Page 50 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - London

48  INTRODUCING L ONDON

London’s Best: Churches

London’s churches have a special atmosphere
unmatched elsewhere in the city, and they can often
yield an intimate glimpse of the past. Many churches
have replaced earlier buildings in a steady succession
going back to pre-Christian times. Some began life in
outlying villages beyond London’s fortified centre, and
were absorbed into suburbs when the city expanded in All Souls
the 18th century. The memorials in the capital’s churches This plaque comes from
and church yards are a fascinating record of local life, a tomb in John Nash’s
liberally peppered with famous names. A more detailed Regency church of 1824.
overview of London’s churches is on pages 50–51.
Bloomsbury
and Fitzrovia
St Paul’s Covent Garden
Inigo Jones’s Classical church
was known as “the handsomest Regent’s Park
barn in England”. and Marylebone

Soho and
Trafalgar
Square Covent
Garden
and the
Strand

S
E
St Martin-in-the-Fields Piccadilly, Mayfair M
James Gibbs’s church of and St James’s A
1722–6 was originally South Kensington H
thought “too gay” for and Knightsbridge T
Protestant worship.
R
E
Whitehall V
and I
Westminster R
0 kilometres 1
0 miles 0.5

Westminster Cathedral
The Italian-Byzantine Catholic
cathedral’s red-and-white brick
exterior conceals a rich interior
of multicoloured marbles.

Westminster Abbey
The famous abbey has the
Brompton Oratory most glorious medieval
This sumptuous Baroque architecture in London, and
church is decorated with highly impressive tombs
works by Italian artists. and monuments.

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