The Hogwarts staircase, a secret gallery, the rooftop statues, a vertiginous spy hole...Matt Brown and Geoff Marshall explore the off-limits areas of St Paul's Cathedral.
Great video - I've been in some of those places. Working for a company called ELP that do all the lights for BBC televised events, we were running cables all through the place, up on the roof, everything. It was a fascinating experience and toe-curlingly frightening at times! He's absolutely right, the thoughts going through your head about putting your life in the hands of hundreds of years old architecture. I had similar experiences at Westminster Abbey as well. One interesting fact not mentioned in the video is that there is a tradition for workmen who find themselves on the roofs of such places to carve their name and date into the masonry - dating back hundreds of years to today - my colleagues were doing this alongside things like Ethelbert was here 1796 etc..
Wait until you see the one in Barcelona Spain, I forgot the name but it's the most amazing cathedral in the world. Look it up and reply with your thoughts
Or at the very least, the public wasn't allowed up there until the hand rail was put in. You don't want church service to be disturbed by people falling from the sky, do you?
Great to finally see the INSIDE of the golden gallery. You can see from below that there’s some kind of upper gallery there, but not accessible to the public. We can only walk from the whispering gallery, up to the exterior golden gallery. I always remember there being a door there, which I imagined would lead to the inside - and now I see it’s true.
Thx for sharing! Amazing! I miss London so much and am counting the days till I will be there again. Your videos are a real consolation for those who can't be there. And that bloke Oliver has got such a warm smile.
I was scared totally rigid just going up the lantern at Ely Cathedral and I would have simply never been able to do this - just watching the video made my heart rate increase! It’s good to be able to see from a safe location though!
I can't even begin to fathom the grandeur of this building. Such an incomprehensible scale; to say nothing of the beauty. And to think that this was all accomplished centuries ago without any modern machinery. Just that incredibly heavy door, at such a significant height! And even the realitively unimportant crawl spaces, have each brick layed with care. I think the tour guide is right about the discovery. You could spend a whole lifetime wandering about & exploring; but you still wouldn't be able to discover everything. How any one man could accomplish such a feat, just boggles my mind.
At some points during the 1970's there was temporary public access to some of these places. I do recall that it was rather scary, but also fascinating.
I visited St. Paul's in, I think 2007. It was early on a weekday in October so it was very quiet. I don't know if there is still this option, but I paid £2 extra (student price) for a group guided tour. There were, however, so few visitors at that time, that I got the guided tour all to myself. I was shown a lot of areas that were off limits to the regular visitor. We went up to that area above the ceiling that you see in this video, out onto the roof and to the stone staircase in the thumbnail. It was about 90 minutes in total, I think.
I've been lucky enough to see most of these secret places on what the Virgers call a Heineken tour (because it reaches parts other tours cannot reach). You have to know someone in the Cathedral to get on one of these tours but they are without doubt one of THE best things anyone can do in London. They hardly ever happen as the Virger who used to conduct most of them has moved to another cathedral.
Thanks for the tour, I went through what I call the attick, the area between the inner dome and the outer dome back in the late 90's. From in there we were able to see the old hewd timbers that held things together.
Vertigo escalates with every minute. But because you know it's a very old building. And could easily give in or give up at any moment, regardless of whatever you were assured.
Some of these corridors in the interior of at Paul's cathedral are very narrow. I used to use some of them to get to various parts of the organ to tune. The West end gallery is impressive, when tuning the some and West end reeds, you have to have ear defenders to tune them.
Those 1977 Mander Royal Trumpets are foul. Ironically, Brenda has forbidden their use in her hearing. The 1930 Gottfried Trompette Militaire in the NE quarter-dome is much better. Sadly, the 1900 Willis dome reeds (the 15" Posaunes and 25" Tubas) were replaced with five new Mander ranks in 2008, and they just aren't the same... hopefully now Mander is no more the St Paul's organ will return to Willis's care (it is currently, unfortunately, in the hands of the same overrated northern firm which has royally cocked up the reeds and mixtures at Salisbury) and can have the original 1900 ranks reinstated. Nothing is beyond salvation, as their restoration of the 1924 Tuba Magna at Liverpool Cathedral (which H&H had vandalised beyond belief in their brief, disastrous period in charge of that organ in the 1970s) is currently demonstrating.
I remember standing in the whispering gallery with my back against the railings and locking up at the inside of the dome. The feeling of vertigo was overwhelming.
David Kirwin Yeh, that's almost killed me on a school trip tour. I only wanted to climb down, but had to follow the neverending stream of tourists. I nearly sh*.. well, nevermind.
I thought I'd seen all Londonist vids, especially the secret London ones! How did I miss this? Great job as usual, by the way, people-from-three-years-ago-who-made-this-video! Love Londonist.
Linda Walker I love the story that when old St Paul's had burned down, and the site was being cleared, Wren asked a workman to find him a stone to mark the place for one of the boundary walls. He was brought a large tombstone with the word resurgam, Latin for I will rise again, carved in it.
The most amazing part of the cathedral is what's below the "ground floor". Three basement levels that go way down that, if you could visit, would make you question many things, such as what is the "ground floor". But, only certain groups get that tour.
Isaac Marion yeah it was a very popular design during the baroque period instead of actually making the the whole dome hollow and visible from the floor a fantastic mural usually portraying heaven was painted on the ceiling
There is a brick cone between the dome you see from looking up and the dome you see from outside. What I mean is that what you see when looking up isn't actually the top of the dome. You can see the iron chains set in lead that hold it all together. Be warned though, if you ever decide to go to the viewing gallery above the top of the dome it's a tough climb.
If you take the full tour, you can climb up between the internal and the external domes to the very top, where there is a small glass window set into the floor that you can look down through to see centre of the cathedral below. You can see the other side of that window in the top of the internal dome at 3:25.
Many years ago our family visited St Paul’s Cathedral,while there a kindly gentleman took us down to the very bowels of the building,and there we actually viewed the funeral Carriage that carried the Duke of Wellington body in his funeral cortège.It was covered with beaten shell casings,it took 12 horses to pull it.Amazing ,!,
As a child back in the late 50's early 60's I can remember visiting St. Paul's and going right up to the top where you had to traverse through the space between the inner and outer dome which had huge heavy beams inside; you had to be very careful not to bang your head. The pièce de résistance though was being able to climb a ladder inside the cross at the top of St. Paul's where there was a viewing window to see out over London. I can find no mention of that ladder letting you get inside the cross anywhere so maybe someone else has a memory of this?
Yes Richard. I too climbed that ladder when I was around 12 (circa 1956). I remember having to wait one's turn, as there was so little room there. When at the top of the ladder my head was in the space under the ball (supporting the cross) I believe, with the breeze blowing straight through. Amazing!
I worked in a Collage building from the 1800s that had been changed and remodeled many times. Under one of the floors was a swimming pool from the 1920s. There are also stairways that lead to floors.
these places were never built in the 1800s they were found. They were on horse and cart back then so no way they could have build such impossible structures with no power tools. Also these buildings were used for gathering energy from the ether. look closely at the tops which contained rare metals and also wires spikes to gather the energy. our history is a lie.
Stairwell looks like the... YES! My eye proved right; that stairwell is the one to the Hogwarts divination tower! Wild! I love that we get to see such things from our corner of the world. "Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul's The little old bird woman comes"
I'm not super afraid of heights but, funny enough, a real trip to St. Pauls in 2005 showed me that balconies inside a dome really mess with my balance.
In the 1960s it was possible to ascend the various galleries until one was standing on a ladder directly below the ball on top of the dome. Being of child age at the time the bus and underground day rover ticket was 10/- allowing travel on all red buses and the underground except north of Rickmansworth.
That guy shows exactly all the special spots were i´ve been too with school back in 1978 Even have been at the top of the Cathedral and yust knowing how amazing that felt at age of yust 17
Spectacular place of worship... fortunate enough to visit and attend services on vacation from Canada. The last bit in the Dome overlooking below is staggering... and made me feel queasy - have done the Whispering Gallery - that was enough for me.
They didn't show Shinbone Alley where the three domes inside each other are atttached. Named by the Blitz firewatchers in the little room at the top of the dome. My great uncle was a firewatcher and showed me around.
Something I loved as a youngster was getting up higher as I had always been on the ground . So imagine people of the 1600s and 1700s would have the same affection of being high . Not everyone got a chance to be high level over something
Please see my reply below to Jasmine Johnston. The Dome section is a complete division of the organ located in the North-East Quarter Dome Gallery (there are four) which is large enough to additionally accommodate 32’ pedal pipes laid vertically and St Paul’s celebrated family of tubas. For US readers, the sensational and immensely powerful “trompette militaire” stop is American, specially imported, and the gift of Henry Willis III. G Donald Harrison who made its cousin, the ‘State Trumpet’ at the Cathedral of St John the Divine NYC, worked for Willis before moving to the US, and he had also worked on the St Paul’s organ. The Dome organ is hardly visible from the floor of the Cathedral, but can be seen by brave people looking down from higher levels above.
Great video - I've been in some of those places. Working for a company called ELP that do all the lights for BBC televised events, we were running cables all through the place, up on the roof, everything. It was a fascinating experience and toe-curlingly frightening at times! He's absolutely right, the thoughts going through your head about putting your life in the hands of hundreds of years old architecture. I had similar experiences at Westminster Abbey as well. One interesting fact not mentioned in the video is that there is a tradition for workmen who find themselves on the roofs of such places to carve their name and date into the masonry - dating back hundreds of years to today - my colleagues were doing this alongside things like Ethelbert was here 1796 etc..
Stunning architecture, engineering and design, what a treat to be able to see.
Wait until you see the one in Barcelona Spain, I forgot the name but it's the most amazing cathedral in the world. Look it up and reply with your thoughts
Wow, i don't think I've ever got vertigo from just watching a RUclips video before! Great stuff though.
i totally agree
yes i felt it as well
when i was there in person and i got vertigo :S
Worse than when I really go up a tower - which is bad enough. Weird!
you don't know what vertigo means do you?
I'd love to see more of the behind-the-scenes rooms in another video.
sprich deutsch
I wish this video was 100 times longer - totally fascinating. Miss London desperately :(
"the hand rail was put in,.."
Which means that at some point, there was NO rail.!🤯!.
It’s always been there. Of course at some point there was no st. paul’s cathedral.
Or at the very least, the public wasn't allowed up there until the hand rail was put in. You don't want church service to be disturbed by people falling from the sky, do you?
That would make the service more interesting wouldn't you say?
Id be tempted to throw bread down from there when they sing that song 🎶 Bread of heaven 🎶 hahahah 🍞
Thank you for expanding on the tour of St. Paul's I enjoyed first hand, years ago. British engineering is breathtaking.
Great to finally see the INSIDE of the golden gallery. You can see from below that there’s some kind of upper gallery there, but not accessible to the public. We can only walk from the whispering gallery, up to the exterior golden gallery. I always remember there being a door there, which I imagined would lead to the inside - and now I see it’s true.
This NEEDS to become a two hour documentary.
Thx for sharing! Amazing! I miss London so much and am counting the days till I will be there again. Your videos are a real consolation for those who can't be there.
And that bloke Oliver has got such a warm smile.
I was scared totally rigid just going up the lantern at Ely Cathedral and I would have simply never been able to do this - just watching the video made my heart rate increase! It’s good to be able to see from a safe location though!
I 100% agree... I'm not a fan of heights...
Amazing that at that hand rail part, there is a lot to look down on, but still quite al lot to look up to as well! So many levels!
I can't even begin to fathom the grandeur of this building. Such an incomprehensible scale; to say nothing of the beauty. And to think that this was all accomplished centuries ago without any modern machinery. Just that incredibly heavy door, at such a significant height! And even the realitively unimportant crawl spaces, have each brick layed with care. I think the tour guide is right about the discovery.
You could spend a whole lifetime wandering about & exploring; but you still wouldn't be able to discover everything. How any one man could accomplish such a feat, just boggles my mind.
It is one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have visited. A colorful artistic experience. I like that place.
At some points during the 1970's there was temporary public access to some of these places. I do recall that it was rather scary, but also fascinating.
Fascinating! Thank you for posting.
I visited St. Paul's in, I think 2007. It was early on a weekday in October so it was very quiet. I don't know if there is still this option, but I paid £2 extra (student price) for a group guided tour. There were, however, so few visitors at that time, that I got the guided tour all to myself. I was shown a lot of areas that were off limits to the regular visitor. We went up to that area above the ceiling that you see in this video, out onto the roof and to the stone staircase in the thumbnail. It was about 90 minutes in total, I think.
you guys are amazing. The job you keep carry out makes me prouder, day be day, to work and live in this beautiful city
I've been lucky enough to see most of these secret places on what the Virgers call a Heineken tour (because it reaches parts other tours cannot reach). You have to know someone in the Cathedral to get on one of these tours but they are without doubt one of THE best things anyone can do in London. They hardly ever happen as the Virger who used to conduct most of them has moved to another cathedral.
Wonderful tour. Really enjoyed this.
Dear God I would love to explore these parts of this simply beautiful building .
Thanks for the tour, I went through what I call the attick, the area between the inner dome and the outer dome back in the late 90's. From in there we were able to see the old hewd timbers that held things together.
Amazing. Thank you as always.
Great video. I really like such enormous buildings. With all the different kinds of rooms and spaces.
Vertigo escalates with every minute. But because you know it's a very old building. And could easily give in or give up at any moment, regardless of whatever you were assured.
I went up into the golden ball when I was a child, back in the 50s.
Great tour for us on the other side of the world! Cheers.
so many mesmerised by beautiful architecture on the one hand whilst clinging onto their pennies from universal credit with the other
"The Secret Rooms of St Paul's Cathedral" Now on RUclips. So much for secrets.
Was about to say this
Some of these corridors in the interior of at Paul's cathedral are very narrow. I used to use some of them to get to various parts of the organ to tune. The West end gallery is impressive, when tuning the some and West end reeds, you have to have ear defenders to tune them.
Those 1977 Mander Royal Trumpets are foul. Ironically, Brenda has forbidden their use in her hearing. The 1930 Gottfried Trompette Militaire in the NE quarter-dome is much better. Sadly, the 1900 Willis dome reeds (the 15" Posaunes and 25" Tubas) were replaced with five new Mander ranks in 2008, and they just aren't the same... hopefully now Mander is no more the St Paul's organ will return to Willis's care (it is currently, unfortunately, in the hands of the same overrated northern firm which has royally cocked up the reeds and mixtures at Salisbury) and can have the original 1900 ranks reinstated. Nothing is beyond salvation, as their restoration of the 1924 Tuba Magna at Liverpool Cathedral (which H&H had vandalised beyond belief in their brief, disastrous period in charge of that organ in the 1970s) is currently demonstrating.
It's been nearly 40 years since I visited St. Paul's. Still get queasy watching your video.
Holy smokies....wow. I love going places like this.truly a work of art....beautiful
1:30 ... only 9" thick... now that's a REAL terrifying thought!
I remember standing in the whispering gallery with my back against the railings and locking up at the inside of the dome. The feeling of vertigo was overwhelming.
Wonderful video! Thanks a bunch. 🖤
Thanks for sharing, very interesting but it makes my feet feel funny looking at the height!
David Kirwin
Yeh, that's almost killed me on a school trip tour. I only wanted to climb down, but had to follow the neverending stream of tourists. I nearly sh*.. well, nevermind.
Really interesting ! Fascinsting even. And i didnt know that the harry potter's staricase was in st pauls !
***** Yes its to the divination room
harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Divination_Stairwell
And also used for the defence against the dark arts staircase aswell
Very cool. That was fun. Thank you for sharing. Rob
THIS IS SO INSPIRING. AMASING DISCOVERIES!!
Thank you ever so much for sharing, "you few, you lucky few"
.
Fantastic video from @Londonist showing the secret rooms of St Paul's Cathedral.
Done that tour with Oliver. His knowledge was unbelievable...
I thought I'd seen all Londonist vids, especially the secret London ones! How did I miss this? Great job as usual, by the way, people-from-three-years-ago-who-made-this-video! Love Londonist.
Very interesting, thanks for upload.
Wow, that view from the top looks so scary!!!
Even more 'scary' when you consider the builders were up there on wooden scaffolds
Absolutely beautiful and awe inspiring. However I'm getting vertigo just watching the video!
Such a feat of engineering.
Linda Walker I love the story that when old St Paul's had burned down, and the site was being cleared, Wren asked a workman to find him a stone to mark the place for one of the boundary walls.
He was brought a large tombstone with the word resurgam, Latin for I will rise again, carved in it.
Vertigo inducing, truly scary.It took me three attempts to reach the top of St. Paul's, never felt so scared in my life.
The most amazing part of the cathedral is what's below the "ground floor". Three basement levels that go way down that, if you could visit, would make you question many things, such as what is the "ground floor". But, only certain groups get that tour.
Thanks! Going to visit paul tomorrow
I climbed in 1971, as a tourist, all the way into the "ball" just below the cross of St. Paul...amazing experience....
Ooo, I'd have loved more. That bloke who took them round had such enjoyment in the building!
3:29 love the wallpaper
Awesome 👍
That last part was really scary. You are so brave, I would not be able to do that.
Did the interior of the upper dome have a brick pattern painted on it instead of actual bricks...?
Isaac Marion yeah it was a very popular design during the baroque period instead of actually making the the whole dome hollow and visible from the floor a fantastic mural usually portraying heaven was painted on the ceiling
There is a brick cone between the dome you see from looking up and the dome you see from outside. What I mean is that what you see when looking up isn't actually the top of the dome. You can see the iron chains set in lead that hold it all together. Be warned though, if you ever decide to go to the viewing gallery above the top of the dome it's a tough climb.
Yes and I believe that the technique is known as Trompe-l'œil
@@mscott3918 y wife and I made the climb years ago - well worth it.
If you take the full tour, you can climb up between the internal and the external domes to the very top, where there is a small glass window set into the floor that you can look down through to see centre of the cathedral below. You can see the other side of that window in the top of the internal dome at 3:25.
Amazing, but absolutely terrifying :)
Amazing place thanks for sharing.
Many years ago our family visited St Paul’s Cathedral,while there a kindly gentleman took us down to the very bowels of the building,and there we actually viewed the funeral Carriage that carried the Duke of Wellington body in his funeral cortège.It was covered with beaten shell casings,it took 12 horses to pull it.Amazing ,!,
Nice video well done
As a child back in the late 50's early 60's I can remember visiting St. Paul's and going right up to the top where you had to traverse through the space between the inner and outer dome which had huge heavy beams inside; you had to be very careful not to bang your head.
The pièce de résistance though was being able to climb a ladder inside the cross at the top of St. Paul's where there was a viewing window to see out over London.
I can find no mention of that ladder letting you get inside the cross anywhere so maybe someone else has a memory of this?
Yes Richard. I too climbed that ladder when I was around 12 (circa 1956). I remember having to wait one's turn, as there was so little room there. When at the top of the ladder my head was in the space under the ball (supporting the cross) I believe, with the breeze blowing straight through. Amazing!
@@paulnewman851 so dis i
I wish I could visit these places myself, I love stuff like that
that is fascinating. I just did a video for my channel about the cathedral but I did not have the pleasure to go "behind the scenes"
I worked in a Collage building from the 1800s that had been changed and remodeled many times. Under one of the floors was a swimming pool from the 1920s. There are also stairways that lead to floors.
yes that would be Walthamstow collage and i used to swin there as a teenager
these places were never built in the 1800s they were found. They were on horse and cart back then so no way they could have build such impossible structures with no power tools. Also these buildings were used for gathering energy from the ether. look closely at the tops which contained rare metals and also wires spikes to gather the energy. our history is a lie.
That is some Holy Engineering, scary and breathtaking.
Amazing
How was the hand rail constructed i can’t imagine it was pulled up ?
Cool!
2021 cant see for miles any more
Thank you.
Brilliant video but I wish I hadn't watched it, as I'll probably have nightmares tonight!
Good video, I have seen the stair case and been into the stone mason yard, amazing how it stayed strong through the bombing of London
I’ve been up the dome a few times many years ago and I was terrified when I was up there.
Stairwell looks like the... YES! My eye proved right; that stairwell is the one to the Hogwarts divination tower! Wild! I love that we get to see such things from our corner of the world.
"Early each day to the steps of Saint Paul's The little old bird woman comes"
Kudos for the Mary Poppins reference.
WOW.....WOW! 👍💛💛👍
After this pandemic is over, it would be good to see such hidden areas opened up to tourists (with necessary security measures).
omg this is an amazing video I've only gone as high as the Whispering Gallery in St Paul's
I'm not super afraid of heights but, funny enough, a real trip to St. Pauls in 2005 showed me that balconies inside a dome really mess with my balance.
a video by geoff without any mentioning of railways, didn't know that's possible
Well, they did talk about handrails...
Suspended in space, between the church crossing far below and the interior of the upper dome overhead. Unnerving -- not for the timid.
In the 1960s it was possible to ascend the various galleries until one was standing on a ladder directly below the ball on top of the dome. Being of child age at the time the bus and underground day rover ticket was 10/- allowing travel on all red buses and the underground except north of Rickmansworth.
That bit and the stairs is from Paddington 2
Could really feel my fear of heights kick in
That guy shows exactly all the special spots were i´ve been too with school back in 1978 Even have been at the top of the Cathedral and yust knowing how amazing that felt at age of yust 17
I didn’t have any issue with heigh5s when I was younger, but my guts churned and my knees went to jelly watching this 🙀
awesome
Spectacular place of worship... fortunate enough to visit and attend services on vacation from Canada. The last bit in the Dome overlooking below is staggering... and made me feel queasy - have done the Whispering Gallery - that was enough for me.
They didn't show Shinbone Alley where the three domes inside each other are atttached.
Named by the Blitz firewatchers in the little room at the top of the dome. My great uncle was a firewatcher and showed me around.
OH MAN! I feel for that reporter!
Fascinating, but it really triggered my vertigo. Perhaps that means it was well filmed!
Something I loved as a youngster was getting up higher as I had always been on the ground . So imagine people of the 1600s and 1700s would have the same affection of being high . Not everyone got a chance to be high level over something
you have to see the trumpets in the whispering gallery... my photos never did it justice imagine they are played at weddings...
0:44 Great Tom
London skyline has changed so much!
Wonder how many secret rooms there are in St Peter's Basilica
Thanks, now i can hide secret entrance at my minecraft church
It made my feet tingle just to watch it.
Awesome!! Where where the ORGAN PIPES located?
I would love to know as well.
Please see my reply below to Jasmine Johnston. The Dome section is a complete division of the organ located in the North-East Quarter Dome Gallery (there are four) which is large enough to additionally accommodate 32’ pedal pipes laid vertically and St Paul’s celebrated family of tubas. For US readers, the sensational and immensely powerful “trompette militaire” stop is American, specially imported, and the gift of Henry Willis III. G Donald Harrison who made its cousin, the ‘State Trumpet’ at the Cathedral of St John the Divine NYC, worked for Willis before moving to the US, and he had also worked on the St Paul’s organ. The Dome organ is hardly visible from the floor of the Cathedral, but can be seen by brave people looking down from higher levels above.
Even sat here watching that those heights give me the willies