There have been several attempts to re-build London as ‘The New Jerusalem’. The first was by the Knights Templar who, in 1185, modelled their Temple Church in Holborn on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and sited the building exactly the same distance from St. Pauls Cathedral as the Holy Sepulchre is sited from the Dome of the Rock. Clearly they saw a connection, or wanted to create one. Approx 500 years later, following the Great Fire of London, Sir Christopher Wren conceived his own plan to re-build London as the New Jerusalem, whilst his rival, John Evelyn, devised a design for the city based upon the cabbalistic tree of life.
