The Secret Courtyard by St Paul’s Cathedral

If you were walking down Fosters Lane by St Paul’s Cathedral minding your own business you would be forgiven for paying little heed to the pair of blue doors at number 4. Well, if passing I can highly recommend taking a moment to poke your head in to have a look around.

Down a short enclosed entranceway you will find Fountain courtyard- part of the church of St Vedast-alias-Foster. It was once part of the church’s graveyard but is now a lovely, tranquil paved square. It has a central tree and benches around the edge on the raised, tiled, cloister-like walkways.

As well as being a little oasis of calm in the city for a moment of peaceful reflection, there are a few fascinating historical treasures hidden away, including not one but two ancient artefacts!

Roman Pavement

The first of the ancient treasures is a section of mosaic roman pavement. It was discovered 18ft below the floor of the Church of St Matthew Friday Street when it was demolished in 1886.

In the late 19th century many inner city churches were demolished, having become redundant due to the vast majority of the population moving out of the city to the suburbs. St Matthew church was built first in the 13th century, destroyed in the great fire and then rebuilt by Wren. It was also the only church in the city to be dedicated to St Matthew, the patron saint of accountants…I bet he was the life of the party (sorry, cheap joke).

St Vedast absorbed the parish along with 12 others demolished and is known as the church of ’13 united parishes’. Bizarrely one of those 13 churches, St Mary Aldermanbury is now located in the USA. Another Wren church gutted during the blitz, the remaining stones were moved to Fulton, Missouri in 1966 and rebuilt as a memorial to Winston Churchill.

Another place you can see ancient roman road is in the crypt of St Bride’s off Fleet Street- you can read more about that in my blog here.

Ancient Assyrian Stone

The Roman pavement is shockingly not the oldest artefact in this courtyard. Set into the wall is a rough sandy coloured engraved stone. Again, very easy to miss, but shockingly this stone (officially baked brick apparently) is from the 9th century BC! Just to give a bit of context that is around 900 years before the roman empire was founded.

It is from a zigurrat, an ancient pyramid used for mainly religious purposes, in the area now occupied by modern day Iraq. It has cuneiform writing on it mentioning the name of Shalmaneser, an Assyrian king who ruled from 859-824BC. Cuneiform was a writing script used in the ancient near East originating in around 3400BC. Along with Egyptian hieroglyphs is one of the earliest known writing systems.

How one earth did it come to be in a small courtyard in central London?! Well, it was given as a gift to Canon Mortlock, the rector of the church who directed the rebuild following the blitz. It was given to him by archaeologist and second husband of Agatha Christie, Sir Max Mallowan. He found it during a dig during his time as the Director of the British School of Archaeology in Iraq from 1947-1961.

Other Interesting Sights

There is this memorial to ‘Petro’. He was a Russian soldier who took French citizenship. He became a member of the Special Operations Executive and supported the Free French during the war.

There is also this boundary marker, which would have been used to mark the edge of the parish of the church.

This family grave marker is a reminder of the previous uses for this space.

The church itself is also well worth a look around. It is named after St Vedast, the French saint. He was the Bishop of Arras in Northern Gaul around the turn of the 6th century. The 3 huge stained glass windows are stunning. You can read more about the church and when they are open for services etc here.

Looking for some more London history hidden gems? Have a browse below!