St Paul’s Cathedral reopened its doors to visitors and tourists yesterday as anti-capitalist protesters camped outside the London landmark faced legal action to clear them off the site.

More than 200 tents have sprung up outside the cathedral in the heart of London’s city financial district, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States and the Indignants protesters in Spain.

The cathedral closed last week for the first time since World War II on the grounds that the camp posed a health risk, but it finally reopened yesterday.

St Paul’s is one of London’s top tourist destinations, and closure to visitors was costing it around €23,000 a day in lost donations.

Hundreds of people attended the lunchtime Eucharist, including some of the protesters.

“We rejoice that we are once again able to worship in an open cathedral,” the Dean of St Paul’s, the Right Reverend Graeme Knowles, told worshippers.

“It stands at the heart of this city as a sign of God’s presence, a presence which has the power to save and to transform.

“A building has stood on this site for well over a thousand years testifying to that truth.”

St Paul’s was able to reopen due to changes to the layout of the tents outside the cathedral.

The building’s dome and galleries remain closed.

Meanwhile, the City of London Corporation, the City’s municipal governing body, said it would take court action to remove the tents from the public highways around the cathedral following a vote by its planning and transport committee.

“Protest is an essential right in a democracy, but camping on the highway is not and we believe we will have a strong highways case because an encampment on a busy thoroughfare clearly impacts the rights of others,” said committee chairman Michael Welbank.

British Prime Minister David Cameron earlier called for the protesters to leave, saying the freedom to rally should exclude important sites.