St. Giles Cripplegate

Named for the patron saint of cripples, St. Giles Cripplegate Church managed to survive the ravages of the Great Fire of 1666 but was so badly damaged by a World War II bomb that only the tower survived.

St. Giles was built in 1550 on the site of a previous Norman church. was refurbished during the 1950s to serve as the parish church of the Barbican development and now seems to stand awkwardly amid the uncompromising modernity of the Barbican.

English revolutionary Oliver Cromwell married Elizabeth Bourchier here in 1620, and the poet John Milton was buried here in 1674. More than a century later, someone opened the poet's grave, knocked out his teeth, stole a rib bone, and tore hair from his skull.

Well-preserved remains of London's Roman and medieval walls can be seen to the church's south.