Temple Bar was rebuilt from his designs about 1670-72. This historic Bar had formerly served as a sort of official entrance to the city, and when the reigning sovereign visited London on state occasions he was wont, in accordance with an ancient custom, to wait there till the Lord Mayor gave him permission to pass it,--a formal acknowledgment of the rights of the freemen of the city. (The photograph of Sir Christopher's Temple Bar shown in Plate LXXXIX. was made in 1877, one year before the arch was demolished to permit the widening of the street.) In 1684 Wren was appointed by Charles II. as comptroller of works in the Castle of Windsor, and besides all these spheres of activity he took some part in politics, and was three times elected to parliament. [Illustration: PLATE LXXXVII STEEPLE, CHURCH OF ST. MARY-LE-BOW: LONDON] Of the fifty-two churches which Wren built in London, and of which a considerable number have been demolished, every one that remains is a valuable study in planning, and they show the greatest skill in their adaptation to irregular sites and their suitability for Protestant worship. In all of them the main proportions are excellent, but minor details are not in all good alike. Nothing that has been achieved in modern architecture has surpassed the beauty of their spires, not only from the elegance of each, but from their complete variety, and at the same time their harmony with one another. Indeed Wren may be called the inventor of the English Renaissance type of steeple, in which a conical or pyramidal spire is harmoniously added to belfry on a square tower with classical details. Two of these churches in particular are especially good examples of his genius,--namely St. Mary-le-Bow and St. Stephen's Walbrook. [Illustration: STEEPLE, ST. BRIDE'S CHURCH LONDON]