Sir Christopher Wren

Summary

Podcast Summary: Not Just the Tudors – Episode: Sir Christopher Wren

Introduction

In the December 30, 2024 episode of Not Just the Tudors hosted by Professor Susannah Lipscomb, the spotlight shines on Sir Christopher Wren, a multifaceted genius whose influence permeated architecture, science, and beyond. Celebrating the 350th anniversary of some of Wren's most significant architectural endeavors, Professor Lipscomb is joined by esteemed historian Professor Adrian Tinniswood to delve deep into the life and legacy of this extraordinary figure.

Early Life and Intellectual Foundations (00:00 – 07:58)

Sir Christopher Wren was born on October 20, 1632, in East Noel to a family deeply rooted in the Anglican Church. His father, a clergyman, and his uncle, Bishop Matthew Wren, were prominent High Church figures, aligning closely with Archbishop Lord’s circle. The turmoil of the English Civil War profoundly impacted Wren's upbringing. His father's ejection from East Noel and his uncle's 18-year imprisonment in the Tower of London shifted the family's circumstances, steering young Wren away from a clerical path.

From an early age, Wren exhibited prodigious intellect and a penchant for mathematics and mechanics. Professor Tinniswood highlights, “Wren's part of that and it seems ordinary for us today, it was revolutionary” (06:19). Engaging with experimental philosophers influenced by Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, Wren embraced a scientific approach that was ahead of its time, challenging prevailing superstitions and embracing empirical methods.

Academic and Scientific Pursuits (07:58 – 13:15)

Wren's academic journey led him to graduate from Merton College, Oxford, and by his twenties, he had secured a professorship in astronomy at Gresham College in London—a remarkable achievement for his age. At Gresham, Wren's contributions extended beyond astronomy; he was involved in early medical experiments, including performing the first known canine splenectomy. Professor Tinniswood notes, “He does that because no one is quite sure what the spleen is doing in the system” (08:53).

In 1660, Wren became a founding member of the Royal Society, a hub for experimental philosophy and scientific discourse. This period marked a pivotal transition from his primary focus on astronomy to an emerging interest in architecture, influenced by commissions like the chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge, and the Sheldonian Theatre at Oxford.

Transition to Architecture and the Rebuilding of London (13:15 – 23:40)

The Great Fire of London in 1666 catalyzed Wren’s architectural career. Initially commissioned to repair St. Paul’s Cathedral alongside Roger Pratt, Wren proposed an ambitious dome design that was met with resistance. After the fire, the need for a new cathedral provided Wren with the opportunity to realize his grand architectural visions. Despite setbacks, including bureaucratic challenges and the daunting task of rebuilding over 80 churches, Wren's perseverance saw the completion of St. Paul’s Cathedral—a masterpiece that took 35 years to build. Professor Tinniswood emphasizes, “Wren is probably the first person in Britain to have built a cathedral and seen it through to the end” (17:53).

As Surveyor General of the King's Works from 1669, Wren oversaw major projects like the Royal Hospital Chelsea, Kensington Palace, and the Monument to the Great Fire of London. While he designed several high-status churches himself, much of the rebuilding effort was a collaborative endeavor under his administration.

Architectural Challenges and Innovations (23:40 – 33:44)

Wren's architectural prowess was not without its challenges. Designing large-scale structures like St. Paul’s required innovative solutions, such as his double-skin dome to support the massive cupola. Professor Tinniswood recounts a critical moment where Wren had to address structural failures in the dome: “he wraps them in bands of iron and hope for the best” (28:02).

Despite his successes, Wren often felt constrained by political and financial limitations. Ambitious projects like Whitehall and Hampton Court Palace never fully materialized to his vision, leading to frustration. His masterpiece, the Great London Fire Monument, faced criticism for its perceived extravagance and religious symbolism, yet St. Paul’s ultimately stood as his crowning achievement.

Personal Life and Character (33:44 – 36:18)

Beyond his professional endeavors, Wren's personal life was marked by complexity. He was married twice and devoted to his children, though tragedy struck with the early death of his daughter Jane. His son Christopher was ill-suited to inherit his formidable legacy, and his other son, William, struggled with undisclosed issues. Wren was known for his reserved and serious demeanor, often blurring the lines between his private and professional lives. Professor Tinniswood describes him as, “not a jolly chap, by a long way” (32:21).

Wren's religious beliefs remained conventional Anglican, harmonizing his scientific pursuits with his spirituality. He saw no conflict between science and religion, viewing both as avenues to understand and celebrate the divine.

Legacy and Recognition (36:18 – 37:50)

Sir Christopher Wren's legacy has evolved over the centuries. Initially celebrated, his prominence waned in the 18th century before experiencing a revival in the 19th and 20th centuries. St. Paul’s Cathedral, resilient through events like the Blitz, remains a symbol of his enduring impact. Professor Tinniswood reflects, “St. Paul’s is being called the parish church of Empire” (34:19), underscoring its significance in British national consciousness.

Wren’s contributions extend beyond architecture; his role in founding the Royal Society and his interdisciplinary expertise cement his status as one of Britain’s greatest polymaths. Despite his frustrations and the monumental scale of his projects, Wren’s innovative spirit and vision continue to inspire.

Conclusion

Professor Susannah Lipscomb and Professor Adrian Tinniswood provide a comprehensive exploration of Sir Christopher Wren’s multifaceted life, emphasizing his unparalleled contributions to architecture and science. Wren's ability to navigate and influence various spheres—despite personal and professional challenges—illustrates the depth of his genius. As the episode concludes, it becomes clear that Wren's legacy is not merely in the structures he left behind but in the enduring spirit of innovation and resilience he embodied.

Notable Quotes:

• Professor Lipscomb [03:15]: "It's really wonderful to have a chance to talk with you and what a wonderful subject. We have got most intensely interesting, incredibly talented person that we're going to be thinking about together."

• Professor Tinniswood [06:19]: "Wren knows everything in a world where it is possible to know everything."

• Professor Tinniswood [22:18]: "Absolutely it is. But I know where you're coming from."

• Professor Tinniswood [36:51]: "No, indeed. Thank you so much for talking to me about him."

Final Remarks

For listeners eager to delve deeper into the life of Sir Christopher Wren and other captivating historical narratives, subscribing to Not Just the Tudors on History Hit promises a treasure trove of engaging stories and expert insights.

Transcript

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb. If you'd like Not Just the Tudors ad free to get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to historyhit With a historyhit subscription. You can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my own on Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, Brilliant Rivals, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe hello, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and welcome to Not Just the Tudors From History Hit, the podcast in which we explore.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

Everything from Anne Boleyn to the Aztecs.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

From Holbein to the Huguenots, from Shakespeare to samurais relieved by regular doses of murder, espionage and witchcraft. Not, in other words, just the Tudors.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

But most definitely also the Tudors.

[Unknown Speaker]

The.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

Coming year 2025 marks the 350th anniversary of some of the most significant architectural projects of Sir Christopher Wren. The first stone for the new St Paul's Cathedral was laid on 21 June 1675. Construction work also began on the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and Wren was overseeing the rebuilding of many London churches following the great fire of 1666 as well, creating the monument to the fire itself. 1675 marks the beginning of Wren's most productive and influential years as an architect. But Christopher Wren was far more than an architect. He was an anatomist, mathematician, a navigator and an astronomer. He was a founding member of the Royal Society, he held a chair at Gresham College and he was a Member of Parliament. He was also a husband, a father and a widower.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

Twice over.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

He was a courtier and a man who in his 90 year long life experienced struggles and tragedy. To some he was almost a deity to all he was certainly a virtuoso. With so many facets to his life and character, it's not likely that we will ever truly know Ren, but we can appreciate him as a person whose life was as complex as as the beautiful bricks, stone and mortar he left behind. We thought the coming anniversary year was good reason to revisit a podcast first released in August 2023 in which I found out more about the great man from Professor Adrian Tiniswood, obe, author of His Invention so A Life of Christopher Wren. Professor Tiniswood is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the author of no fewer than 18 books on social and architectural history. He's also worked with several heritage organisations including the National Trust. He's currently Professorial Research Fellow at the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Buckingham and Adjunct professor of History at the University of Maynooth, Ireland, I'm Professor Susannah Lipscomb and this is Not Just the Tudors from History hit. Professor Tynneswood, welcome to Not Just the Tudors.

[Unknown Speaker]

Thank you. It's great to be with you.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

It's really wonderful to have a chance to talk with you and what a wonderful subject. We have got most intensely interesting, incredibly talented person that we're going to be thinking about together.

[Unknown Speaker]

Basically, he is the man. There's no one quite like him.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

So I can't wait to get started. Let's start at the beginning, because most people will think of Ren as an architect, but he didn't become an architect as such until he was in his 30s. So I would like us to rewind and to consider what he'd been doing before this time. I know that he grew up in the period prior to and during the Civil War, so can you give us a sense of Wren and his family during these turbulent years?

[Unknown Speaker]

He's born on 20 October 1632 in East Noel, where his father is Rectory. He's not born in the rectory because there's just been a fire there. So the family moved out to a cottage in the village. But his father is a clergyman, his uncle is a Lordian clergyman. They've both been quite close to Lancelot Andrews, who's part of Archbishop Lord's circle. They're High Church, both of them, and they're both quite important. His father becomes Dean of Windsor, his Uncle Matthew becomes Bishop of Ely. They're in the forefront of that beauty of holiness, if you like. And there's no doubt that Wren should and would have gone into the Church in a world that wasn't turned upside down. But when the Civil war breaks out, his father's ejected from Eastnoil and also from Windsor. His Uncle Matthew gets thrown in the Tower, where He stays for 18 years. And the church doesn't seem that good an option for a young man in the 1640s. He's very bright, he's very delicate. He's basically a mathematician. This is what he does. Mathematicians weren't invented in the 1640s, but if they were, that's what he would have been. He dabbles with making things like sundials, mechanical problems and mathematical problems. He's interested in the stars, he's interested in how things work. And it's from there he starts to move in with a circle of experimental philosophers, people who are influenced by Bacon's Solomon's House, by the New Atlantis, by the whole idea of checking out the world, rather than accepting ancient authorities, look for yourself, see what the world does and experiment, have a hypothesis, test it and then thesis. Ren's part of that and it seems like it's ordinary for us today, it was revolutionary. In the 1640s, people didn't do that. They accepted that there were centaurs, there were unicorns. They're still struggling to work out if the Earth actually moves around the sun or not. And a lot of people in Ren's childhood don't believe it does. So he's right at the forefront of a scientific revolution and he's in his teenage years.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

I suppose that gives us a sense of changing attitudes to knowledge and learning. In his youth, because that sense of experimentation as a method of proceeding, the Baconian method, perhaps, underpins how he becomes someone who studies such a vast array of subjects. Do you think that's the heart of it? Because he really becomes a real virtuoso in a way that is almost unimaginable today.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. Wren knows everything in a world where it is possible to know everything. And then he finds out more. He's remarkably bright as a teenager, but the group he's moving with, people like William Harvey, who's just posited the idea of circulation of the blood. Charles Scarborough, who becomes the King's physician, who he lodges with in London, who introduces him to a circle, including eventually, John Wilkins, the Warden of Wadham, Seth Ward, professor of astronomy, Robert Boyle, the weird, neurasthenic, brilliant young man who settled in Oxford. He moves with this group and their idea is that the world is a problem to solve, it's a question to be answered. And those people that he's mixing with, when most of them are actually generation older than him, but it's a mark of how bright he was, I think that he's accepted that miracle of a youth, I think. John Evelyn calls him the extraordinary genius. Everybody thinks that this kid is not only their equal, he's better than them at what they do, which is quite remarkable, I think.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

And to give some sense of how this is being recognised, he's graduated from Morden College, Oxford. He's been made a Fellow of all sorts. And in his 20s, he makes his first career move outside of Oxford to become a professor of astronomy at Gresham College in London. Gresham College still exists, of course, to this day. This seems rather unusual to become a professor in one's 20s, but what did the role involve? And do you think that that shows Wren starting to reach an audience that is different from his Fellow academics at Oxford.

[Unknown Speaker]

He's been engaged at Oxford in all kinds of things. He's been engaged in astronomy. His interest in astronomy is primarily mathematical, I think. He makes telescopes. He makes a brass model of Saturn showing Saturn's rings. He doesn't quite get it right. He thinks the rings touch the planet at two points, but nevertheless, it's the first time anyone has suggested that Saturn has rings. He's the first person in the world to perform a canine splenectomy. Darks didn't do too well in the 1650s in Oxford, but he injects an opiate into the back leg of a spaniel and the dog gets stoned. Therefore, the poison, if you like, the drug, circulates around the body. He has a reason for doing it. He's the first person, as far as we know, to perform a canine splenectomy. I really mean the dogs did not do well in 1650s Oxford. A canine splenectomy without benefit of anaesthetic is a little bit ooky, but he doesn't do that for fun. He does that because no one is quite sure what the spleen is doing in the system. And he suggests that if an animal can do without it, then it's not doing all that much. The dog survives. He performs this phlectomy on Robert Boyle's dog, who is promptly rechristened Spleen, which is a kind of unimaginative name. So his interests are actually medical as much as anything. And it's interesting that, to skip ahead, right at the end of his long life, he said he wishes he hadn't wasted his time in rubbish, which was his term for architecture. He wishes he'd been a physician, then he would have really made some money.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

How interesting. I thought you were going to say he wished he'd been a physician, because that would have done some good, but not at all in the end, not having the cash matters. So whilst he's at Gresham, he's a founding member of the Royal Society. Why was the Society needed? It's founded in 1660. What could it do that Gresham could not?

[Unknown Speaker]

In a way, it's a kind of reconvening of a lot of the figures who were at Wadham and All Souls, who worked for a great experimental club that was in Oxford in the 1650s and a lot of them were parliamentarians, which means they were rejected in 1660, so they started to drift into London. Wren has been made professor of Astronomy at Gresham in 1657, where he's grappling mainly with the problem of longitude and how we measure longitude. John Wilkins, the old mentor at Wadham, is there. Seth Ward, the astronomer, is there. Robert Hooke makes an appearance slightly later on. But they're actually a group of men who share a common interest in the experimental philosophy, in seeing how things work. And you're quite right, it's after one of Wren's lectures in November of 1660 that they all pile into a colleague's room and say, let's have a club. And these 12 men, they found the Royal Society.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

So Oxford, in other words, has become anti experimental philosophy. It's become pro religious authority again, post the restoration of the Stuart monarchy.

[Unknown Speaker]

Indeed.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

And this is the alternative. These are the people who continue to be radical in their thinking. How did this change affect Wren, besides the formation of the Royal Society?

[Unknown Speaker]

The 1660s, for Wren, he's not quite sure where to go, I don't think, because shortly after the Royal Society is founded in 1661, in fact, he leaves Gresham, he goes back to Oxford, he becomes civilian professor of astronomy at Oxford and he drifts back and forth between Oxford and London and he turns up at some of the Royal Society meetings and doesn't turn up at others. He's always promising to do things and never doing them. Yes, he's interested in science, in experimental science, and he remains. For most of the 1660s, astronomy is his primary interest, and it's certainly his day job. That's what he does. But two things, I think, in the early 1660s have got him thinking about architecture. One is poor old Uncle Matthew, the Bishop of Ely, who we left in the Tower of London for 18 years. He finally gets out and as a bit of a thank offering, he suggests he would like to build a chapel at Pembroke College, Cambridge. And for reasons that are still unclear, he asks his nephew to give it a shot. He asks Wren if he will design it, which ren does a competent job. A nice kind of faintly classical auditory box is a good piece of work. The other thing that draws Wren into architecture as a primary interest is Gilbert Sheldon, who was Wren's old Warden of All Souls and who becomes, in Taddy Swift's succession, Bishop of London, then Archbishop of Canterbury. But Sheldon offers to pay for a new theatre for graduation and other ceremonies in Oxford. And again, for reasons that we're still not absolutely clear about, Wren suggests that he'd like to have a go at doing it. It's not as bizarre as I make it sound, because the idea of the virtuoso in 17th century, you could do anything, you could dabble. Most of Wren's friends designed buildings. Not many of them were built, but it's just what you did. Wren, however, with Pembroke College and then with the Sheldonian, which is a remarkable piece of work. He's untrained, remember. He doesn't know anything about architecture. He doesn't know what makes buildings stand up. And he does this fantastic job on the Sheldonian. And those two things clearly move him towards architecture, but only very gently, not exclusively. He's still a professor of astronomy. That's what he does still. It's just that he's starting to think about how to apply mathematical principles to buildings.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

Both these projects, however, came under attack, architecturally speaking. Why was this?

[Unknown Speaker]

Certainly the Sheldonian was attacked, or at least it became a sort of a statement of religious authority, as against the new science, which was questioning everything, was seen as questioning religious truths. And that made it dangerous. Robert Streeter's wonderful sealing of the Sheldonian with basically religious authority, casting out all these troublesome other authorities, it becomes a conflict. Wren is never actually that radical politically. He's not radical at all. His background is royalist, solid royalist. His career will be with the Church of England and with the Crown, with the state. He's a state architect. He's never disruptive, he's never radical in that political or ideological sense at all. He's solid right the way through. He's a consummate politician. This man will become, in 1669, he will become Surveyor General of the King's Works, the most important architectural job in the country. Just think, he gets that job and he keeps it. In Charles II's reign, James II's reign, William and Mary, William, Queen Anne, he loses it with George I, that's Kissinger still being Secretary of State through six different administrations, he's got to have been very good at schmoozing, I think.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

Yes, and actually, I did want to ask you about his character, because we've talked about his 20s. We're in his 30s now, in the 1660s. But one thing I learned from your book was that in his 20s, Ren actually found it quite difficult to follow through with work and didn't really care that much about his reputation. And I wondered whether his character could be called challenging at times.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, he's always starting things and leaving them, moving on to something else. He has an idea, he suggests it, he won't publish. A lot of the time, it's left to Hooke, who's one of his closest with the Micrographia, for example, the impetus for the micrographia comes from Wren Hooke's just writing it up, which is very unfair to Robert Hook, because he does a lot more than that.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

He's following Hooke's the completer finisher, whereas Wren is the kind of plant, you know, he's the person who comes up with the ideas.

[Unknown Speaker]

Exactly that. And if you look at the early proceedings of the Royal Society, Wren is always promising to bring in a model. He makes a model of the moon, which he gives to Charles II, which is in Charles II's private closet at Whitehall. He promises to make another one for the Royal Society, and he doesn't. And they keep asking him and he yeah, I'll do it tomorrow, I'll do it next week, next meeting, I'll bring one in. And he just can't be bothered because he's moved on to the next thing, whatever that next thing is. That next thing, certainly. And the pivotal moment in Ren's career is that point in the early hours of 2 September 1666, when a baker in Pudding Lane forgets to put his oven out. That's the moment I've got a very dear friend who's convinced it was Wren that threw the fireball into Farriner's Bakery. Because if it weren't for that, would we be here talking about Christopher Wren now? Maybe as a scientist, when he's 30 odd, he hasn't finished a single building, but he's an international authority on astronomy. But without the fire, I don't know. I'm Matt Lewis.

[Matt Lewis]

And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and popes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Who were rarely the best of friends.

[Matt Lewis]

Murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval From History Hit on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

So, of course we're talking about St. Paul's Cathedral. Everyone has probably joined the dots. This is in many ways his magnum. And the context is this sense that after the fire ravaged the medieval building, and of course, much of the city, architects were invited to submit designs. And one thing I didn't really know, actually, was quite the extent to which the process was so difficult to survey the charred remains, to remove the debris, to approve designs, to source materials, to secure funding. So it took decades for the new cathedral to be built. Can you give some examples of these battles along the way and how Wren is coming out on top, really.

[Unknown Speaker]

He gets St. Paul's I think partly, if not mainly because Sheldon is involved and Dean Sancroft is an acquaintance at least of Ren. He gets it through the Church all the time. The Church of England is a friend to Wren. But to start with the building, which was in a bad state, let's not forget that one week before the fire of London, Wren is on a commission to repair old St. Paul's with Roger Pratt, who is much better qualified as an architect than Wren and Wren. At that meeting of a commission, Wren said, let's do a dome. No one's done a dome. Let's do a dome on Old St. Paul's and Roger Pratt says, don't be stupid, I know what you're talking about. And they have a fight in the middle of the day in the cathedral and Dean Sancroft has to pull them apart and give them a glass of wine and tell them to calm down, they'll do a proper survey and then a week later it burns down. Except it doesn't completely burn down. So for at least a year, the idea is to repair St. Paul's and Wren actually comes up with an idea to patch it up. His first design. The building is unsafe and people are killed, in fact, up with falling rubble. And it becomes quickly apparent that they need something new. But you're right to actually get agreement. There are four, five, maybe even six designs that Rain comes up with for St. Paul's his best is the great model, which you can still see in St. Paul's today, which is a huge domed basilica and it would have been fantastic. Wren has it completed, he has the model designed, built so everyone can see what it's going to be like. And then the Dean and chapter say, actually, we're not so sure. You think it's a bit late for them to be saying that. But it's dawned on them two things. One is that a grape white dung basilica is too Catholic for England. The other thing is that most of them will be dead. The dinan chapter, before St. Paul's is able to come into use, because the whole building needs to be domed. It needs to be finished before it can be used. Whereas a conventional cruciform cathedral, you can start at the chancel, the choir, and work backwards and use that east end while you're working backwards. Ren wept. He's not an emotional man. He's not an easy man at all. He's a very reserved person. But that's one very rare occasion where he breaks down and Weeps, he begs Charles II to get involved. And Charles II didn't want to know about that kind of thing. So Ren goes away and he gives the Dean in Chapter exactly what they want. A kind of Jonesy and of course, the west end of St. Paul's by Jones. He gives them a kind of a Jonesian replica with a melon dome on top with a kind of pagoda thing. It's as breathtaking in its ugliness as the great model was beautiful. And the Dean and Chapter say, yeah, that's it, that's exactly what we want. You've nailed it. And then, famously, it's the warrant design. It goes to Charles ii, who signs it off, signs off the warrant, but says that any change is ornamental rather than fundamental. That he wishes to make, he can make. So in fact, he designs a completely different cathedral. People used to say he did this without the Dean and Chapter noticing. How is that possible? In any case, any committee any of us have ever sat on, the idea of the chair not wanting to know what's going on with the building work over a 30 year period is ridiculous. So he must have brought them with him at some point. But you're right. Even knocking it down, even demolishing the ruins, there's a famous story. He brought in an engineer from the Tower of London because the crossing, they couldn't get it down, it's too solid. And the engineer puts a charge under one of the corners of the crossing and it demolishes it. The story also is that when Rem was away, his Clerk of works decided he'd have a go at what was left, and he didn't need any help from any military engineers, he put the charge in himself. And when a chunk of St. Paul's flew through a wall a half a mile away where two seamstresses were sitting, this piece of rock whizzed between them. They were told they couldn't use any more explosives to demolish it. They had to do it with pickaxes and hammers. And you say took a long time. It did. But just think, Wren is probably the first person in Britain to have built a cathedral and seen it through to the end. It took 35 years, but compared to Gloucester or Durham or any of the others, that's only half a lifetime.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

The Great Fire also ravaged over 80 churches, of course, in the city, leading to what you call the largest, most miraculous church building project since the Middle Ages. Is it right to call them Wren's Churches?

[Unknown Speaker]

Absolutely it is. But I know where you're coming from. Here there is a big book. Wren is the head of an administrative works. He designs some of the churches. He actually designs the high status churches. He designs James Piccadilly, he designs Stephen Walbrook, which I know you're not supposed to have favourites, but that is the best church in the world. Others, Hook, all the various other builders on the commission, they're involved. But there's a wonderful drawing of the facade of St. Edmund King and Martyr in Lombard Street. Wrenchurch. That drawing is by Robert Hooke. I know it's by Robert Hook. I know Hooke's hand. And clearly Robert Hooke was doing the designing. In the pediment of that entrance facade, there's a little squiggle and if you magnify the little squiggle, it's a CW for Christopher Wren. He's actually signing off the designs and that's what he's doing. He's in charge of a massive building project. People argue about the number. There's actually something like 56 new churches. There were 109 in the city originally, 80 odd of them burn, some of them. It's not worth putting back. Even in the 1660s and 70s they don't have congregations, so congregations merge. But Wren is responsible. 56 of them. He probably individually designed a handful. 10 maybe, but still, without him they wouldn't have been built. Right.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

So he's the one overseeing the whole project. The buck stops with him.

[Unknown Speaker]

He's Norman Foster. Norman Foster's not there on his drawing board doing every single detail.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

He's got a team now, as you said. Although we would have perhaps thought the Wren was busy enough with the City of London. He also becomes Surveyor General for the King's Works and he's an MP for Devon as well. Was he the right man for these positions, do you think?

[Unknown Speaker]

History says he was, but without insight, it's still not clear how he became Surveyor General of the Works. A Surveyor General was Sir John Denham, who was a great poet, but not an architect, not a builder at all, and who in fact went bonkers. And after he appeared in Charles II's bedchamber saying he was the Holy Spirit come to judge him, they thought he probably ought to take a holiday, which he did and promptly died. I mean, John Webb was all set to become Surveyor General. John Webb, Inigo Jones's nephew by marriage and assistant, was probably the best qualified modern architect. And Webb was convinced he was going to get the job. And somehow Wren gets it. We don't know how. Presumably there was intervention for the Church through his influential Church contacts. These aren't good terms with Charles II. The interesting thing is he becomes surveyor general in 1669. He doesn't give up the day job. He has the most influential architectural job in Britain and he doesn't give up the job as professor of astronomy because he's not sure if he's going to like being Surveyor General. He does both.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

He just sort of accumulates positions and jobs. Really?

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah. He's head of the Commission for rebuilding city churches, he's the architect of St. Paul's he's a professor of astronomy and now he's Surveyor of the King's Works, with responsibility for all the palaces. It's impossible. How can one bloke do that? He does, and he does it with ease. Keys. I'm Matt Lewis.

[Matt Lewis]

And I'm Dr. Eleanor Yaniga. And in Gone Medieval, we get into the greatest mysteries, the gob smacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the greatest millennium in human history. We're talking Vikings, Normans, Kings and Popes.

[Unknown Speaker]

Who were rarely the best of friends.

[Matt Lewis]

Much murder, rebellions and crusades. Find out who we really were by subscribing to Gone Medieval From History, Hit on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

Let's think about some of Rent's secular architectural work. I mean, people will know the examples. The Royal Hospital, Chelsea, Whitehall, Kensington palace, the monument of the Great Fire, the south front of Hampton Court. Were these projects as challenging as St. Paul's and do you get the impression that he enjoyed them, that he was proud of them?

[Unknown Speaker]

He was frustrated by all of them. I think Whitehall, he wanted to pull down and rebuild one thing. Just let me throw in here just to remind everyone that although we think of Ran as the great exponent of English baroque, he thought of himself as a classicist. He's rebuilding ancient Rome and most of his designs he regarded as classical designs. So he wanted to build a classical palace of Whitehall. He wanted to knock down all those boring Tudor bits at Hampton Court and put a nice big new palace in a shiny new palace. William and Mary, predominantly. William decided he hadn't got the cash and he was only allowed to do the royal apartments on the south front.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

For which I, as a Tudor historian, am intently grateful.

[Unknown Speaker]

That's why I said that I was being deliberately provocative. His masterpiece in palace terms would have been Winchester in 1680. Charles II decides he wants to relocate out of London and to have a brand new palace in hunting country about a mile outside Winchester. He tells Wren to hurry up because he's not long for this world. And Wren does hurry. But in 1685, when the king has a stroke and dies, Winchester still isn't completed. James II is not so keen and it's never finished. Whitehall doesn't work for him. Hampton Court doesn't work for him. Winchester doesn't work for him. I think he was frustrated all the way along the line with those royal buildings.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

So he's never been able to create the great vision. He's had it at St. Paul's and now again and again he's thwarted in the scale of his ambition, the scale of his vision, which other people just can't see or won't pay for.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, I think that's a very fair way to look at it. He's strongest when he's up against it. That's one thing. I think that he's strongest when he does have a problem, whether it's a structural problem or political problem. When he's got a problem that he can solve or that he's invited to find a solution for. That's when he's at his best. One of the many problems at St. Paul's is how to build a dome. People haven't done domes in England at that time. And the example that most people know about is that how to put a 300 ton cupola on top of the dome of St. Paul's without it crushing it. He does a double or treble skinned dome to support that cupola. He's not always right. There are a couple of moments that I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when REM was working. One is with St. Paul's almost finished and he's taken down into the crypt where the entire superstructure of the dome, which weighs as much as a fully laden Titanic, is resting on eight pillars. And he's taken down into the crypto by one of the building contractors and shown that those pillars are bursting. What do you do? It's too late to rebuild it. What he does is wrap them in bands of iron and hope for the best. I'd love to have seen the look on his face though. The other moment I would love to have been there. Is towards the end of Wren's life when he's walked away from St. Paul's with it not quite finished, he falls out with the dealing chapter. He becomes a very crotchety old man and the dealing chapter send a member of the St. Paul's Commission round to Wren's house to discuss completing the railings on the roof. Trivial thing. The chap they send round is Isaac Newton. You've got Isaac Newton and Christopher Wren sitting across a table discussing the finishing St. Paul's Cathedral. God, what a day that was. What an event that is amazing. Amazing, yes.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

Just to be, as you say, a fly on the wall. It would be one of those moments that would remind us that history is not all progress and there have been a lot of brilliant people in the past. Can I ask you a bit about Wren's personal life and what we know of him? One thing we've said little about so far is Ren's religious beliefs. You talked about his family being High Church and him being pro monarch. Is it possible, do you think, to discern anything about his spirituality from his architecture or his other work?

[Unknown Speaker]

I see him as a very conventional Anglican. His religious beliefs aren't revolutionary, but they're part of who he is, as they were for most people of his generation. And his background and his faith, I'm sure, was completely orthodox, completely conventional and total. I don't think he saw science and religion conflicting with each other at all. I think that's quite an important point because others were worried. He just didn't see it as an issue. It was another way of celebrating and understanding God. But you talk about his personal life and that does get really difficult. I think. He's married twice. Faith Coghill and Jane Fitzwilliam. He's only married. Is it six years out of 93 years. He's not a sort of jolly family chap. He spends most of his leisure time in the coffee houses around the West End of London. That's where he socializes. That's where he does a lot of his work as well. He sees contractors in coffee houses, he does deals, he has progress reports. His private life and his professional life seem to me to be one. There's not a distinction between them. In lots of ways. He does have children. He's devoted to his daughter Jane, who dies quite young. He has a son, Christopher, who he wants to inherit from him. He tries to ensure that Christopher will become Surveyor General of the Works, which doesn't happen. Christopher's not got a temperament or the talent. He has another son, William. There's something wrong with William. We don't know what it is. There's a chance reference in a letter to him taking care of poor Billy, to young Christopher Junior. People have suggested that he may have had a mental handicap. We don't know, we're just guessing. He lives a life of the mind. He's not a jolly chap, by a long way. There's a Remarkable bust by Edward Pierce, one of the contractors who worked on St. Paul's the bust of Christopher Wren in the Ashmolean. And it's the Christopher Wren that I think I know as far as I can know anyone. And he's got a slight smile on his lips, and he's looking over your shoulder, and you just get this sense that he can see farther than you can.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

He saw further was his unique skill as an architect and this vision of his appreciated in his lifetime.

[Unknown Speaker]

I don't think he ever had the recognition that he thought he deserved. And towards the end of his life, of course, he had quite the reverse, to be honest. The habit of power got too great with him. He should have gone, and he couldn't. He's been arbiter of architectural taste for 50 years now, really. When George first comes to the throne and a shady crook called William Benson persuades George I to sack Wren, and Wren's fallen out with the authorities at St. Paul's he's a grumpy old man. And that's when he says he wishes he hadn't wasted his life in rubbish. In building, because he feels that he's being neglected. He feels he's being rejected, he's being left behind. And of course he is. You know, when the scaffolding came down on St. Paul's Lord Burlington said something about when Solomon saw the temple. He wept. The Palladians are moving in. Wren's the old school. Ren's the old guard. He's an absolutist. His time has passed by the time St. Paul's is built. And he was too wedded to power, I think, to realize that he wouldn't be the only one, would he? It happens.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

Yes. The challenge of staying nimble.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

And ahead of the game as one ages. Something we all get to face, I suppose. Lastly then, I noticed, of course, that this year there was a service of Thanksgiving at St. Paul's to mark the 300th anniversary of Wren's death. And I wonder, when Ren became a significant figure in Britain's national consciousness, was this therefore something in his lifetime? Or has it been something that has evolved over time? For example, when St. Paul's stood valiantly amidst the bombing of the Luftwaffe in the Blitz, for example.

[Unknown Speaker]

Yeah, it's a gradual thing, I think. Rennes, like every other Baroque architect, drops massively out of fashion in the 18th century, along with Vanbrugh, along with William Talman, the architect of Chatsworth. They are disregarded. They are yesterday's man. Then, in 1823, the centenary of Wren's death, we have a sort of flurry of publications. By 1923, Wren is distinctly fashionable. And you're right, it is St. Paul's even before that famous photograph of St. Paul standing proud, wreathed in smoke in the middle of the Blitz in the early 1900s, St. Paul's is being called the parish church of Empire. It's where Nelson is buried. It rivals Westminster Abbey as the place where our statesmen are memorialized and are buried. By the end of the 19th century, you've got an architectural revival of early Georgian styles, which is called the Renaissance with a W. And it's basically building mini Hampton Courts. They're beautiful buildings. So Wren is being rehabilitated. 1923, the authorities launch a massive appeal for funds on the back of the Bicentenary, which actually moves things along, which moves Wren's opinion. But St. Paul's more than anything else. That's where George VI launches the Festival of Britain from in 1951. That's where Charles and Diana begin their doomed fairy tale wedding. It's a lot more than just London's cathedral.

[Professor Adrian Tinniswood]

So St Paul's ultimately, of all his achievements, is the one that has remained central to the popular imagination. And yet you've reminded us of some others today that we need to pay attention to. And although, of course, he tweaked it, I'm still conscious of the fact that it wasn't what he wanted, it wasn't what he intended. And that sense of frustration has really come out in our conversation today, that this really great man was still, in the end, not satisfied with what he had been able to do.

[Unknown Speaker]

Is any of us ever satisfied? And certainly, is any creative ever satisfied? Does what they make ever fit the vision of what they could make? I don't think Ren is unusual in that. Where he is unusual is in the extent of his creativity, vast vision. He is without doubt Britain's greatest architect. Nobody comes close. And it's interesting, I think, that in a society which we don't value our architects particularly, and there's only a handful that the person in the street can just name. Everybody's heard of Christopher Wren and that's not a bad epitaph.

[Professor Susannah Lipscomb]

No, indeed. Thank you so much for talking to me about him. And thanks also to my researcher, Alice Smith and my producer, Rob Weinberg. We're always eager to hear from you, including receiving your brilliant ideas for subjects we can cover. So do drop us a [e-mail].