No.17 St Magnus the Martyr

After a long break, back to the City on a lovely afternoon to draw St Magnus. It's not as easy to get to Wren's work from Norfolk as it was from Tottenham Court Road, but managed to keep some time free on a weekend trip to London, cycled to London Bridge and drew in the evening sunshine.
St Magnus the Martyr was one of Wren's bigger projects, but today's building is much changed from the building he signed off. The church was bang at the end of the old London Bridge, and St Magnus Corner was an important Medieval junction used for church business, public meetings, proclamations and punishments.
Only 300 yards away from St Magnus was Thomas Farriner's bakery in Pudding Lane and the church was one of the first buildings burnt down in the Great Fire. Wren's Monument to the Fire is just up Fish Street Hill from the church. Work on rebuilding St Magnus started in 1668, Wren had the nave up by 1676 and the building finished by 1681. Thomas Farriner was buried under the middle aisle of the church he was (possibly) responsible for burning down.

Caneletto, London Bridge with St Magnus, 1745-55

A scheme to widen London Bridge in 1761 entailed knocking a path through St Magnus' tower, which is why it has the rather un-Wren-like arches through the base. Wren's design was further compromised in the 1780s when his large north wall windows were reduced to the current circular pattern to cut out noise from Billingsgate Fish Market next door. The church just about survived two further fires in 1760 and 1827, but the rebuilding of London Bridge had a bigger effect, as the church was no longer on one of the busiest corners in London. Some recently discovered stones from the old bridge now live in the churchyard. St Magnus kept an eye on his church through the War, the only damage was having its windows blown out by the bomb that landed on London Bridge.

I took the opportunity of using a high viewpoint and stood on the bridge over Lower Thames Street which gave me lots of perspective issues to solve, but showed the church hemmed in by the 20thC. edifices around. Lots of tourists stopped to look and chat, including one old East End boy who made me jump out of my skin by approaching unnoticed from behind and then talking right in my ear. I nearly spilt my ink.

Hard work, felt out of practice, drawing is splashed with blots and smudges, I need to get out and do more, particularly to practice editing. Big springy nib was great for strong lines but couldn't give me a fine line and the drawing suffers as a result - I need to use a much finer line to draw the distant buildings.

Map here
History taken from here

No.16 St Clement Eastcheap

Warm autumn sun, not so much on at the office, so the perfect chance to do a full 2 hours on St Clement Eastcheap. It's not actually on Eastcheap any more, after 19th Century road planners built King William Street, it has a narrow frontage onto the narrow Clements Lane, with a tiny passage down one side leading to a sad scrap of a sunless yard and that's it. So, by soulless office block packed with city boys staring at screens, I sat down and started to draw.

In the medieval city, the market on this side became known as Eastcheap, Westcheap eventually becoming Cheapside. Cheap evolved from the Old English 'ceapan' meaning to buy.

These narrow streets do seem to work well for this series - the last two or three have been similar in composition and I like the way I can make the foreground buildings focus attention onto the church. Also, I don't have to draw masses of detailed architecture which, whilst being a great challenge, it's very time consuming. This location had a city bollard in the foreground again!

St Clement's fame stems from the 'Oranges and Lemons' rhyme which is assumed to refer to the exotic fruit arriving at wharves nearby. After the great fire, Sir Chris rebuilt it after negotiating with the city authorities who took the chance to widen the lane, and as a result the church is 15 feet east of it's medieval footings. He started in 1683 and finished in 1687. Two parishes were combined after the fire, meaning the building's full name is The Church of St Clement Eastcheap with St Martin Orgar. I don't think Wren took too much time over St Clement: the church is a simple room with a short bell tower, shorn of any dramatic Wrenian flourishes.

Maybe its position, tightly packed into a group of buildings protected St Clement during the war, only the south aisle suffering bomb damage in the blitz.

The church has some medieval bread shelves on the south wall. These were used by parishioners to leave bread for the poor of the parish and date back to well before the great fire.

I sat and drew for the most part undisturbed, but a city boy on his ciggy break came over, professed admiration and asked if he could commission me. I declined.

Map here
Old version of the rhyme here

No15: St Michael Paternoster

I'm fated not to draw St Michael. Got down there on a beautiful day, only to discover I'd forgotten my ink. Couldn't find a shop selling bottles of ink. So I went and looked inside the church instead. Came back a couple of days later with a brand new folding stool and started well, but a call from work meant I had to put my pen down and get back to the office. And the stool broke. I'd hoped to get back and finish the drawing, but it's now September and I've lost the thread of the work.

St Michael has the Paternoster appendage because, as there were seven St Michaels in the city, it was named after Paternoster Lane, now College Lane, where traders sold Paternosters or Roseries. Sir Richard Whittington made some generous donations to the church and was buried in the yard. He has a great stained glass window of him, with cat, turning back to London on hearing the church bells and having his premonition that he would one day be Lord Mayor.  Over the centuries, he's been dug up a few times, the last team to look for him in the 1950s didn't find his lead coffin, but did find a mummified cat! St Michael is very proud of this connection, and looking around, I think Boris has some way to go before he achieves Dick Whittington's kind of immortality.

The medieval church was one of the last to be rebuilt after the great fire, being finished in 1694, nearly 30 years after the conflagration. Like many of these projects, the steeple was added later, completed in 1717. In the war, the church survived the Luftwaffe's bombs, only to be hit by a V1 in 1944. The walls and steeple remained mostly complete, services carried on in the shell and the church was finally restored in 1968.

Maybe one day I'll finish/redo this one.

Map here

No14 St Andrew by the Wardrobe

Given an early finish before the Jubilee holiday, I cycled down to Queen Victoria Street and found St Andrew perched up high above the road. Not an inspiring view, and it would have meant drawing next to a busy road. So I walked up St Andrew's Hill and found this tight view of the tower down an alley way. There was a nice spot to sit right outside the Cockpit, so with some trepidation I chose this aspect.

The unusual view really worked - I like the depth, good foreground/midground/distance. Having the Georgian houses and  Victorian shop (now a pub) so close to the church gave me a good subject for the series. Also, there were plenty of drinkers out in the street and they stood still long enough for me to include them. More bollards in the foreground - it feels like I'm doing a survey of the City's street furniture as much as drawing Wren's churches. I cheated the perspective slightly, by including the tight perspective on the back of the pub building.

St Andrew is by the wardrobe thanks to Edward lll. Apparently, he moved his state robes and other kit from the Tower to a building close to St Andrew. Named the Great Wardrobe, it was consumed by the 1666 fire along with St Andrew. However, the importance of the King's wardrobe is still reflected in street, building and church names. St Andrew is a plain building, with few of Wren's classical flourishes or creative architectural devices. But its red brick walls with ashlar quoins (I looked that up) are simple and elegant.

St Andrew was completely burned out in the blitz, leaving only Sir Christopher's walls and tower. It was restored in the late 50s and reopened in 1961.

Lots of Friday evening drinkers out celebrating the end of the week and the start of the Jubilee break, and loudly discussing share prices, office politics and the inevitable footy. They all left me alone, which was nice. I think the result is the best yet. I wasn't rushed, not having to get back to work, started at 5.10, set off to cycle home at 7.15.

More history here
A list of the 1638 parishioners and their rents and tythes here
Map here

No 13 St Mary Aldermary

Off to St Mary Aldermary in Watling Street. From St Paul's tube, you walk past the enormous mass of the cathedral's east end on one side and the enormous glass front of the One New Exchange shopping centre on the other. But turn the corner into Watling Street and you are back in the medieval street system, filled with city boys and girls hurrying to lunch past idling tourists, busy street traders, old pubs and shops.

St Mary sits just where she has for over 900 years. She is Aldermary because she is the oldest of the city St Marys, having been on this site since around 1100. The great fire of 1666 didn't completely destroy St Mary, leaving the base of the tower and some of the walls. The rebuild was overseen by John Oliver, one of Christopher Wren’s deputies, who was asked by the parishioners to follow the perpendicular style of the burnt building, using the original foundations.

St Mary is now the home of a group called Moot, a new-monastic community where those "who may not relate to traditional or contemporary expressions of church can find a spiritual path within the Christian contemplative tradition"

This St Mary is not easy to see from a good drawing distance. Because the building is squashed into a triangular site, the tower is on the south side and the nave is anything but rectangular, and it's hemmed in by blocks of offices and shops. It's easy to get up close, but I couldn't get far enough away to find a view that gave me the tower and the church. So, I chose the South East view which favoured the tall, elegant tower, sat on a chair unknowingly donated by the local O'Neill's and drew in the sunshine.

One and a half hours later I had the drawing at a point where I felt I could leave it and I just got back to work in time for a pressing meeting. I'm pleased with this - I like the thick, wobbly line, the proportions are about right and perspective works. I would have like to have time to draw in more action on the street - more people, traffic - but I like the couple on the left, who were having a lunchtime liason and stayed long enough for me to get them into the drawing.

Lots of comments as I was on a busy corner: accosted by a man handing out fliers who tried to persuade me I needed a second income. Two sharp suited young city boys went past, discussing why everyone was drawing: must be national drawing day, they speculated.

Wren's gothic here
Moot's history page here 
Map here

No. 12: St Margaret Lothbury

After weeks of rain, the sun beckoned me back to the city. No bike today, but St. Margaret Lothbury is nice and handy for the Central Line. From Bank I walked around the enormous pile of Portland stone that is the Bank of England, and found St Margaret round the back. There are only two views - down Lothbury looking east and down Lothbury looking west. The east view favoured the tower and gave me a nice corner under the Old Lady of Threadneedle's skirts, so I didn't waste any time, sat down and got on with it.

Margaret was a popular saint in medieval Europe and she had a following in London as early as 1200. The first church was completely rebuilt in 1440 but destroyed in the 1666 Great Fire. Wren rebuilt St Margaret from the ground up, completing his work in 1692 and Robert Hooke's tower was finished by 1700.
The great conflagration of 1940 burned out the church and now Wren's hand can only be seen in the shell of the building, the interior fittings coming from a variety of post-war sources.

I love this view of the church: it is not dwarfed by it's immediate neighbours and has the blank back wall of the Bank of England sitting over the road. It also has a clutch of steel and glass skyscrapers as a backdrop, including the Nat West tower. So, St Margaret Lothbury's setting perfectly illustrates the story of our medieval devotion to God replaced by our modern devotion to lucre.

Two hours exactly. Lots of interest including a man with a camera who asked if I wanted to be interviewed for his film about artists. I said I'd rather draw than talk about drawing, but that he should contact me later. We'll see if he does. Update: he didn't.

Map
More about St Margaret's rather dodgy history  here
John Stow’s A Survey of London from 1598: description of the church before the fire here

St Anne and St Agnes

No. 11

St Anne and St Agnes is on Gresham Street, just north of the Old Bailey and completely surrounded by banks in glossy, glassy offices. It has a neat garden and on the day I drew it a busy atmosphere. There was a lunchtime recital, organisers and audience buzzing about, city boys and down-and-outs mingling in the garden, lots of activity on the streets around the church. The church is now Lutheran and you can attend services in English, Latvian and Swahili.

St A&A has suffered from fire rather too many times, burning down in 1548, then in 1666 the Great Fire left nothing but the stump of the 14c tower. In the great burst of building activity that followed the fire, Wren, with the possible help of Robert Hooke, had it rebuilt by 1680. Wren designed a Greek cross plan for this small brick church, based on ideas seen in Dutch church architecture. Neither St Agnes nor St Anne could protect the church from the blitz on the night of 29th December 1940, which saw it bombed and burned again. Restoration was finally completed in 1966 thanks to a big contribution from the Lutherans.

There are a couple of views from the east and north-east, but no chance of seeing the church from the west - newer buildings press right up to the base of the tower and big metal gates prevent anyone from walking round the west and north sides. I liked the north east view because it includes Wren's 17C church, a mass of 20C buildings behind, and in front, the remains of the 2C Roman wall. So this drawing covers nearly 2000 years of London history in one sitting.

A sunny day in March was deceptively cold. I sat on the walkway wall, built as a viewing platform for the ancient remains. By half way through my hands were freezing and the line grew wobblier as the drawing progressed. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I quickly got a handle on the form of the church and enjoyed dealing with the mass of perspective problems that stemmed from the jumbled nature of the buildings. I like the boldness of the rail in the foreground, but wished the weather had allowed me to put more detail in the garden and background. The drawing doesn't feel busy enough either - needs more people.

One city type - a perfect caricature of a red-faced, upper-class banker - stopped to compliment me on my choice of subject. A gaggle of tourists viewing the Roman remains all took shy glances at my efforts. Pleased with result, glad to get out and do another drawing after such a long break.

Map

10. St Michael's Cornhill

Weds 4 May. Right in the throbbing heart of the City financial centre is St Michael. Parked the hire bike behind the Bank of England and walked past Mansion House, the Royal Exchange and down Cornhill. All that can be seen from the road is the north door which looks like a Victorian addition. But the tower soaring above the shops and offices gives the church's heritage away. I walked through the maze of alleys around the church, past city boys getting their lunchtime pints and found the garden round the back. The Jamaica Wine House has a plaque saying it is the site of the oldest coffee house in London, date around 1670. So maybe Wren popped into this brand new retail concept as he was surveying the building works. London was rebuilt very quickly after the fire and I imagine the burst of energy and optimism made it a very exciting place to be.

I could just get far enough away from the church to make it worthwhile drawing, though much of Wren's design was obscured by fence, trees and shrubbery. However, Thomas Hosmer Shepherd, who drew the picture below, must have sat in almost exactly the same spot in 1830.

Brief history: "The Church, with the exception of the tower, was completely destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. The present Church was rebuilt by Sir Christopher Wren between 1669 and 1672. The tower was rebuilt in the ‘Gothick’ style between 1718 and 1722, the work being commenced by Wren and completed by Nicholas Hawksmoor." The Victorians then did a lot of work inside, so Wren's hand is harder to detect here than some other churches.

Lovely warm day, didn't feel under pressure, so I tried to be less obsessive about plotting out the perspective. Looking back on it now, I like the looser relaxed feel, but the tower has ended up looking much taller than it really is. wanted to draw the fence in with a heavy line but Beckie rang up to say I was needed back at the office. Quite like the way it's ended up though.

Two hours, liked the thinner steel nib, sat on pavement in a quiet corner with all sorts of financial conversations going on around. Great to be back on the project.

Bit more history here
Map

9. St Lawrence Jewry

Nice day, not so busy, feeling good about the drawings I did in Scotland last week, so off to the official Church of the Corporation of London.

Unlike all the churches I've drawn so far, St Lawrence is not hemmed in by other buildings and has the large open space of Guildhall Square beside it. So I chose to draw across the square. I wish I hadn't.
I was trying to draw small and neat with a nib that has worked really well on larger looser drawings. But the scale of the church isn't right, the drawing looks tentative and naive. Maybe I should have found a different view with a vertical composition, or turned the pad round and drawn landscape. Certainly, the drawing lacks energy and attack.

The church is one of Wren's most expensive buildings. He didn't set too much store by right angles and this was clear when I sat and looked hard at St Lawrence. It was badly damaged in the Blitz, losing the top half of it's spire and the interior gutted. It's been restored with city money and the interior is now back to being bling. It is now not a parish church as it is a guild church.
Need to sort out my nibs and try harder next time.
Sat on wooden chair supplied by Guildhall, outside entrance to Guildhall art gallery. One keen artist came to have a look but didn't seem too impressed. He clearly had a good eye.
Map

8. St Edmund King and Martyr

Took a bus over to Bank and walked down to St. Edmund. It's down busy Lombard Street but I found a corner where I could perch. Was it a cold day? Maybe that's why the drawing is weaker than the others. Or maybe it's because I was rushing - no bike, using buses, worrying about getting back to work.
Unusually, the church has it's altar at the north end which gives it a N/S axis. It's hemmed into the heart of the financial district. It's now a spirituality centre, whatever that means.
Wren and Robert Hooke designed the tower to look like a lighthouse with flaming urns at each corner alluding to the great fire.

Written long after doing the drawing.

Map