St Dunstan in the East Garden

St Dunstan in the East is a medieval church ruin turned public garden in London, featuring a Gothic spire added by Christopher Wren between 1695 and 1701. Originally built around 1100, the church was severely damaged during the 1941 Blitz, leaving only its outer walls and spire standing. The City of London Corporation transformed the overgrown site into a public garden that opened in 1971.

London Β· from the walk β€œSecret London: Hidden Alleys, Ancient Stones & Forgotten Stories” Β· audio ~4 min Β· Generated

St Dunstan in the East, St Dunstan's Hill, London EC3R 5DD

Who designed the Gothic spire at St Dunstan in the East in London?

Now, take a look around you. See these crumbling stone walls with ivy threading through the empty Gothic windows? Most people walk right past this place. Even Londoners who work in these office blocks have no idea it's here. But any cabbie worth his salt knows St Dunstan in the East... because this little garden is one of the best-kept secrets in the Square Mile.......... This church was first built around eleven hundred. That's almost a thousand years ago. It survived the Black Death, the English Civil War... and then came the Great Fire of sixteen sixty-six. The fire severely damaged it, but rather than tear it down, they patched it up between sixteen sixty-eight and sixteen seventy-one. And here's where it gets interesting. Christopher Wren himself added that steeple you can see up there, between sixteen ninety-five and seventeen oh one. Now, Wren built it in a Gothic style, which was unusual for him. It has a needle spire carried on four flying buttresses, modelled after Saint Nicholas in Newcastle. Most cabbies will tell you Wren was all about the classical domes and columns, but Here... he showed he could do Gothic too.......... Then came the night of the tenth of May, nineteen forty-one. A bomb destroyed the nave, the roof, and blew out the stained glass windows. A direct hit destroyed everything apart from the north and south walls... and Wren's steeple. That tower Survived. Still standing, still defiant, right through the worst of the Blitz.......... Now here's the part that gets me. After lying abandoned for twenty-five years, the city decided to turn the ruins into a public garden. In nineteen sixty-seven, the City of London Corporation made it official, and the garden opened in nineteen seventy-one. They didn't bulldoze it. They didn't build another office tower. They just... let nature take over. And she did.......... But here's a story most people Don'T know. The bells. This church had eight bells in its tower. All eight bells were damaged during the bombing. New ones were cast in the nineteen fifties, but when they were installed and rung... the vibrations were too much for the bomb-weakened tower. Those bells were sold back to John Taylor and Company, the bell founders, and somehow found their way to hang at Sterling Vineyards in nineteen seventy-three... in Napa Valley, CaliFornia. That's right! Those bells ring every fifteen minutes at a winery on a hilltop in California wine country. London church bells, ringing over grapevines. You couldn't make it up.......... And the name itself β€” Saint Dunstan? There's a brilliant legend behind it. Dunstan supposedly nailed a horseshoe to the Devil's own cloven hoof, causing him such agony that the Devil swore never to enter a place where a horseshoe hangs above the door. This is claimed as the origin of the lucky horseshoe.......... So next time you see a horseshoe nailed above a pub door... you can thank the saint whose ruined church you're standing in right now. It's one of the last Blitz-damaged buildings left in the United Kingdom, and instead of being a monument to destruction... it became something rather beautiful. A cabbie's secret garden, hidden in plain sight.

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