LONDON St Pauls Cathedral

One of the icons of the tourist traps in London is St Pauls Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wrens masterpiece. It was built after the great fire of London burnt many of the churches of the time.

St Pauls Cathedral on  rare sunny summer day in London. Photo no 1546




Many will have seen the iconic second world war photos of St Pauls with London burning around it.
The lady of the house where we are staying in London took us out to Richmond park to show us an unusual view of St Pauls. It would take a camera with a very long lens to show it, but there is a spectacular view from 15 miles away on Richmond hill along a specially protected corridor through the Richmond Park vegetation and the buildings to London to see St Pauls in the distance. Its quite impressive to see St Pauls from that distance.

During our wanderings around London, we visited the inside of St Pauls. No photography is allowed inside the church but it is magnificent!
We then climbed up the 257 steps to the Whispering gallery. Lots of people try to whisper and be heard around the other side of the dome, it really works.
We then climbed a further 119 steps to the stone gallery. The view from there is brilliant and photography is allowed.

Photo of the bell tower from the golden gallery.

Then we climbed the additional 144 wrought iron steps to the golden gallery at the top (that's a total of 528 steps or 85metres).  From the top of these steps, before stepping outside, there is a small viewing hole which gives a view down to the cathedral floor -  this just confirms how far up you have actually climbed.

Photo of a windswept lady in red jacket on the golden gallery. Photo number 1596
The River Thames in the background.

Having done all that climbing up and down we then went to the crypt.  There are many tombs of past mililtary heros among them are Nelson and the Duke of Wellington.  Also there is a display of pictures of British events that have happened over the life of St Pauls.

Parish Churches of Engalnd

During our travels around England these last few weeks we have seen many of the beautiful local parish churches in the villages.   

Photo of All Saints Braham, Yorkshire number 1307
This church is an example of many English parish churches, built on the top of the hill above the village of Braham (which is just off the A1(M0 in Yorkshire. The use of the name All Saints implies that there was an earlier pagan church on the site before the christian church was built there.

The first church we went to was in Cornwall. This was an old church near where we were staying and was the church in which the author Daphne du Maurier was married.

photo number 1192 of St Wyllows Note the beautiful wooden ceiling, quite unusual.

When we were driving around Yorkshire following the footsteps of our ancestors, we saw many beautiful parish churches. Some have had time and money spent on them to clear out the vegetation that had overgrown the churchyard. an example would be St Columba where locals on community service orders have been put to work in painting the inside of the church hall and clearing the graveyard of vegetation.

Photo of St Columba, Topcliffe photo 1392

In others such as All Saints Braham, there are notices that say the cemetery will not be mown more than twice a year to "preserve" the native plants and animals. This causes problems for people including locals wanting to maintain graves of ancesters.

All Saints churchyard becoming overgrown.

Not all parish churches are in great condition. The parish church of St John the Baptist in Chester has been shortened over the years and parts of it are in ruins. Photo 0631

Photo of St Michael and all Angels church Coxwold ,Howardian Hills, North Yorkshire photo 1463. There has been a christian church on this site since 720AD and a pagan shrine before that. The current church (photographed) was built in the perpendicular style with an octagonal tower in about 1420.

Photo of All Saints church, Settrington, photo 1477
This church is unusual in that the main entrance to the church is directly under the tower. So when entering the church one passes under the belltower, past and between the ropes for tolling the bells.

Photo of St John's Dalton church photo number  1397
Unfortunatley this church was locked when we were there, so we do not have any more information

Photo of the inside of St John the Baptist, Kirby Wiske, near Pickering Yorkshire. photo number 1430 Note the unusual wooden box pews with doors. These were quite common in earlier times. The ones in this church have been cut down from the full size ones, possibly in the early 20th century.

Photo of St Michael and all Angels church, Maunby, Yorkshire  number 1425
There was a great building spree of churches in the 14th century in England. The traditional parish church of England dates from that period. However many of the Roman Catholic churches date from the late Victorian period when the law was changed so that catholics could worship in their own churches.This church in Maunby, Yorkshire is a Victorian era Church of Engaland brick built church, this village did not have a Church of England until about 1890

Finally one of the churches with strong family connections for Gary, All Saints Terrington, North Yorkshire. Photo 3354
It is thought that there has been a church on this site since the 7th or 8th century. Certainly there are parts of this church that date form the time of the Norman conquest. This church in common with many has a war memorial inside to honour the men associated with the village who served in the great war.