Rebuilding After The Great Fire
The church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, and rebuilt to the designs of Christopher Wren in 1674 at a cost of £5,737. A tower, also to Wren's design, was added ten years later.
Wren’s church was 66 feet long and 59 feet wide. It was divided into nave and aisles by Ionic columns supporting an entablature. The ceiling of the nave was arched, and pierced with circular windows under groin vaulted openings, while the aisle ceilings were horizontal. There was a west gallery with an organ.
The bell tower was divided into three storeys by string courses. At the top was an open parapet, and a small bell turret which had been removed by the nineteenth century. The church was built mostly of stone, with some brick which was later stuccoed. The east end of the church, in Lime Street, had a pediment and two pairs of coupled Ionic pilasters with a large window below carved festoons. A row of shops, built against the south wall, stood between the church and Fenchurch street.
Read more about this topic: St Dionis Backchurch
Famous quotes containing the words rebuilding and/or fire:
“But look what we have built ... low-income projects that become worse centers of delinquency, vandalism and general social hopelessness than the slums they were supposed to replace.... Cultural centers that are unable to support a good bookstore. Civic centers that are avoided by everyone but bums.... Promenades that go from no place to nowhere and have no promenaders. Expressways that eviscerate great cities. This is not the rebuilding of cities. This is the sacking of cities.”
—Jane Jacobs (b. 1916)
“Of what use were it, pray, to get a little wood to burn, to warm your body this cold weather, if there were not a divine fire kindled at the same time to warm your spirit?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)