A stone's throw from Nanjing Road there's a corner that feels like England: an English lawn and a nineteenth-century church, consecrated in 1869 for Shanghai's British community. For over seventy years it was the cathedral of the British in the Far East, with its school and its choir. Then came hard years: closed during the Cultural Revolution, the church stood for decades without a congregation. Carefully restored and now a national monument, it is once again a place of worship. Locals point to it as one of the best-kept secrets of the city centre: take a minute of silence on the lawn before moving on.
