Sir Christopher Wren (FRS) was born not far from Stonehenge, on this day 390 years ago. Son of the rector of East Knoyle in Wiltshire, he was born there on 20 October 1632. By coincidence 2023 also marks the 300th anniversary of Wren’s death
Wren is remembered for building the new St Paul’s Cathedral rising from the ashes of the old Cathedral destroyed in the Great Fire of London. Wren made use of old stones but with new techniques and ideas.
Old St Paul’s Cathedral (Wikipedia)
In 1660 Wren had been commissioned by King Charles II to oversee the restoration of the Cathedral of Saint Paul’s, which by the 16th century was badly deteriorating. A century earlier on 4 June 1561, the spire, one of the tallest in Europe, had caught fire probably from a lightning strike and crashed through the nave roof.
Restoration work finally began in the 1660s and soon after the cathedral was covered in wooden scaffolding. However, before the plans could be put in motion, in 1666 the Great Fire of London ripped through the city destroying much of inner London, leaving the cathedral of Old Saint Paul’s in ashes, the building completely gutted.
The axis of the old cathedral was at an angle to the main approach up Ludgate Hill. During restoration Wren had opportunity to realign the axis of his new cathedral with this approach, but instead he skewed the axis of the new construction by a further 6.5 degrees so that the line of Ludgate Hill met the west front more obliquely than before.
By rotating his plan slightly Wren aligned the new cathedral not with true east, like many churches, but with sunrise on Easter of the year construction began. What inspired Wren to make this small change in the alignment of the new St Paul’s?
An Ancient Temple on Ludgate Hill
As we have noted above, Wren was born at East Knoyle in Wiltshire, within 15 mile of Stonehenge. As an architect it would be surprising if he had not visited the ancient megalithic temple on Salisbury Plain many times and marvelled at the construction of the sarsen lintels.
Indeed, the mighty sarsens bear witness to such visits by Wren; the southern edge of Stone 52 bears some interesting historical graffiti which reads “I WREN”. A bar across the middle of the ‘I’ is said to an abbreviation for ‘Christo’ or ‘Christopher’ and that this is evidence that Wren had carved his own name onto the stone. Stone 23 in the outer sarsen circle also has the name “WREN” carved into its west face.
Gerald Hawkins (Stonehenge Decoded) determined that the gap between Stones 6 and 7 of the sarsen circle archway points in the direction of the midwinter sunrise when viewed from Stones 51 and 52 of the inner trilithon horseshoe. Similarly, the gap through Stones 23 and 24 (now missing) of the sarsen circle when viewed from inner trilithon stones 59 (now fallen) and 60 points toward the midsummer sunset. It is an odd coincidence that both sarsens at Stonehenge bearing “WREN” graffiti mark the exact period of the year of shortening day length; after sunset on the summer solstice (longest day), the length of daylight in the Northern Hemisphere will gradually shorten each day until the sunrise at winter solstice (shortest day) when day length will then slowly start to increase.
And then a further coincidence is that the dome of Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral is said to be the same diameter as the sarsen circle at Stonehenge.
St Paul’s is claimed to be positioned on the site of a Roman temple at Ludgate Hill in London dedicated to the hunter goddess Diana where a stone circle is said to have stood beforehand. The Pagan temple was destroyed in 597 AD, when the first Christian church was constructed on Ludgate Hill by the Saxon King Aethelbert of Kent.
The cathedral of the City of London, Old St Paul’s was built from 1087 to 1314 was possibly the fourth church that stood on the site on Ludgate Hill.
In 1675 when construction of the present St. Paul’s cathedral began, Wren is said to have discovered the remains of the old pagan temple in the foundations. Is it possible that by skewing the axis and constructing the dome of St Paul’s to the same dimension as the sarsen circle at Stonehenge Wren was deliberately referencing the ancient stone circle that once stood on Ludgate Hill?
Landscape and Monumentality 
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