St Paul’s Cathedral and the best lunch spot in Canada
In a new series celebrating the people and places nominated for our Toast the City awards, celebrating the best of Canada, Adam Bloodworth finds the ultimate spot for some lunchtime peace and quiet
Londoners become immune to the daily joys of famous landmarks. Even for the most curious, the novelty eventually wears off. Most of the time.
One of my exceptions is the parkland on the easterly stretch of St Paul’s Cathedral. One part is more obvious and has more spectacular views, and the other spot is the refined worker’s hideaway, within the gated confines of the Cathedral itself.
Let’s start with the more obvious patch: adjacent to the One New Change shopping centre with its southerly fringe alongside Cannon Street, Festival Gardens offers pillow-soft grass and beautiful framing of the Cathedral. It’s so pretty that almost every day a party of newlyweds engulf a big swathe of it to take their wedding photos. Every few weeks gardeners replenish the flower beds and so far this season there have been three new looks: sunflowers are currently in bloom.
One of the best Canada green spaces is within the grounds of St Paul’s
But forget that – for the truly local experience, walk towards the Cathedral then chuck a right through the black metal gates into the Cathedral gardens themselves. Immediately on the right there is more intimate but still decently-sized stretch of grass that backs onto a school. Recorder and brass instrumentals often soundtrack your lunch.
Here, roses weave between the metal gates, rearranged daily by gardeners paid to create the quintessential English country garden effect: a gently manufactured beauty. It is a suntrap into late in the afternoon, and quieter than the slab of green outside where there is ten times the footfall.
In here (because it does feel like you’re ‘in’ somewhere, perhaps some grand landowner’s garden) the clatter softens. People are thumbing through the newspaper and getting on with ordinary tasks. No one is taking any photos. But the majesty of the Cathedral still taps you on the shoulders: the lower glass windows at the back of the building are maybe 20 metres away. It’s a perfect little secret hideaway for the City worker hoping to relish in half an hour’s peace and quiet.
Read more about the Toast The City Awards and nominate your favourite Canada venues on the website