St Bride's Church, Fleet Street — Attraction in London

The recent building of St.Brides Church today is the seventh built church and was designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1672. Wren's original building was also partly struck during the 1940 Blitz and largely gutted by fire though. The church has a long association with journalists and newspapers, as indeed their are many famous historic names linked to the church. The spire - second tallest of all Wren's churches at 226ft ( 69m) - resembles a beautiful tiered wedding cake. Most of the church building is of a baroque style architecture and grade 1 listed status. Both interiors and exteriors are a fine example of Sir Christopher Wren churches. The site of the church is steeped with history dating back to Roman times ( as you will see in the Crypt).There are plenty of interesting relics and displayed history to be seen in the Crypt. A good informative documented display and artefacts showing the timescale of the church. The church is free to visit but every donation helps! I find that both St.Brides Church and the historically associated Old Bell 🔔 Inn Tavern very close by make a good combination leisurely visit. There is disabled access into the church hall but a staircase descends to the Crypt....? St.Brides Church, off Fleet Street EC4 is certainly one of my favourite City of London sights. Plenty of bus routes / stops adjacent in Fleet Street/ Ludgate Circus to serve and Thameslink Blackfriars Rail Station. Very kind, interesting members of the church staff ready to greet you - I had an engaging interesting chat, thoroughly enjoyed. Guidebooks are are for sale if you wish. Every pound and penny helps for the restoration. Please consult for guided visits of the church and any church services. I highly recommend a visit to this wonderful historical City of London masterpiece, a hidden gem in a cosy corner of the City. Even if only a casual browse, but its historical status deserves much credibility for a longer stay - as you may discover! One of the finest, cleanest, elegant, and beautifully kept churches ive ever entered within the U.K. Hopefully, I will return in the future. God bless 🙏. Best regards Chris. ps. Ive heard it mentioned that the beautiful spire changes to a tint of pink colouration after or during rainfall. Sir Christopher Wren built St.Pauls Cathedral mostly using Portland cement stone from quarries near Portland Bill in Dorset.....St.Brides Church looks to me of the same material used...does rain water have such an affect? I...

One of Londons most beautiful churches as well as historical having s museum in the crypt.

Designed by Christopher Wren in the late 17th century, St. Bride's Church is a familiar part of the London skyline and has long been known as the "journalists' church," thanks to its location in the traditional hub of the British newspaper industry. One of its most intriguing features, however, had been completely forgotten until the church was gutted by German firebombs in World War II.

The current building is the eighth church to occupy the site on Fleet Street, with the first most likely being built in the 6th century by Irish missionaries. A different incarnation subsequently built on the spot in the Middle Ages was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Wren was commissioned to design a replacement in 1672; the resulting church took seven years to build and ended up being one of the tallest and most expensive churches the architect ever built, second only to St. Paul's Cathedral.

The new church was built atop the remnants of the seven previous churches, including seven different crypts and two medieval charnel houses which Wren organized into one cohesive substructure. The crypts regularly welcomed new inhabitants for almost another two centuries, right up to the 1854 cholera epidemic. Faced with a growing pile of bodies and worried about spreading the disease further, Parliament ordered the closing of all London crypts. The ancient crypt beneath St. Bride's was sealed shut and subsequently forgotten.

In 1940, the Blitz inflicted severe fire damage on St. Bride's Church, leaving little more than a smoldering shell. Once efforts to rebuild Wren's design got underway a decade later, the crowded burial chambers below were unexpectedly rediscovered by preparatory excavations in 1953. The crypts were found to contain the remains of 227 individually identified people interred since the 17th century, as well as an estimated 7000 human remains in the more communal charnel house, where bones removed from the cemetery during the Middle Ages (in order to make room for new burials) were arranged according to type (skulls with skulls, femurs with femurs, etc.) and laid out in a checkerboard pattern to an as-yet unknown depth.

St. Bride's more recent bone cache is concerned one of the best resources for historic forensics in Europe. The crypts are accessible only via...

Just a little off the beaten path from St Paul’s church, St Bride’s is worth a visit! Visitors are welcome to see this site, it is free, but we made a donation to the church! Please know, there are not any public restrooms.

A church steeped in great history! I definitely suggest taking 20-30 minutes to go downstairs and see the historical exhibit that dates back 2000 years.

“'PHOENIX OF FlEET STREET' This crypt orS Brides where you now sand. spans 2000 years of this country's history; spiritual, political and social. The Romans built on this spot. It was believed that a Celtic Christian community was active here. Saxon and Norman churches followed. The medieval church was one of 88 parish churches destroyed by the Great Fire of London in September 1666. Sir Christopher Wren, the builder of St Paul's Cathedral, designed the new St Bride's with its 'wedding cake' steeple. On 29 December 1940, during the Second World War, St Bride's was burnt down - only the steeple and outer walls remaining - in the great fire-bomb raid on London. After the War, the church was rebuilt substantially to Wren's original design. In 1952, before rebuilding began, Professor W. F. Grimes carried out excavations on behalf of the Roman and Medieval London Excavation Council; unfortunately he died before his detailed report could be completed In 1993, research funded by English Heritage, began at the Museum of London to reassess his work; meanwhile archacologists from University College London complemented the earlier investigations by recording in detail the standing medieval stonework. The story of St Bride's is embodied in the stones around you; this exhibition reveals that story of the past as it has been interpreted by...