St Paul’s Church Covent Garden

St Paul’s Church is instantly recognizable by the massive, stone-columned portico that stands at the edge of the Covent Garden piazza. Built between sixteen thirty-one and sixteen thirty-three, it was the first entirely new church constructed in London after the Reformation. The Fourth Earl of Bedford commissioned the architect Inigo Jones to design the building as part of a new square. When the Earl reportedly asked for a simple structure that was not much better than a barn, Jones is said to have replied that he would provide the handsomest barn in England.