Tuesday, 31 March 2015

London - Amen Court

The homes along Amen Court were built for the canons of St Paul’s around 1671-73.     These homes are typical of the thousands of homes built after the Great fire.  Today there are only a handful left, but this gives you a sense of what the streets of the City would have looked like.  


When St Paul’s was a Catholic church there were the traditional stations of the cross around the cathedral precincts. 


The apocryphal story claims that returning to their homes at night the clergy would walk with their rosary beads and pray themselves home through Paternoster Square, over Ava Maria Lane to their homes in Amen Court.    As they walked they would have been able to say their prayers as they went:  Paternoster = Our Father, Ava Maria = Hail Mary, Amen and straight to bed.  


This is an excerpt from the FREE tour St Paul's Precincts found on www.obelisktours.co.uk

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