On the eastern perimeter of the church are four Portland limestone cylinders, four feet tall and carved with drapery and the heads and wings of ‘putti’. Putti are chubby-faced children often called ‘cherubs’, though they bear no resemblance to the (rather scary) biblical descriptions of cherubim. The cylinders are meant to recall ancient sacrificial altars, and this would have been even more obvious when they had had burning lamps on them.  

Did you know? 

As Hawksmoor expert, Pierre de la Ruffinière du Prey, put it, ‘What on earth are sacrificial altars… doing here outside a commissioners’ church?’. It appears that Hawksmoor, aware that St Alfege was a Saxon Archbishop, wanted to recall the early days of Christianity in these isles when Saxons took over remnants of dismantled Romano-British temples to create a Christian church of their own. 

[Thanks to David McEvoy for sharing his research, knowledge and passion with us] 

Cherubs