Personable, yet naturally reserved, ‘that miracle of a youth, Mr Christopher Wren’ not only designed many of our most notable monuments, but also an artificial eye. Three centuries on from his death, Clive Aslet considers the man behind the architecture.
One of the finest portrait busts carved in England during the late 17th century can be seen in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Made in 1673, it shows Christopher Wren at the age of 40, with rich curly locks tumbling…