St Paul's Church, Covent Garden

St Paul’s Church stands on Bedford Street in Covent Garden, a quiet corner of central London. Built in 1633 to Inigo Jones’s design for the 4th Earl of Bedford, it was the first new church in London since the Reformation. The architect followed Vitruvius’s description of an Etruscan-style temple, giving the building its plain Tuscan columns and low pediment. Originally the altar faced west, but church leaders insisted on the traditional eastward orientation. The stone front we see today replaced an earlier brick and stucco skin in the 18th century. The church earned the nickname ‘the actors’ church’ because of its long ties to London theatre. The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane opened nearby in 1663, and Covent Garden Theatre followed in 1723. Samuel Pepys recorded the first Punch and Judy show under the portico in 1662. George Bernard Shaw chose the same portico for the opening scene of Pygmalion. Since 2007 the Iris Theatre company has staged productions inside, starting with T. S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. Inside, the single space is uncluttered by pillars, with a raised chancel at the east end. William Butterfield raised the floor in 1871, and Thomas Hardwick added galleries on three sides. The west front, with its plain pediment, is the main entrance. Outside, the portico faces the old piazza, its wide steps now buried under centuries of resurfacing. The roof once held small bell turrets, but only two bells remain in recesses high on the west wall.