The earliest known scheme to improve the Cathedral churchyard is an outline study by Wren and Hawksmoor, drawn over a survey of the whole precinct prepared by William Dickinson.
Wren’s revisions to the design in 1685–86 created a podium for a vast, richly modelled Dome, inspired by those of Michelangelo’s St Peter’s in Rome and Jules Hardouin-Mansart’s Invalides church in Paris.