By 1669 Wren's career was well established and it may have been his appointment as Surveyor of the King's Works in early 1669 that persuaded him that he could finally afford to take a wife.

Hardy was sued for criminal libel for having depicted Wren's wife having an affair.

( Wren's other brother, Joseph, also appears in the novel.

However, Niall Brennan tells us that Dr Mannix made a mistake with his public association with Wren as it damaged the Catholic Church, and: " He ( Wren ) tried hard but was never successful in buying the Archbishop as he bought politicians ", and describes how Mannix refused Wren's contribution of most of a £ 50, 000 testimonial at Mannix's departure for the USA and Rome in 1920: " It was the last effort to wrap a tentacle around the Archbishop ; and it failed ".

After his father's royal appointment as Dean of Windsor in March 1635, his family spent part of each year there, but little is known about Wren's life at Windsor.

One of Wren's friends, another great scientist and architect and a fellow Westminster Schoolboy, Robert Hooke said of him " Since the time of Archimedes there scarce ever met in one man in so great perfection such a mechanical hand and so philosophical mind.

In France, where English architecture rarely made much impression, the influence of St Paul's Cathedral can be seen in the church of Sainte-Geneviève ( now the Panthéon ); begun in 1757, it rises to a drum and dome similar to St Paul's, and there are other versions inspired by Wren's dome, from St Isaac's ( 1840 – 42 ) in St Petersburg to the US Capitol at Washington, D. C. ( 1855 – 65 ).

By the standards of his time a gentleman like Wren would not generally join an artisan body ; however the workmen of St Paul's cathedral would naturally have sought the patronage or " interest " of their employer, and within Wren's lifetime there was a predominantly gentlemen's Lodge at the Rummer and Grapes, a mile upriver at Westminster ( where Wren had been to School ).

The crossing's chief distinction is the use of illusory intaglio ; Wren's bridge is carved from a limestone monolith incised to give the appearance of masonry.

Little also is known of Wren's schooling thereafter, during dangerous times when his father's Royal associations would have required the family to keep a very low profile from the ruling Parliamentary authorities.

Out of this work came another of Wren's important mathematical results, namely that the hyperboloid of revolution is a ruled surface.

It is in these records that most of Wren's known scientific works are recorded.

The white building on the left is sometimes identified as Christopher Wren's house during the building of St Paul's Cathedral.

There is also an clear possibility of confusion between the operative workmen's lodges which might naturally have welcomed the boss, and the " speculative " or gentlemen's lodges which became highly fashionable just after Wren's death.

Today, the dominating feature of the grounds is the great landscaping scheme constructed for Sir Christopher Wren's intended new palace.

However, Arthur Mackmurdo's book-cover for Wren's City Churches ( 1883 ), with its rhythmic floral patterns, is often considered the first realisation of Art Nouveau.

It is large, globular or oval, like a large Wren's nest, built into a crack or hollow in the rock, in the masonry, or on the supports of a bridge, or, more rarely, in an overhanging branch.

Nothing is known for sure of Wren's first designs for the Sheldonian, but the finished building was a sharp, unmistakable break from the Gothic past.

There is no doubt that Hawksmoor brought to the brilliant amateur the professional grounding he had received from Wren, but it is also arguable that Wren's architectural development was from the persuasion of his formal pupil, Hawksmoor.

The architecture of the chapel is a reduced version of Christopher Wren's Thomas Tower at Christ Church College in Oxford.

In Irish, it is called Lá Fhéile Stiofán or Lá an Dreoilín, meaning the Day of the Wren or Wren's Day.

The Dudley Museum and Art Gallery is located in the town centre, and houses a large collection of fossils excavated from the nearby Wren's Nest Nature Reserve, along with an exhibit on local footballer Duncan Edwards, and an art gallery featuring the work of local artists.

It is a particularly valuable example of Wren's work, for it is one of only four churches in the city of London that escaped damage in during World War II, and remains basically as Wren built it.

Standing 69 metres high, it is the 2nd tallest of all Wren's churches, with only St Paul's itself having a higher pinnacle.

The location, Castle Hill, is an outcrop of Wenlock Group limestone that was extensively quarried during the Industrial Revolution, and which now along with Wren's Nest Hill is a Scheduled Ancient Monument as the best surviving remains of the limestone industry in Dudley.

What happened is not clear, but Gaunson managed to get the police off Wren's back.

Supporters of the scheme praised it for its harmonious architecture, much of it built in brick and stone like Wren's chapter house for St Paul's ( which is integrated into the plan ); for its mixture of offices and shops ; and for its coherent organization of space by means of a large central piazza and urban walkways that cut through the block in logical ways to tie it into the surrounding urban fabric.

The church's exterior is notable for its 200-ft high spire, Wren's third highest and the only one that he designed in a medieval style ..

After Wren's construction, the puritan chapel became the College library until it out-grew the space and a purpose-built library was constructed in 1930.

* The Tuareg are the antagonists of the French Foreign Legion in Percival Christopher Wren's 1924 adventure novel Beau Geste and the films that were based on it.

Hardy's inclusion of Ellen's (" Nellie's ") affair with bricklayer Bill Egan, who worked on the Wren mansion, was based on Wren's own belief that his daughter Angela was the illegitimate product of that affair.

It did not help that the first life of Wren, Parentalis, was written by Wren's son, and tended to exaggerate Wren's work over all others.

The plain stone plaque was written by Wren's eldest son and heir, Christopher Wren, Jr.

The principal buildings of the Kingston store were completed in 1935 to a design by architect Maurice Webb ( son of Sir Aston Webb ) and inspired by Wren's design for Hampton Court.

Architectural historian John Summerson describes his work as the fulfilment of Wren's architectural ideas, which were not fully developed in his own buildings.

King Charles Court was constructed by John Webb as part of Greenwich Palace, subsequently absorbed into Wren's Royal Naval Hospital complex and more recently was part of the Royal Naval College.

This illustrates the controversy surrounding John Wren's affairs.

John Wren: A Life Reconsidered by James Griffin ( 2004 ) presented an essentially positive view of Wren's life and career.

Wren's obituaries refer to earlier service with the Poona Volunteer Rifles but this reflects confusion with another officer of the same name.

According to Parentalia, he was " initiated " in the principles of mathematics by Dr William Holder, who married Wren's elder sister Susan ( or Susanna ) in 1643.

Bletchingdon was the home of Wren's brother-in-law William Holder who was rector of the local church.

Even the men he had trained and who owed much of their success to Wren's original and leadership were no longer young.

The concept of an acropolis and a building that agreed with renowned British Architect Sir Christopher Wren's theory that a public building should be a national ornament which establishes a nation, draws people and commerce and makes people love their country easily persuaded the then powers that be, who were at the time, preoccupied with the ideal of establishing a new and united nation.

The church's spiritual importance is celebrated in the poem The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, who adds in a footnote that " the interior of St. Magnus Martyr is to my mind one of the finest among Wren's interiors ".

Abraham Darby, who was one of the fathers of the Industrial Revolution, was born on Wren's Nest Hill in 1678.