Paternoster Square

Paternoster Square is an urban development, owned by the Mitsubishi Estate Co., next to St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London. The area, which takes its name from Paternoster Row, centre of the London publishing trade, was devastated by aerial bombardment in The Blitz during World War II. It is now the location of the which relocated there from Threadneedle Street in 2004. It is also the location of investment banks such as Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and Nomura Securities Co., and of fund manager Fidelity Investments.

Pater noster is Latin for "Our Father", the incipit of the Lord's Prayer. The Square lies near the top of Ludgate Hill, the highest part of the City of London.

The City of London was hit by one of the heaviest night raids of The Blitz on the night of 29 December 1940. Buildings on Paternoster Row, housing the publishing companies Simpkins and Marshall, Hutchinsons, Blackwoods, and Longmans and Collins were destroyed. St Paul's Cathedral remained intact.

In 1956 the Corporation of London published Sir William Holford's proposals for redeveloping the precinct north of St Paul's Cathedral. Holford's report attempted to resolve problems of traffic flow in the vicinity of the cathedral, while protecting the cathedral's presence as a national monument on the highest ground of the City, at the top of Ludgate Hill, on the north bank of the Thames. The report was controversial, however, because it introduced a decisively modern note alongside the foremost work of Britain's foremost 17th-century architect, Sir Christopher Wren.

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