St. Paul's Cathedral Library

Today, after over two weeks in London, I finally got inside St. Paul's Cathedral! It was, in a word, AMAZING. 

We got a special tour up on the Triforium level which is not typically open for tours. As the guide described this area, it is where they house a bunch of objects that have been donated or are out of use now that they don't know what to do about in the moment.

Like this bust of George Crookshanks who illustrated a lot of Charles Dickens novels.

And all this rubble and artifacts from the older cathedrals that used to exist on this site. 

St. Paul's Cathedral is currently the 5th cathedral build in its location. The first was built in 604 (you read that right!). All of the previous ones have burnt down. The current cathedral was built from 1675-1710, which actually makes it quite modern as far as cathedrals in London goes!

This is one of the quarter domes. That piece of cork sticking out of the dome is from WWII. They almost lost the building due to all the constant bombings. The cork covers a hole that men (who had been too old for the draft) would look through to see the fires that had started from the bombings. They would then be able to put all the fires out, saving the building. FUN FACT (my favorite of the day actually): Someone has his office back there. He has to crawl over the quarter dome to get to his spot every day!

And then we saw the library where we met with Joseph Wisdom, which is by far the most perfect and epic name for a librarian ever.

This library supports my theory that second story levels of bookshelves is the best way to have a library.

"I came to it burnt down, I left it built up."

Of course, the elephant in the room are all the crates, scaffolding, and sheets. The library is in the process of  removing the books and artifacts to clean the room and conserve it as they're dealing with the issue of woodworms. Despite the chaos in the room, it's still beautiful. I felt a great sense of calm entering the space.


The library has overcome hardships worse than woodworms in the past. The library itself was essentially lost in the Great Fire of London in 1666. They had about 20 books and 3 manuscripts left afterwards. In World War II, all of the books had to be removed due to the bombing. They were stored in a cave in Wales until it was safe to return them.


We also discussed the difference between restoration and preservation. Those not in this career field might talk about restoring the books, but that is really making the books look new. Preservation is about keeping them the way they are and ensuring they can remain that way. That's what the conservators and archivists focus on in their work with the collection.

The door to the library. What a door!

The Floating Staircase. Featured in Harry Potter as the stairway to Divination!

These two photos are models of what the architect  Sir Christopher Wren wanted St. Paul's Cathedral to look like. It features a Greek style cross shape (from an aerial view), with the four short arms. Instead they built the cathedral in the Latin Cross shape (one long leg) since they decided that was more appropriate for an English church.

After the library tour, we were allowed to climb up to the top of the cathedral! There was a law that didn't allow anyone to build anything taller than St. Paul's Cathedral, so the views are truly one of a kind. I had this in mind as I braved the 528 stairs up to the top (despite having spent a few hours in Urgent Care last night getting a foot x-ray--long story, all is well except they told me not to walk that much on it. Yeah, right! This was so worth it!).

This hole lets you see straight down through the Cathedral. Spooky!

What a great day it was!