The bombed London church that was reborn in the USA

As Londoners celebrated VE Day nearly 80 years ago much of the city in which they lived lay in ruins, not least the historic places of worship built by Sir Christopher Wren in the late 1600s in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London.

While some would be repaired or rebuilt, others remained as shells, transformed into small public parks surrounded by a single wall or tower. However, one had a very different ending, being moved brick by charred brick more than 4,000 miles away and rebuilt at a college in the US Midwest.

Why did St Mary Aldermanbury end up across the pond and what is it used for now?

While St Mary Aldermanbury may have been destroyed in the Blitz, it wasn't the first time disaster had struck.

Having been founded around the start of the 12th Century, the original medieval church was destroyed in the Great Fire in 1666, then became one of the 52 sites, including St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt by Wren.

On 29 December 1940, St Mary Aldermanbury and seven other City churches were badly damaged during a particularly devastating night of the Blitz as waves of Luftwaffe planes dropped bombs over London in what some coined as "the Second Great Fire".

With limited finances available in post-war Britain to do anything with it, the church remained a charred husk for two decades - until an unusual proposal arrived from Missouri.

"It really dates back to the end of the war on VE Day, when Sir Winston Churchill gave his famous speech on the balcony saying 'this is your victory' to the British people," explains Timothy Riley, director and chief curator of America's National Churchill Museum.

"It was a triumphant moment for all at the end of the war. But not long after there was a general election and Churchill's party lost."

In the wake of that defeat, Britain's wartime leader received a letter from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, inviting him to give a speech, which included a message from US President Harry Truman saying: "This is a wonderful school in my home state. If you come, I'll introduce you."

"I'm convinced that letter would normally have been given to a secretary by Churchill with the instruction to politely decline or refuse," Mr Riley says.

"However, when he saw this handwritten note... having just lost an election and knowing that he had more to say, he anxiously/eagerly accepted the invitation and made his way to Fulton to give the Iron Curtain speech."

The famous address, delivered on 5 March 1946, spelt out the deepening tensions between the West and the Soviet Union, and called for a special relationship to be forged between the US and UK.

Fifteen years on from the speech, and with Churchill now in his 80s, thoughts turned to how the college could commemorate it.

"Someone suggested a garden, someone suggested a statue, a plaque, and then the president of the college Robert Davidson said: 'Why don't we bring a ruined Christopher Wren church that was bombed in the Blitz, left abandoned for nearly 20 years in the City of London and rebuild it in Fulton":[]}