The American Memorial Chapel

Explore St Paul's Cathedral - Virtual Tour

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The American Memorial Chapel commemorates those Americans based in Britain who gave their lives in the Second World War.




It was paid for entirely by donations from British men and women, and was designed, as a modern exercise in the Wren style, by Godfrey Allen and Stephen Dykes Bower.




The Altar of the Chapel, which has an altarcloth of red velvet, embroidered in gold, is placed almost exactly where the High Altar stood in Wren's day.



The panelling by the altar is very plausibly in the style of Grinling Gibbons, particularly the six vertical strips nearest the altar. It includes birds, plants and flowers of America, and dates, in fact, from the middle of the twentieth century.




It is the work of George Haslop, who has even included a medallion showing a portrait of President Eisenhower!