Pavements at St Paul's

29 July 2008

If you wander around St Paul's Cathedral, you'll see some curious modern pavements in the South Churchyard, opened this summer. (See an overhead view of the chapterhouse garden looking west)

The area has been landscaped following small "evaluation" trenches excavated by Museum of London Archaeology Service (MoLAS) Senior Archaeologist Robin Wroe-Brown and his team, and a watching brief on the initial landscaping excavations by Senior Archaeologists David Sankey and Aleks Cetera, with expert input by the then diocesan archaeological advisor Dr John Schofield. The "new" pavement is a modern representation of the remains of part of the medieval cathedral, and illustrates a square cloister surrounding the octagonal chapter house.

The new design is a simplified version of the original. For instance, the original pavement of the chapterhouse had different-sized panels near the door on the west side and equal-sized panels in the east. In the new version, these floor panels are equal-sized throughout. The medieval internal pier-bases and ribs were also more intricately carved. However, the use of Purbeck stone for the paving and the ribs, and yellow limestone for the walls, does accurately represent the original materials.

Although only at ground level, the remains convey an accurate impression of the size and scale of the original tall chapterhouse with its imposing buttresses dividing large stained-glass windows, and the surrounding two-storey square cloister, with open tracery on the ground floor overlooking the small lawns.