Postcards from the Past #5: St. Paul's Cathedral, Covent Garden & the British Museum
Instagram Post of July 17, 2020:
Wow! Are you a little shocked that Catharine had the confidence not only to express, but to publish, her critical opinion of the exterior of St. Paul’s Cathedral in 1841? I’m not. If you read her 621-page travelogue, you would see that she didn’t have much of a filter. She probably figured that there was no point in publishing her travelogue at all if she couldn’t include her own thoughts.
Curious about the context of today’s quote? Check out the Postcards from the Past#5 Facebook post at https://www.facebook.com/awomanofthecentury to find out exactly why she reacted so negatively to what many today consider to be a beautiful building.
Facebook Post of July 17, 2020:
Sometimes reality does not quite measure up to what the traveler has read or imagined, does it? For example, Sir Christopher Wren designed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, which has one of the largest cathedral domes in the world and was so impressive that it inspired the design of the dome of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. in the 1850-60s.
Sometimes reality does not quite measure up to what the traveler has read or imagined, does it? For example, Sir Christopher Wren designed St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, which has one of the largest cathedral domes in the world and was so impressive that it inspired the design of the dome of the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. in the 1850-60s.
In 1839, however, Catharine found the exterior of St. Paul’s Cathedral “grievously disappoint[ing],” and you can see the effects of the smoke in the 1886 and 2019 pictures of the facade. In Catharine’s letters elsewhere, she observed a “canopy of smoke” overhanging London probably due to the Industrial Revolution’s reliance on coal at the time.
In her letter, you’ll also hear what Catharine thought of her trip (without male accompaniment) to the Covent Garden Theatre (see 1810 and 1858 illustrations) and the British Museum (compare the 1862 illustration with my 2019 photograph).
