look around you). It was placed on the grave of Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) by his son. Sir Christopher gave London its finest buildings: St Paul's is his masterpiece. The earlier, Gothic cathedral was ravaged by the Great Fire and pulled down; and Wren, his plans approved by Charles II, began work in 1675. Thirty-three years later, Wren, although in his seventies, was regularly hauled up to the lantern in a basket to supervise its completion. Only St Peter's in Rome, which took 120 years to build, can be compared to this monumental achievement by a single architect whose design was realized in only half a lifetime. Until the recent arrival of tower blocks, St Paul's majestically crowned London's skyline, the great dome complemented by the graceful, soaring spires on Wren's smaller churches.  click to open  |  | Religious architecture of London: For over eight hundred years, the City of London has been administered from Guildhall, and the democratic system of government practised by its Court of Common Council was adopted by Parliament. To this day, the twenty-four City wards elect a number of freemen to the office of Common Councilman. Medieval sovereigns depended on the merchants' wealth and in return granted the City certain rights and privileges, some of which are retained. Considering the terrible catastrophies the Square Mile has suffered, it is incredible that a crypt in Guildhall survives from the thirteenth century and that, although much restored, the porch and Great Hall begun in 1411 also still stand. The modern, undulating roof on the cloister leading to a new 1970s office block symbolizes the City's wish to change with the times. Plans for a new art gallery, though, have been delayed slightly by archaeological work on the remains of a Roman amphitheatre. click to open |  | Religious architecture of London: Impressive, neo-classical government Offices in Whitehall are mostly Victorian expressions of grandeur, confirming London's supremacy within the Empire. Sir Charles Barry's reconstruction of the old Treasury (seen here on the St James's Park side) incorporates remnants of the Tudor Palace of Whitehall, whose Cockpit was once on this site. The style, very different from Barry's Parliament buildings, reflects William Kent's eighteenth- century Palladian Treasury building on Horse Guards Parade. click to open |  | Religious architecture of London: An inscribed plaque in the porch of the Creek Cathedral of St Saphia, Moscow Road, commemorates an earlier seventeenth-century Creek church in Hog Lane, Soho. This was swept away when the Charing Cross Road was cut through in the 1870s. The dull exterior of the Bayswater replacement, designed by John Oldrid Scott in the form of a Greek cross (and based on St Sphia in Istanbul), gives no hint that the interior of the city's only Creek Cathedral glistens with gold mosaics and icon paintings by Ludwig Thiersch. The great dam, and surrounding arches and friezes are lined with angels and evangelists. Pantokrator (Almighty God), at the centre of the dome, ringed by twelve lunettes interspersed with apostles. click to open |  | Religious architecture of London: The Catholic Emancipation Act of 1828 restored to Roman Catholics most religious, civil and political rights denied to them after the Reformation. At the instigation of John Henry Newman, the Oratory (an order of priests founded in Rome in the sixteenth century by St Philip Neri) established a community in London in 1849. They later moved west, and the Italian Renaissance-style Brompton Oratory (the second-largest Catholic church in the capital) was built between 1880 and 1884. Elaborately ornamented outside, the interior is predominantly blue and gold with rich ceiling decoration and side altars which have splendid paintings and statues. The large mosaic figures on the gold background on the spandrels under the dome are the four Evangelists. click to open |  | Religious architecture of London: Nicholas Hawksmoor, 'domestic clerk' to Wren, began work on Christ Church, Spitalfields, soon after Parliament passed Queen Anne's Act of 1711 for building fifty new churches. The celebrated baroque building, its great Tuscan portico and square tower emphasize by the slender, soaring spire, was intended as one of these. More churches were needed to minister to a fast-growing population in the years after the Great Fire, but in the event only twelve were built-two others in the East End also by Hawksmoor (St Anne's, Limehouse, and St George's in the East). Christ Church served the Huguenot community-mostly silk weavers who had fled from France after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685. click to open |  | Religious architecture of London: Wren's loveliest spire, on St Bride's, Fleet Street, is said to have been the inspiration for tiered wedding cakes. William Rich (1755-1811), a baker on Ludgate Hill, got the idea from the steeple he could see from his window. The. museum in the crypt, which displays a party dress belonging to his wife' Susannah, traces the history of the, parish through 1,500 years. click to open |  | Religious architecture of London: Christopher Wren built fifty- two churches in London after the Great Fire. Almost all had beautiful spires and St Mary le Bow's, with its circular colonnade, is one of the finest. The balustraded balcony above the tower commemorates the royal box on the earlier church. The king sat there to watch jousts in Cheapside in the Middle Ages. click to open |  | Religious architecture of London: Lambeth Palace, the London residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, is the only episcopal pre-Reformation town house left in the capital. It is a rare example of medieval domestic building. Certain sections near the Thames, such as the chapel, are earlier than the distinctive fifteenth -century redbrick gatehouse, and the undercroft has barely changed since it was built in 1207. The crenellated neo-Tudor addition, where the Archbishop lives when he is in London and has Offices, was designed by Edward Blore in 1829 when the palace was extensively rebuilt. The garden, revitalized by Archbishop Runcie's wife, Rosalind, in the 1980s, is he oldest private garden in London and, after Buckingham Palace, the largest. click to open |  | Religious architecture of London: The bakery, granary and brewhouse of Westminster Abbey were once in Dean's Yard. Today, Victorian buildings and the Choir School overlook the tree-lined lawn. The medieval monastic buildings to the west belong to Westminster School. Church House, the administrative headquarters of the Church of England, dominates the south side; designed by Sir Herbert Baker, it was completed in 1940. click to open |
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