This great jumble of architecture and history beside Smithfield market has movie-star status (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Shakespeare in Love etc) and claims to be London's oldest parish church.
"It's not nearly as much of a jumble as some churches," says the verger loyally, "because all the different architecture is so clear."
It started as an Augustinian priory, founded in 1123 by Rahere, the jester or chief minstrel to Henry I, whose shrine-tomb is by the altar.
The Tudor gatehouse and raised graveyard were once part of a huge nave destroyed during the Dissolution. The flint-and-stone checked exterior is Victorian restoration.
Inside all is darkness and mystery. Fine Gothic arches give way to thumping Norman columns around the sanctuary. Start at the Lady Chapel at the east end, the first part to be built (after the Reformation it was used as commercial space, including a print works and lace factory, for more than 300 years), and walk west: you will see the style change from massive, round-arched Norman to pointy, slender Early English.
Don't miss
The 1,405 font: a rare Reformation survivor. Inigo Jones and William Hogarth were baptised here, the latter in this font.
The oriel window overlooking the altar with Prior Bolton's rebus (visual pun) of a bolt piercing a barrel, or tunne– "Bolt-ton".
The "weeping tomb" of Edward Cooke – caused by a chemical in the stone condensing air into water – a miracle cured by modern heating.
Events
Concert by Short & Smith, Purveyors of Fine Music November 21 (tickets from £10 from greatstbarts.ticketsource.co.uk).
Popular carol services and Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve.Contact West Smithfield, London EC1A 9DS (020 7606 5171; greatstbarts.com). Admission: £4 adult, £3.50 concessions
St Stephen, Walbrook
Underground: Bank. Closest shopping at Royal Exchange or One New Change shopping centres, or via the DLR at Canary Wharf.
If ever there was a perfect expression of God and Mammon it is this tiny jewel of a church, sitting at the physical and metaphorical heart of the City of London. Its neighbours include the Mansion House, Rothschild, the British Arab Commercial Bank and Walbrook House. The new Bloomberg development opposite is restoring the Roman temple of Mithras to near its original position: the first church was probably built over it in Saxon times and the second medieval version was destroyed in the Great Fire of London.
Christopher Wren built today's church in 1762, the year he created his great model of St Paul's, and its dome is widely considered to be a visual dress rehearsal. A short flight of steps from street level leads to what looks like a perfect cube (it's not), with the airy dome supported by an octagon that is in turn supported by a square. The creamy interior, dark oak panelling and clear glass convey a lovely calm.
Don't miss
The Bakelite phone in a display cabinet used by Chad Varah, who founded The Samaritans here.
The controversial Henry Moore altar made of Travertine marble and described by one of its detractors as "that cheese".
Memorials to Stuart de Courcy Laffan, who helped De Coubertin found the modern Olympics, to Dr Nathaniel Hodges – the only doctor to stay with his victims during the plague of 1665 – and to
John Dunstable, the father of polyphonic harmony in English music.
Events
Classical sung Eucharist every Thursday at 12.45pm.
Lunchtime concerts on Tuesdays (free).
Candlelit Christmas Carols and Readings on December 19 and Midnight Mass by Candlelight at 11.30pm on December 24.Contact 39 Walbrook, London EC4 (020 7626 9000; ststephenwalbrook.net)
Also see Friends of the City Churches (London-city-churches.org.uk) for information on events and services.
St Paul's, Covent Garden
Underground: Covent Garden or Leicester Square. Closest shopping at Covent Garden, Seven Dials or Soho.
For a building with five entrances – what else would you expect from an actors' church? – St Paul's has a charming air of secrecy and one of London's nicest back gardens. This is partly because when Inigo Jones built it in 1633 the plot was west of the Earl of Bedford's new piazza. He planned a fine east front to be seen from the square and a west-end altar – opposite to the conventional configuration – and the Bishop of London objected. Result? An east door that goes nowhere (under the portico made famous by the film My Fair Lady) and a gabled brick west front that often goes unseen.
When the church burnt down in 1795 it was rebuilt to the original plan and the interior updated. It is bursting with energy, with an in-house theatre company, dressing rooms in the organ loft and hundreds of theatrical memorial plaques (only actors with knighthoods or damehoods qualify – the exception is Alan Jay Lerner, the lyricist of My Fair Lady). A campaign has begun to raise funds to underpin subsidence and build a new maze and garden on the south side of the building.
Don't miss
The 18th-century font with a silver inner bowl donated by Dame Judi Dench.
Ellen Terry's ashes in a silver casket behind a black grille near the altar.
Early Punch & Judy memorials inside and under the portico.
Wooden pillars saved from Jones's church, which are hollow, and fake (burglar proof) candlesticks. "It's all theatre, sweetie!" jokes the vicar.
Events
London Song Festival concerts on November 21, 23 and 28; tickets from £15, concessions £10 (0871 221 0260; seetickets.com).
Twenty-four carol services in the run-up to Christmas.
380th birthday celebrations in 2013 with the Bishop of London. Contact Bedford Street, London WC2 (020 7836 5221; actorschurch.org).
The Guards' Chapel
Underground: St James's Park; walk south to Victoria Street or north across the park to St James's Street and Piccadilly.
Walk past this still, white bunker of a building, made of Portland cement, mica and marble chips, and through the grille-like east end you will glimpse a stone apse, the only part of the original chapel to survive a 1944 flying bomb that hit just after the Guard Change and during a service, killing 121 worshippers. By that Christmas, services were taking place in a Romney hut in the ruins and much of that quiet dignity remains in this building. It opened in 1963 and its clean lines make a perfect setting for the colours of the five regiments of Foot Guards and the tasselled standards of the two regiments of Household Cavalry.
There are side chapels for each regiment and the names of the bomb victims, in alphabetical order, on the west front. A memorial plaque on the floor near the grid-like Portland stone narthex covers the rubble of the 1838 chapel (the architect George Street added the apse in 1877), and to the right another commemorates the 1982 Hyde Park bombing of men and horses by the IRA.
Don't miss
The oldest standards, belonging to the Scots Guards, dating from 1770 – before union with Ireland – so the Union flags have no St Patrick's cross.
George Street's highly decorated and gilded late-Victorian apse.
The organ, with its separate trumpets, which came from Glyndebourne.
Events
11am Sunday service with chapel choir and Household Division band. Contact Wellington Barracks, London SW1 (put Guards Chapel into the search box on army.mod.uk). Check the schedule of services with the Chaplain's Office (020 7414 3229) before visiting.
Church visists around the country
The Churches Conservation Trust (020 7213 0660; visitchurches.org.uk) is a national charity working to save church buildings at risk. Many of the churches are venues for music and arts events. St Mary's, in Sandwich, Kent (stmarysartscentre.org.uk), is an arts centre with a busy winter programme, including an all-day folk festival today (November 17) and Baroque Coronation Music on November 20. For a full national list see the CCT website.
Five newly restored panels of a 105-panel stained-glass masterpiece from the early 15th century, the Great East Window at York Minster (0844 939 0011; yorkminsterrevealed.org), are now on show in a new gallery 30ft wide by10ft tall, The Orb, just installed beneath the window itself for the next three years of conservation work. Minster/Tower tickets £14 adults, £12 concessions, £3.50 children.
The Wight Church Trail is a new booklet featuring 14 of the Isle of Wight's churches and chapels, including St Mildred's at Whippingham, which was designed by Prince Albert and attended by the Royal Family when staying at Osborne; the thatched church of St Agnes at Farringford; and St Lawrence parish church, which has Pre-Raphaelite stained-glass windows. Booklet available from the ferry operator Wightlink (0871 376 1000) or download from wightlink.co.uk/churchtrail.
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