The Forgotten Collapse of Old St Paul’s Cathedral’s Great Spire in 1561

The Forgotten Collapse of Old St Paul’s Cathedral’s Great Spire in 1561

I have been talking about a few of the major fires during the medieval and early modern era and it got me thinking about what other disasters happened in that period. So I started to do some digging and found the collapse of the great spire of Old St Paul’s Cathedral in London. It seems to have been largely forgotten today.

Old St Paul’s Cathedral was one of the most famous buildings in medieval England. The old cathedral dominated the skyline of London long before the modern cathedral that we know today. It had an enormous Gothic spire and it was considered one of the tallest structures in Europe, it is estimated to have been around 489 feet. For centuries, it stood showing the power of both the city and the Church. People could see it for miles and it would have been a familiar sight for many merchants and travellers and the everyday Londoners going about their lives.

In 1561 during the reign of Elizabeth I, on the 4th of June 1561, lightning struck the spire during a thunderstorm. The huge wooden framework inside the spire caught fire. Witnesses described flames rushing up while there was burning debris falling into the streets below.

The fire destroyed the spire completely. Molten lead from the roof was reported to have poured down like rain into the churchyard and surrounding streets. Smoke could apparently be seen across London. It must have caused panic as people watched one of the city’s greatest landmarks collapse in front of them. Some Londoners saw it as a sign from God. England was going through enormous religious tension at the time after the English Reformation, and many people believed events like this were a warning.

Remarkably, the number of deaths seems to have been very low when you consider the scale of the disaster. Contemporary accounts suggest that very few people were killed. Several people were injured by falling debris and burning material though. One story is that a bookseller’s stock that was stored in the cathedral was destroyed. Nearby homes and shops also suffered damage from the sparks and falling debris. The area around St Paul’s was crowded and busy, so there was a fear that the fire could spread across London.

The aftermath lasted for decades. The spire was never rebuilt. Although repairs were carried out on other parts of the cathedral, the disaster permanently changed London’s skyline. Some people saw the ruined cathedral as symbolic of a country that was still struggling with religious division. Old St Paul’s continued to deteriorate until it was finally destroyed during the Great Fire of London in 1666. A new cathedral that was designed by Christopher Wren was eventually built on the site. The building began being built in 1675 and was officially completed in 1710.

Do you think you would have seen it as a natural disaster, or as a warning of something greater to come?