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St Paul's Church was designed
by Inigo Jones (1573 - 1652), as the centrepiece of his 1630s
Italian-style piazza in Covent
Garden. This plain Tuscan-style church looked
towards the tall terraces of an arcaded, three-sided square,
but all these houses have now gone.
Jones was a revolutionary architect,
influenced by the Italian neo-Classicism of Palladio. His
Classical churches of the 1620s and 1630s shocked a public
accustomed to conservative Gothic designs.
When penny-pinching Francis Russell,
the 4th Earl of Bedford, commissioned Jones to build a new
church on the Covent Garden piazza, he requested, 'I would
not have it much better than a barn'. The architect
replied, 'Well then, you shall have the handsomest barn in
England'.
St Paul's was built in 1631 -
33 but not consecrated until 1638. The church was a
plain, towerless rectangle with tall, arched windows and a
notably overhanging roof. Jones designed St Paul's with
its altar at the west end to allow his Tuscan portico, with
its two square and two round columns, to face into the new
piazza. When this unorthodox arrangement was disallowed by
Archibishop Laud the altar was moved to its conventional position
at the east end. However, Jones continued with his original
exterior design and as a result the church entrance is from
the west, leaving the portico at the east end as a fake door.
The interior was destroyed by
a fire in 1795 and was rebuilt by Thomas Hardwick in the architect's
original airy style. The interior is undivided apart
from a Doric west gallery and a screen beneath. Inigo
Jones is remembered by a fine 17th century carving by Grinling
Gibbons on the west screen.
In the 1870s the interior was
much reordered by William Butterfield, who removed the north
and south galleries and raised the east end to make the altar
more prominent.
Many famous Londoners have been
associated with the church. Among those buried here
are Sir Peter Lely, the 17th century portrait painter, Grinling
Gibbons, the master carver and Thomas Arne, composer of
'Rule Britannia'.
With Covent Garden being so closely
connected with theatre, St Paul's Church has long been known
as 'the actors' church'. Plaques commemorate some of
the famous men and women of stage and screen including Charlie
Chaplin, Boris Karloff, Vivien Leigh, Noel Coward and Terrence
Rattigan.
The church is mentioned in George
Bernard Shaw's play 'Pygmalion' , and the musical that came
from it, My Fair Lady, Eliza Dolittle meets Professor Higgins
beneath the portico of St Paul's Church.
Today the grand portico is used
as a stage by Covent Garden's street entertainers.
Admission free
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