By the south bank of the river Thames in London, close to the Globe Theater and just across the river from St Paul’s Cathedral, there is pretty house, painted a creamy white.
Above the door, the name Cardinal’s Wharf is written. And to the side of the building is a plaque that reads –
Here lived Sir Christopher Wren during the building of St Paul’s Cathedral.
Here also, in 1502, Catherine Infanta of Castille and Aragon, afterwards first Queen of Henry VIII, took shelter on her first landing in London.
One can easily imagine Sir Christopher Wren getting up in the morning and looking out of one of the upper windows to see, across the river, his creation rising out of its foundations as the work progressed from the laying of the first stone in 1677 to the completion of the cathedral in 1708.
The St Paul’s Cathedral that Wren designed is the ‘new’ building that replaced the old St Paul’s that was gutted in the Great Fire of London in 1666.