A biography of Sir Christopher Wren from one of Britain's best writers and historians

"Sir Christopher Wren" is a biography by Lucy Phillimore. He was one of the most highly acclaimed English architects in history, as well as an anatomist, astronomer, geometer, and mathematician-physicist. He was accorded responsibility for rebuilding 52 churches in the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666, including what is regarded as his masterpiece, St Paul's Cathedral, on Ludgate Hill, completed in 1710. Excerpt: "The name of Christopher Wren is no doubt familiar to the great majority of English people, and to Londoners especially; but it is to many of them little more than a name with which is connected S. Paul's Cathedral and a now, alas! diminished number of City churches. Yet the great architect's ninety-one years of life were passed among some of the most stirring times of our history, in which his family played no inconsiderable part, and he himself was not only the best architect of his day, but was also the foremost in many other sciences."

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

Everything Sir Christopher Wren undertook, he envisaged on a grander scale -- bigger, better, more enduring than anything that had gone before. A versatile genius who could have pursued a number of brilliant careers with equal virtuosity, he was a mathematical prodigy, an accomplished astronomer, a skillful anatomist, and a founder of the Royal Society. Eventually, he made a career in what he described disparagingly in later life as "Rubbish" -- the architecture, design, and construction of public buildings. Through the prism of Wren's tumultuous life and brilliant intellect, historian Lisa Jardine unfolds the vibrant, extraordinary emerging new world of late-seventeenth-century science and ideas.

The Great Fire of 1666 devastated the centre of London, with a loss of old St Paul's and eighty-six parish churches. Sir Christopher Wren, working with Commissioners appointed by Parliament, was responsible for rebuilding the cathedral and fifty-one of the parish churches, although the immediate need to start rebuilding made his design for an overall replanning of the City impossible. The work was funded by a tax on coals brought into the City of London. Much has been written about Wren's rebuilding of St Paul's, while the other fifty-ne parish chirches he was appointed to reconstruct are generally overlooked. This is the first modern book to examine them as a whole. Paul Jeffery describes how and when the churches were built, exploring the respective contributions of Wren and of his two principal assistants, Robert Hooke and Nicholas Hawksmoor. The result of their work was a unique set of contemporary churches. While not all are of the standard of Wren's masterpieces, such as St Stephen Walbrook and St Bride's, none is without architectural merit and interest. The second part of the book is a gazetteer of all the churches, including those that no longer exist. The book is heavily illustrated and provides a visual strong record of all the churches. Since they were built the Wren churches have suffered steady losses. St Christopher-le-Stocks was demolished in 1782 to make way for the Bank of England. Others, such as St Dionis Backchurch and St Antholin Budge Row, were lost to Victorian parish rationalisation. Many were destroyed or badly damaged in the Second World War. Only twenty-three of the original fifty-one remain. These are now under threat again, with the Templeman Report's proposal that only four of the existing churches (none by Wren) should be retained as parish churches. They provide a test case of conservation, sitting as they do in the middle of the City of London. The City Churches of Sir Christopher Wren presents a clear case both for their importance and for their preservation.

A short history of the 51 Wren-designed churches in the city of London.