Revisiting the Acoustics of St Paul’s Cathedral, London

The acoustics of St Paul’s Cathedral, London, have been discussed in previous studies as a space of historical, cultural, societal, and architectural interest in the capital city of the United Kingdom. This paper presents the results from recent acoustic measurements carried out within the space, making use of state-of-the-art measurement techniques and equipment. The results from these measurements provide a new perspective on the acoustic properties of different and distinct spaces within the cathedral, including coupling effects between the main areas, and the whispering gallery effect that can be heard around the walkway at the base of the dome. The discussion includes the analysis of room acoustic parameters included in the international standards and speech intelligibility parameters, and an indirect comparison between the techniques used here and those used in previous studies of this space.