St Bride's Church: The Wedding Cake Steeple

St Bride's Church in London features a 226-foot tiered steeple designed by Christopher Wren that inspired the traditional multi-layered wedding cake. In the 18th century, baker William Rich designed the first tiered cake after gazing at the octagonal spires. The site contains a crypt with a Roman pavement from around 180 AD, and diarist Samuel Pepys was baptised at this historical church, which is the second highest Wren spire in London.

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St Bride's Church, Fleet Street, London EC4Y 8AU

How did St Bride's Church in London inspire the traditional tiered wedding cake?

Look up at that steeple... four tiers of octagonal stone, each one smaller than the last, rising like a great layered confection into the London sky. Standing two hundred and twenty six feet tall, this is the second highest of all Christopher Wren's church spires, surpassed only by Saint Paul's Cathedral itself.......... Now here's the delicious part. The story goes that towards the end of the eighteenth century, an apprentice baker named William Rich, who worked at premises on nearby Ludgate Hill, fell in love with his boss's daughter. When he set up his own business and won her father's approval, Rich wished to create a spectacular cake for the wedding feast... but was unsure how, until one day he looked UP at the steeple of the church, and inspiration hit him. A cake in layers, tiered, diminishing as it rose. And just like that, the tiered wedding cake was born! Every multi-layered wedding cake you've Ever seen may trace its origins to this very steeple.......... But here's what most people don't tell you. Despite the romantic claims that his bride was the daughter of his master baker, her father was actually a peruke maker... a wigmaker... from nearby Cheapside. The love story is real, the cake is real, but the details got a little sweetened over time.......... Now, this steeple has also had a Stormy history... literally. The spire was greatly injured by lightning in seventeen fifty, and in seventeen sixty four a storm so wrecked its masonry that it had to be mainly rebuilt. Yet for years after, the authorities refused to attach a lightning rod, even though Benjamin Franklin had already invented one. The clergy believed lightning was the will of God... and protecting against it was considered almost blasphemous. The priests' refusals prompted the president of Harvard University himself to write to Franklin about the astonishing force of prejudice.......... But this spot holds secrets far Older than the steeple. The present Saint Bride's is at least the seventh church to have stood on this site. In the underground crypt, you can see the remains of a Roman pavement dating back to around one hundred and eighty AD. Excavations also uncovered thousands of human remains, dating from the Roman period through the Plague of sixteen sixty five, right up to the eighteen fifties.......... And the name? It has nothing to do with weddings. It is believed the name derives from Bridget of Ireland, the patron saint of Ireland. The church may have been founded by Irish monks, missionaries converting the English, making it possibly the Only Celtic Irish-founded church in the east of Britain. Legend even says Saint Bridget could turn bathwater into beer!......... One more thing. Samuel Pepys, the great diarist, was born in a house right next to this church and was baptised here. And in fifteen hundred, Wynkyn de Worde set up his printing press in the churchyard of Saint Bride's, launching Fleet Street's five hundred year love affair with the printed word. From Roman ruins to wedding cakes, from lightning rods to printing presses... this single spot holds more layers of history than any cake could ever match.

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