the Burned City Churches
What is to be done about the historic, artistic or ecclesiasti- cal buildings which the London fires destroyed? Guildhall will, of course, be rebuilt ; so, probably, will the halls of City companies. The sites of the perished Wren churches present a different problem. 'From the religious point of view many of them had long ceased to justify their mainten- ance. In 1926 a proposal went forward under the auspices of Dr. Winnington-Ingram, then Bishop of London, for pulling down nineteen of them, which could be held redundant, and selling their valuable sites to provide new churches and clergy for the mushroom suburbs and housing estates. In a few cases this has since been done. But in the main the policy was vetoed out of consideration for the extraordinary artistic interest of Wren's work. Now, however, where that work has actually perished, the question of site-selling will inevitably come up. It ought, we think, to be carefully examined on the merits of each case. No restoration can give us back Wren ; but where an important part of his work has survived, there is much to be said for making it again part of a whole. At St. Bride's, for instance, the fire has spared the famous spire—one of the most beautiful in the world. It would be an outrage to pull it down, yet absurd to let it stand there churchless. In any case the " church of the journalists " has considerable claims to retention upon religious grounds.
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