Lesson plan
St Paul’s Cathedral
(Fire of London, church)
St Paul’s, London
EHere is a lesson plan outline, and some hints on
how to use the video.
Objectives
1. To understand that famous buildings often hold
clues to the past.
2. To understand that the cathedral was much more
a focal point of people’s lives than it is today.
3. To understand that the Great Fire of London was
a time of great change in London.
4. To understand that the tourist attraction of a
place has its roots in what people wanted to
achieve in the past.
5. To understand that styles of building changed
through the ages (in this case Gothic to
Baroque).
6. To understand that city planners can make
attractive presentations of a historical area
suited to modern uses that helps to preserve the
past and inform us of its importance.
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E Make sure your
students know where
St Paul’s Cathedral,
London, UK is. A Google
search will find it in
seconds.
What do your students
know of London or St
Paul’s? Did they know
it was one of the oldest
settled places in the
U.K. ? If not now is their
chance to find out more.
St Paul’s was the
cathedral church of
the city, as opposed
to Westminster Abbey
which was the cathedral
of the palace.
It was built with the
world’s tallest spire in
medieval times, but was
destroyed in the Great
Fire of London of 1666.
© 2016 CurrriculumVisions
The video
The video can be linked to a number of our books,
including London in the 19th Century, Church,
Christian faith, Where we live/Settlement.
The video can be used to explain the history of St Paul’s
and the area around it.
Watch the video FULL SCREEN (not set in the web site
page: click the double arrow bottom right of the video
control bar).
You can run the whole video through. You will be
expecting to show it again, this time stopping it
multiple times to point out a range of facts. For
example, on replay, stop near the beginning, and
make sure students know the relationship between
river and cathedral on a hill. A little further on make
sure they look carefully at the character of medieval
St Paul’s.
© 2016 CurriculumVisions
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Classwork
Watch the video, then answer these questions:
1. Who designed the current St Paul’s cathedral?
2. What was difference between the medieval
cathedral and the present one?
3. What was the cathedral built on?
4. Which river is St Paul’s close to?
5. Which other church was the present design based
on?
6. The stone is white. Can you guess what stone it is?
7. Can you imagine walking up Ludgate Hill in the
past when the painting was made? Can you write a
personal account of a walk up Ludgate Hill on your
way to a service, noises, ground surface, smells and
more?
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© 2016 CurrriculumVisions
Answers
1. Sir Christopher Wren. We have a biography of him if
you wish to use this as a basis for English
comprehension. Use the search to find it.
2. The early one had a spire, the present one has a
dome.
3. The top of a hill so that it could be seen for miles
around
4. The Thames.
5. The Basilica of St Peter and St Paul, Vatican, Rome.
6. Limestone.
7. This can be developed as an English comprehension
exercise. Get students to write as much as they can,
then get them to write it again in half the space and
then a quarter of the space (summarising). Make sure
that in their description they mention the bells, for
they were walking to a service and so the bells would
have been ringing, just as they were when the video
was made.
© 2016 CurriculumVisions
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