It adds a whole new meaning to bedtime reading: St Paul’s Cathedral is opening its hidden library for a once-in-a-lifetime overnight stay in honour of World Book Day.
For one night only, two guests will be able to stay in the “secret” room of the historic London landmark on 15 March. It is the first time anyone has officially slept inside the cathedral since the second world war, when a voluntary organisation protected the venue from bombing raids.
OK, there is actually a little bedroom up there. Super.
The visit, which costs £7 a night,
Block book that for the next 20 years and that’s the London pad sorted then.
A kind police sergeant once offered me the choice of sleeping in a cell or on the floor of the magistrates’ court. I chose the latter on the grounds that that chance might never arise again.
“It is the first time anyone has officially slept inside the cathedral since the second world war”
As opposed to unofficially sleeping through boring sermons, no doubt.
Proceeds to be donated to Book Lives Matter.
How did someone sleeping in the cathedral protect it from bombing raids? Did the Luftwaffe have special instructions never to bomb cathedrals if someone was sleeping in them?
Incendiaries.
They were there to put out any fires before they spread and caused too much damage, the Connie Willis time travel books have an interesting part set in St Paul’s that covers this (Blackout and All Clear if the memory serves)
They wouldn’t actually be “Sleeping in the cathedral” then would they, they would be keeping a fire watch. A bit pendantic perhaps, but true!
Only one of them needs to be awake at any particular time.
“Incendiaries.”
Yep. Some factory workers had night shifts as firewatchers. On the roof of the factory watching for incendiaries, with a view to putting them out or at least raising the alarm.