The approach to St Paul's Church, Covent Garden from Bedford Street

Image: © Marathon Taken: 27 May 2012

It is the east front of St Paul's Church, Covent Garden which is more usually seen as it looks on to the Covent Garden Piazza. This was the scene in My Fair Lady. The entrance though is to the west and this is the side seen here, approaching from Bedford Street. St Paul's was the first entirely new church to be built in London since the Reformation. It was commissioned from Inigo Jones by the Duke of Bedford and was begun in 1631, and the church was completed in 1633 and consecrated in 1638. It was known as 'The handsomest barn in England'. It is also known as the Actors' Church because of its long association with the theatre community and among the dozens of plaques to well known actors and film stars, the two most recent are to Diana Rigg and Ian Holm, both of whom died in 2020. The most notable people actually buried here are Thomas Arne, who composed Rule Britannia, and the wood carver Grinling Gibbons.

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