Before Wren's dome, Ludgate Hill carried a Gothic cathedral with a colossal spire
Christopher Wren's dome, finished in 1710 and 365 feet high, stood as London's tallest building until 1963. It replaced Old St Paul's, a medieval giant whose spire reached roughly 489 feet and whose later years brought lightning, neglect and a spell as a cavalry barracks.
A church dedicated to St Paul has stood in London since AD 604, when Augustine of Canterbury consecrated Mellitus as bishop of the East Saxons and Æthelberht, king of Kent, built him a cathedral, probably on the same spot as today's. It had a rocky start: after King Sæberht died around 616, his pagan sons drove Mellitus out. Christianity returned later in the seventh century, and Bishop Erkenwald, buried there in 693, came to be revered almost as a founder.
The Anglo-Saxon church burned along with much of the city in 1087. The Normans began its replacement, which was not consecrated until 1240 and drifted from Romanesque to Gothic as it rose. An enlargement completed in 1314 left Old St Paul's 585 feet long; in the later Middle Ages only the abbey church at Cluny was longer, and only Lincoln Cathedral and a church in Stralsund had taller spires. Its ribbed vault, though, was made of wood rather than stone, a choice that would count against it.
The Reformation stripped out shrines, chantries and relics, reportedly including a stone from the site of the Ascension. Lightning destroyed the spire in 1561, and Catholic writers called it divine judgement on England's Protestant rulers, while the bishop blamed irreverent use of the building; money was short, so the steeple got only a timber roof. Inigo Jones began a classical west portico in 1631, but during the Civil War Parliament sold the scaffolding and used the nave to house cavalry, and by 1658 the south transept had fallen in.
Charles II set up a commission in 1663 to rescue the building, and one member, Christopher Wren, proposed in May 1666 to swap its Gothick Rudeness for a classical design. That September the Great Fire gutted the old church, and the decision was taken to start again. Wren's cathedral went on to host the funerals of Nelson, Wellington and Churchill and the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer. Tourists now pay £25 at the door, while worshippers enter free.
Source: St Paul's Cathedral
