A second Occupy London protest camp has sprung up in a sign that campaigners are spreading from St Paul's Cathedral to locations across the capital.

A group of protesters with placards marched from St Paul's to the new site, where up to 30 tents had been discreetly pitched earlier.

Within minutes, supporters of Occupy London had called a "general assembly" at the site in Finsbury Square, Moorgate, and declared that the square was a second occupation after the cathedral.

Organisers insisted, however, that the second site would not replace St Paul's, but alleviate pressure at an increasingly crowded venue. One protester said that a third and fourth occupation would follow.

News of the second site emerged shortly after the clergyman at the centre of the dispute about anti-capitalist protesters camped outside St Paul's broke a week's silence to defend the decision to close the cathedral.

"I remain firmly supportive of the right of people peacefully to protest," the Rev Canon Dr Giles Fraser said. "But given the strong advice that we have received that the camp is making the cathedral and its occupants unsafe, then this right has to be balanced against other rights and responsibilities too," he said.

"The Christian gospel is profoundly committed to the needs of the poor and the dispossessed. Financial justice is a gospel imperative.

"Those who are claiming the decision to close the cathedral has been made for commercial reasons are talking complete nonsense."

St Paul's, which closed to the public on Friday because of health and safety fears, did allow a wedding to go ahead, with the bride using the side door instead of the main steps.

The number of protesters camped around the cathedral has steadily grown since the camp was first set up outside the main entrance last weekend.

OccupyLSX estimated that hundreds of other protesters would swell the camp for a series of talks and demonstrations, taking the number of protesters outside the cathedral up to 2,000. Three generators are providing power to the camp, there are two portable toilets, a kitchen and a library.