In the Shadow of St. Paul’s Cathedral: Margaret Willes (1666)
Margaret Willes and Violet Moller at Yale Books HQ, London
This week we revisit one of the most dangerous and dramatic moments in London's history through the prism of one of its most iconic buildings: St. Paul's Cathedral.
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When we think of modern London, the places that spring to mind are Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament and Piccadilly Circus, but the true heart of the city lies far to the east, on Ludgate Hill. St Paul’s Cathedral has been at the centre of London for over a millennium, a hub of religion, politics, news, education, publishing, and of course, shopping. In her beautiful new book, In the Shadow of St Paul’s Cathedral, Margaret Willes looks back on the long and lively history of this extraordinary corner of our capital.
The city’s vast expansion westwards is a relatively recent phenomenon and for centuries, London was essentially a square mile with St Paul’s at its western end, the Tower to the east with almost one hundred churches crammed in between. For most of its history, the area around St Pauls bustled with everyone from shopkeepers to beggars, priests to prostitutes. Willes tells tales of strange ceremonies with pagan overtones, football games in the nave, radical preachers, folk moots, royal proclamations and wrestling matches. From around 1500, it was home to hundreds of shops selling books, writing materials, journals, prints. These were later joined by fabric merchants and clothiers.
William Rufus began rebuilding the church of St Paul as a huge cathedral in 1087, but the new building, complete with a wooden ribbed roof and eye-wateringly high spire, was not finished until 1240. As we discover in this episode, Old St Paul’s, as it came to be known, was a major casualty of the great fire that destroyed most of the city in 1666, paving the way for Christopher Wren’s redevelopment and the magnificent building we know today. The fire raged for several days due to strong winds, and when it was finally over, Samuel Pepys, who had lived his whole life in the city, sadly recorded that he, ‘saw all the town burned, and a miserable sight of Pauls church [the cathedral] with all the roofs fallen and the body of the Quire fallen into St Fayths - Paul's school also - Ludgate - Fleet Street - my father's house and the church [St Bride's], and a good part of the Temple the like.'
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Show Notes
Scene One: 7 January. The shops are at last opening following the pandemic of the Great Plague, which had died down with the cold weather, unlike the current Covid pandemic. Pepys visits a draper's shop in Paternoster Row and buys himself velvet for a coat and camelot for a cloak. He also looks at fabrics to furnish his wife Elizabeth's closet.
Scene Two: 2 September. Pepys' maid, rising early to prepare the Sabbath dinner, wakes him to tell him a fire had broken out in a bakery on Pudding Lane, just at the north end of London Bridge. What seemed at first a small fire, took hold with very strong winds and spread fast. Pepys crosses the river to an alehouse in Southwark and watches with horror the fire taking hold of the whole of the City.
Scene Three: 12 November. The aftermath of the Great Fire has become a source of fascination to Londoners. Pepys visits the Churchyard to view the corpse of a medieval bishop which had fallen out of his tomb in the Cathedral. 'A great man in his time .. and now exposed to be handled .... Many flocking to see it.’ The biographer, John Aubrey, related a similar story, where two men tasted the liquid that had collected in the coffin of Dean Colet. They were prompted to do so because one of them was a fellow of the Royal Society, and this was in the cause of scientific knowledge.
Memento: Pepys’ parmesan cheese which he buried in his garden to ensure its survival during the great fire.
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Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Margaret Willes
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Unseen Histories
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About Margaret Willes
Margaret Willes, formerly publisher at the National Trust, is author of several books, including The Curious World of Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, Reading Matters, and The Gardens of the British Working Class. She lives in London.
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