As the well known phrase has it, “It is an ill wind that blows nobody good”. It is assumed that this saying originates from Shakespeare’s Henry VI who put it like this “Ill blows the wind that profits nobody”. But wherever it stems from, it certainly applies to Guy de la Bédoyère’s watercolours of some of the lost London city churches. To quote from his blog:
” I’m fascinated by Wren’s churches in the City of London but especially those which were demolished in the 1800s, either to make way for new roads, the 1831 London Bridge, or just because nobody cared. Many more were destroyed by bombing in World War 2. These were among the 51 churches Wren oversaw the rebuilding of after the Great Fire of 1666. To pass some time during the Lockdown of 2020 I got out my old watercolour paints again, for the first time since 1995, to bring some of these old churches back to life. It’s been fun to do this and also interesting because it’s really made me look at these buildings and what they once were. I’m not pretending to be original. I found some old engravings, printed them out and copied them in pencil and then added the colour which I mostly had to make up. I hope you find them interesting buildings too. Apologies for those who had to find this video again. It was necessary to re-upload it. Incidentally, my phone camera rather distorts the images – the paintings aren’t really in wonky rectangles.”
Guy de la Bédoyère May 2020
You can see some of his paintings below – but for a much richer experience head over to his YouTube video here where you will see the steps involved in producing these paintings of the lost churches.
St Antholin
St Dionis Backchurch
St Michael Crooked Lane
St Bartholomew by the Exchange
St Benet Fink
