Wedding Cake In"spire"ation Virtual Cache
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Wedding Cake In"spire"ation
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St Bride's Church is situated next to the (now ex) Reuters building just off the world famous Fleet Street. The nearest tube is Blackfriars. Terrain is flat and suitable for wheelchairs, buggies etc. The churchyard is busy during weekday lunchtimes but pretty deserted otherwise.
Fleet Street has traditionally been the home of printing and newspaper publishing ever since Wynkyn de Worde set up his printing press in the South East corner of St Bride's churchyard in AD 1500. Even though the newspaper industry is now scattered all across London, St Bride's remains the 'Cathedral of the Printed World'. As you walk around the church you will see many reminders of the long association with journalism and printing in the inscriptions on the stalls and paneling.
The church is well worth visiting and offers some fantastic lunchtime concerts - go to the St Bride's website at www.stbrides.com for more info.
A few other historic tit bits for you:
# It wasn't until the bombing of the 1940 blitz that the antiquity of the site was discovered and a thousand years added to the history of the church.
# The church is dedicated to St Bride, or St Bridget of Kildare, a 5th century Irish saint.
# The crypt houses remains dating from the 2nd century AD, when the Romans held Londinium, and evidence of contemporary Christian burial suggests that it was one of the earliest sites of Christian worship in London.
# Samuel Pepys and his eight brothers and sisters were all baptised here
# In 1665 the Great Plague killed 238 parishioners in one week alone and in 1666 the Great Fire destroyed the church.
# The church was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and was his tallest spire at 234 feet.
# The church was the venue of the marriage of the parents of the first white child born in colonial America in 1575.
# And finally on a romantic note, the church's steeple is said to have been the inspiration for the traditional multi-tiered wedding cake design. Allegedly a local baker on Ludgate Hill was looking up from the front of his shop in the 18th century, saw the steeple and decided to make a cake in the same shape. Have a look for yourself and see if you believe the story!
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