St Paul’s on screen: a guide to the cathedral’s blockbuster movie moments

Sir Christopher Wren knew how to make an entrance, and the 24 steps up to St Paul’s Cathedral are no exception, with a broad cinematic sweep that seems tailor-made for the silver screen. Readers of a certain age may recognize these stately steps from their starring role in major televisual dramas including Winston Churchill’s funeral and the marriage of Charles and Diana. But movie mavens will likely know them even better from their scene-stealing appearances in several bona fide Hollywood classics, including… Mary Poppins!

Now, London’s pigeons are not to be trusted. These vicious thugs who would nick your chips as soon as look at you. First-time visitors often find this out the hard way, bringing well-meaning bags of breadcrumbs with which to feed the feathered fiends. But these birds take no prisoners, and the sight of hapless tourists morphing into seething blankets of beak and feather – like a scene from Hitchcock classic The Birds – is one that’s all too common.

Things were a little different, however, in the Disneyfied world of 1964 classic Mary Poppins, in which a kindly old lady is seen feeding gentle flocks of pigeons and doves on the steps of St Paul’s, as Ms Poppins croons her moving ‘Feed the Birds’ lullaby to the Banks children.

Fun fact #1: The bird lady is played by actress Jane Darwell, who appeared in more than 100 movies over half a century, winning the best supporting actress Oscar for her part as Ma Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1939). Mary Poppins was her final movie role.

Fun fact #2: A flock of pigeons is also seen taking flight from the cathedral steps in 2018 sequel Mary Poppins Returns, a nostalgic nod to the OG movie.

Nothing says drama like the iconic soaring dome of St Paul’s. It’s the cherry on top of Sir Christopher Wren’s masterful cake-thedral and, as such, has found itself at the centre of some particularly high-octane scenes. Rising to 365 feet, the dome caps what was London’s tallest building for over 250 years, until the rather more prosaic Millbank Tower – not a building blessed with matinee idol looks – toppled it from its perch in the 1960s. You can climb up to the dome’s Golden Gallery for cinematic views across the city, if you can stomach the 528-stair ascent, that is. You’ll be following in the footsteps of countless filmmakers who have used this lofty vantage point to capture sweeping shots of the capital.

Even Tom Cruise can’t steal a scene from the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral, but he gives it a darn good shot in the sixth installment of the seemingly never ending spy-thriller franchise. 

Mission: Impossible – Fallout is the one where Ethan Hunt and his crew work to foil a nuclear attack, and it features a heart-pounding scene in which the pint-sized Hollywood action man races up through the dome and out across the rooftop of St Paul’s in pursuit of his target, a ruthless CIA assassin played by Henry Cavill. Coming over all parkour, Cruise leaps, swings and sprints all the way to the Tate Modern, where the dastardly Cavill makes his escape by helicopter.

Fun fact: Tom Cruise famously does all his own stunts, but he came a cropper during this scene shortly after exiting St Paul’s, when a particularly ambitious leap of faith left him nursing a broken ankle. The accident delayed filming by several months, sending the already whopping budget into the stratosphere.

The Geometric Staircase in St Paul’s is a doozy of a feature. This (of course) is thanks to 17th-century architect-for-rent Sir Christopher Wren, whose knack for a flamboyant architectural flourish is the stuff of legend. Tucked away in the cathedral’s South West Tower, Wren’s Geometric Staircase (officially known as the Dean’s Staircase) is a magnificent – even magical – feat of engineering; a self-supporting stone swirl that coils a dizzying 88 steps heavenwards. 

You’ll want to don your invisibility cloak for a dash up this spellbinding spiral staircase. For it’s these steps that double as Hogwarts’ Divination Tower staircase in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). There’s magic in the air here and – who knows – like Harry in the movies you might just bump into a Ron, a Hermione or (yikes) a Professor Severus Snape. Though not itself featured in the films, the 18th-century Triforium Library at the top of the stairs – all dark woods, intricate carvings and shelf after groaning shelf of antiquarian tomes – also seems plucked straight from Hogwarts. Ask the cathedral’s wizard staff to let you take a peek behind the scenes.

Fun fact: the Triforium Library has a balcony with sweeping views of the nave, making it a favourite spot for camera crews during televised cathedral events.

At some 225 feet in length, the nave is the heart of St Paul’s, boasting soaring columns, glittering mosaics, coloured light cast by stained-glass windows, and an arresting symmetry. This majestic space exudes grandeur and gravity, inviting solemn spiritual contemplation, which of course makes it perfect for the odd CGI giraffe to invade on the big screen…

Hollywood’s cameras have rolled down this aisle many times, but rarely as effectively as in this blockbuster Willy Wonka origin story. In the movie, starring Timothée Chalamet as the titular chocolate wizard (and Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa), the interior of St Paul’s doubles as an HQ for the dastardly Slugworth, Fickelgruber and Prodnose cartel. Cue memorable scenes that involve a CGI giraffe chasing Mr Bean and 500 choc-addicted monks all the way down the nave’s famous checkerboard floor to the pulpit.

Fun fact: Wonka director Paul King has said he gained around 50 lbs from all the treats he ate on set, all made by the movie’s resident chocolatier.

Halfway up the inside of the dome, the Whispering Gallery is one of St Paul’s Cathedral’s best-loved features. For, thanks to its unique acoustics, you can whisper sweet nothings into the wall on one side of the gallery and – by some kind of audio sorcery – be heard perfectly clearly by a friend way across on the opposite side. Best not test it with your online banking password, then. Also note that you’ll have to climb 259 steps to get up there, by which time you may well be too breathless to utter a single intelligible syllable anyway.

The Whispering Gallery’s mysterious properties are like catnip for filmmakers. We’ve already (briefly) spotted Tom Cruise sprinting up it to reach the roof in the aforementioned Mission: Impossible – Fallout. But Tom ain’t the only Hollywood A-lister to ascend these famous stairs. Imaginatively titled Paddington sequel Paddington 2 also sees pantomime villain Phoenix Buchanan (Hugh Grant) creep up them, albeit rather less rapidly than his stunt-loving Hollywood colleague. Yes, it’s that man Hugh Grant again, this time disguised not as an Oompa Lompa but as a nun. But the scene belongs to randy vice-deputy-head-of-security Barry (Simon Farnaby) who describes the fleeing reverend mother as “unusually attractive” and implores the St Paul’s security team to “stop that stunning sister!”

Fun fact: No stranger to playing dress-up, Hugh Grant also played Tony the Tiger (yes, of Frosties fame) in Pop Tart origins movie Unfrosted. He also turns in a passable impression of Star Wars character Jar Jar Binks in creepy psychological horror flick Heretic.

And that’s a wrap on our guide to the best blockbuster scenes shot at St Paul’s Cathedral. But before the credits roll and our heroes and heroines sail off into the sunset, here are some of the movie moments we left on the cutting room floor…

Lawrence of Arabia (1962). While remembered primarily for its widescreen desert scenes (filmed in Jordan) and powerhouse performances from Alec Guinness, Peter O’Toole and Omar Sharif, Lawrence of Arabia also features a short sequence filmed on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral. However, all the additional interior shots of St Paul’s were mere facsimiles of the real deal, conjured up in a Spanish film studio by director David Lean.

Sherlock Holmes (2009). Guy Ritchie’s stylish noughties reboot of Sherlock Holmes used the (real) steps and facade of St Paul's in establishing shots, but the pivotal confrontation with catacomb killer Lord Henry Blackwood down in the crypt? You don’t have to be a famous fictional detective to deduce that it was actually filmed at the church of St Bartholomew-the-Great, about a half-mile north of St Paul’s.

The Bond franchise (1962–present). The Bond movies have woven many a spectacular set piece around major global landmarks – think the Eiffel Tower and Golden Gate Bridge in A View to a Kill, or the voodoo vibes of New Orleans’ French Quarter in Live and Let Die. So it comes as some surprise that St Paul’s Cathedral has never featured significantly in any of the 25 (and counting) official films. Indeed, apart from a blink-and-you’ll miss it appearance during the Thames boat chase in The World is Not Enough (1999), and a slightly longer glimpse as Moneypenny walks across the Millennium Bridge in Spectre (2015), it’s almost conspicuous by its absence.

The End.