Sunday, 30 December 2012

St Paul's cathedral, again...

We don't normally go to church but this morning we went to Choral Mattins in St Paul's Cathedral.  It was lovely - the bells were pealing outside, the organ welcomed us in, the sun was shining through the stained glass windows, and the choir sang like angels.
 
I took a couple of photos on the way back to the flat.  This is the only trace above ground of Old St Paul's cathedral that burnt down in the Fire of London in 1666.  Some of the foundations are picked out by a low wall and this plan is laid into the stone.  It shows the "footprint" of the new cathedral built by Sir Christopher Wren superimposed on the footprint of the old cathedral.  It was made by Richard Kindersley who carved the lettered standing stones in our garden at Newmead.

 

The sun was still shining as we crossed Paternoster Square at 11am.  The sundial on the Stock Exchange building cast a shadow above the shadow of the "pineapple" at the top of the monument.  It's an unusual sundial, called an analemma sundial, which marks noon on each day of the year.  An hour later and the shadow would have touched the left hand curve for 30th January.  It was also made by a Kindersely workshop, but not Richard himself.
 


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