THE NEW JERUSALEM

To the builders of the new London, the city was to be the New Jerusalem. Rome was in the hands of Catholics, so London must succeed it as the capital of the true faith. This was reinforced by a popular theory that the English were the descendants of the Lost Tribe of Israel, who disappeared into the West after the destruction of the kingdom in 722 BC. Londoner William Blake – who had a tendency to employ Masonic imagery – was merely echoing this idea when he wrote of Jerusalem being “built here” decades later. This belief was a help to those who believed that Britain should be a global empire, a true successor to Rome, with a temporal and religious capital to match it.

Several concepts were put forward for the new street plan. All of these did away with the warren of tiny streets and alleys and imposed some sort of regularity. Some, such as the plans put forward by cartographer Richard Newcourt, were simple grid patterns. But both Wren and Evelyn had more complex ideas, and it has been suggested that Evelyn’s plan bears a marked resemblance to the Sephiroth or Tree of Life from the mystic Cabala, “the best hieroglyph of the known and unknown universe”. Cabalism was a popular topic among esoteric philosophers of the day, with its mathematical and geometric approach, some of which was assimilated into Freemasonry.

Evelyn had previously written about how a careful arrangement of the environment could “influence the soul and spirits of man, and prepare them for converse with good Angels”. In Cabalism, the angels are the messengers between the physical and metaphysical world.

In the event, practical considerations restricted the wholesale remodeling of London to more modest changes. But while they could not demolish streets at will, the architects of London arranged places of worship according to their plan. Wren realigned the axis of St Paul’s so it stood 2,000 cubits (914m / 3,000ft) from Temple Bar to the West and the same distance from St Dunstan-in-the-East in the other direction. Hawksmoor’s St George-in-the-East is 2,000 cubits from the London Wall, St John Horselydown was placed 2,000 cubits from the Monument and Hawksmoor’s St Mary Woolnoth is the same distance from his Christ Church Spitalfields.

The measure of 2,000 cubits is used in the biblical Book of Numbers in its rules for city planning: “Measure from without the city on the east side 2,000 cubits.” It had featured in modern studies of sacred geometry since 1662. John Wilkins, vicar of St Lawrence Jewry and the first secretary of the Royal Society had converted it into modern measures, creating the essential yardstick for a New Jerusalem.