Photo: londondrum.comUseful things to know before your visit
Address: St. Bride’s, Fleet Street, The City EC4Y 8AU. Telephone: 0207 427 0133. Website: stbrides.com
How much do the tickets cost?
St. Bride’s is free.
What are the opening hours?
Opening times are 8am to 5pm (Mon-Fri); 10am to 3.30pm (Sat); 10am to 6.30pm (Sun).
How much time do you need?
A typical visit to St. Bride’s takes 1 hour.
Which buses go to St. Bride’s?
Bus routes 11, 15, 26, 76 and 341 all stop close by.
Which is the closest train station?
The nearest station is St. Paul’s on the Central line. You can walk the ⅖ mile to St. Bride’s in about 7 minutes.
Which other attractions are nearby?
These attractions are all within 15 minutes walk of St. Bride’s: Dr. Johnson’s House, Temple Church, Temple Bar, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Lincoln’s Inn, Royal Courts of Justice, Staple Inn, Postman’s Park, London Museum, One New Change, St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Hunterian Museum and Tate Modern.
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St. Bride’s has been pulled down, burnt down and put back up at least seven times in the last fifteen hundred years. The 15th-century version succumbed to the Great Fire of London and Christopher Wren’s rebuild barely survived the Luftwaffe after they lit a fire storm that melted the bells and nearly brought down St. Paul’s. So what you’re looking at today is his sturdy outer walls and steeple, but everything inside the front door dates from the post-war restoration.
Photo: londondrum.comChristopher Wren’s wedding cake steeple
The steeple famously inspired a local baker to create the world’s first three-tiered wedding cake, and it also gave the church its first link with America after the top was knocked off in a lightning strike. The American inventor Benjamin Franklin was still living in London at the time and was asked to fit one of his new-fangled lighting rods to the top, but he wanted to taper it off to a point whereas the English scientists preferred something blunt. George III then somehow got involved and sided with his own scientists, ordering that every lightning rod throughout the empire should henceforth be topped off with a cannonball. A few years later the American War of Independence broke out and Benjamin Franklin returned home to become one of its Founding Fathers.
Photo: londondrum.comThe second link is the bust of Virginia Dare just inside the front door. She’s believed to be was first English child born in the New World after her parents left London for the new colony of Roanoke. And whilst that fledgling town ultimately failed, millions of Americans can probably trace their ancestry back to a second boatload of parishioners that followed them over thirty years later.
Photo: londondrum.comFleet Street newspapers
St. Bride’s has been associated with newspapers since the early 1500s when Wynkyn de Worde set up his printing press in Shoe Lane. For the next 200 years London was the only English city where printing was permitted and Fleet Street attracted every major paper from the Daily Courant up to The Sun. They’ve all moved out now but the church still retains a few plaques and memorials to journalists who lost their lives reporting on foreign wars.
Photo: londondrum.comRoman pavement inside the crypt museum
Bomb damage during the Blitz uncovered a medieval crypt that had been bricked up since the 17th-century, along with some old stoneware, stained glass and smashed fragments of the bells that were destroyed during the Great Fire of London. You can see all of these finds in an interesting little museum downstairs.
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My favourite part is a claustrophobic corridor full of 19th-century headstones that are resting on a tumble of old stones. If you’re lucky enough to be down there on your own then it’s quite atmospheric with the low light and background hum of the air conditioning pipes.
The highlight is a piece of Roman pavement that was uncovered ten feet below the street. It’s not exactly easy to see because it’s awkwardly positioned behind a huge chunk of medieval masonry, so they’ve angled a couple of big mirrors on the ceiling to reflect the view from behind the walls.
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Mark When does St. brides open. (reply)
Craig Times are a bit different during the pandemic, but it’s usually 8 AM to 6 PM (Mon-Fri); 10 AM to 3.30 PM (Sat) and 10 AM to 6.30 PM (Sun). (reply)
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