The mighty dome of St Paul’s Cathedral has dominated London’s skyline for centuries. Here is the story of those who built it, and how. 

The architect, Sir Christopher Wren, is well known, but what of the contractors and overseers, the quarrymen, stonemasons and carpenters who shaped the materials? James W. P. Campbell has scoured the records to recreate life on a seventeenth-century building site, to explain how some workers were poorly paid while others became millionaires, and to unravel the struggles for control and money that threatened to undermine the whole enterprise.

Campbell’s account reaffirms St Paul’s not only as one man’s masterwork, but as an incredible collaborative achievement.