Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Paul: An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical SketchDimock, Arthur
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Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Paul: An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch
Dimock, Arthur
St. Paul's Cathedral (London, England)
The difficulties which present themselves in any attempt to describe
the architecture still continue to beset us; such earlier drawings as
we have are contradictory and rude to a degree.[38] The NAVE
was Norman, rebuilt to a great extent after the fire of 1137. The
aisles had the usual round-headed windows, with the unusual (for
England) circular windows above. There were flat buttresses; but I
must reject the flying-buttresses of some restorers. The clerestory
windows are a puzzle. Everybody maintains they were Pointed, and, if
so, they would have been inserted at the same time as the new roof;
but there seems to be no trustworthy authority for this. In Finden's
engravings after Hollar they are taken at a peculiar angle which is
apt to mislead. Hollar and his engravers give two windows on the south
side in the interior, _i.e._, of the nave and clerestory. Both seem
alike; and Inigo Jones' patched-up north and south fronts represent
them both as round, so that the balance of evidence appears to be in
favour of round.[39]
Another difficulty is the question of the existence or nonexistence
of the western towers. Mr. William Longman and Mr. E.B. Ferrey give
none in their south-west view, because "no drawings or plates are
known to exist which would settle the question." But it is our
misfortune that we have to reconstruct Old St. Paul's practically
without the help of drawings, until we come to Inigo Jones' finished
work. In Dugdale's ground-plan they cover almost exactly the same area
as one of the severies of the neighbouring aisles, and are flush with
the west front; in both respects resembling those of Wells and other
cathedrals. Besides, they are constantly mentioned, and at various
dates, as Mr. Longman duly acknowledges. The southern tower was the
original LOLLARDS' TOWER from which the Lambeth tower has
borrowed its name, and was utilised for a prison by the Bishops of
London for ecclesiastical offences. It was both bell and clock tower,
and abutted on to both the cathedral proper and St. Gregory's. So late
as 1573, Peter Burchet of the Middle Temple, shortly afterwards
executed for murdering his gaoler in the tower, was imprisoned here
for heresy, and would then have been sentenced to death but for
recanting.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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