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On 29 December 1940, around 6 pm, a rumble was heard from the skies above London.
There was no moon, and the Thames tide was abnormally low. The darkness was pierced, and the rumble became a roar, as a shower of fire began to fall. German aircraft dropped tens of thousands of incendiary bombs and parachute mines over the City of London.
The Second Great Fire of London began.
Winston Churchill's instructions were clear: at all costs, protect St. Paul's Cathedral. Firefighters battled the blaze, their fight made more difficult by the low tide and the continued bombardment. The next morning smoke obstructed the rubble in the City, but visible through a gray veil was the unmistakable outline of St. Paul's—Christopher Wren's architectural masterpiece had been saved.
2,100 feet to the northeast, Wren's Church of St. Mary Aldermanbury suffered a different fate.
Its great gabled roof burned and toppled. Its windows were shattered. The pipe organ moaned as the updrafts caused by the conflagration whistled through its pipes. St. Mary's interior and most of its contents burned to ash. When the smoke finally cleared, only the empty stone shell of the building remained.
The ruin stood in London for a quarter century before Westminster College, with consent from the Diocese and City of London, dismantled the church and moved it, stone by stone, to the College’s campus in Fulton, Missouri. It stands proudly today as the centerpiece of America's National Churchill Museum (ANCM) and is a lasting memorial to Winston Churchill and his "Sinews of Peace" address (commonly known as the "Iron Curtain" speech). It remains today a powerful symbol of steadfastness in the face of adversity.
In early 2024, ANCM and Westminster College will invest $4 million and commence the next phase of our ongoing work to preserve and protect this extraordinary building.
I invite you to join the many who have contributed to ANCM's High Roads of the Future campaign, which makes possible the preservation effort and future programming at the Museum.
With gratitude and best wishes for a happy and peaceful new year,
Timothy Riley
Sandra L. and Monroe E. Trout Director and Chief Curator
& Churchill Fellow of Westminster College
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