Probably because of the early trouble with the foundation of the great tower, there was from the first no intention of making it a belfry. Even before the spire was decided upon, the oscillation of a mass of swaying bells was obviously too dangerous to be seriously considered. A special campanile, as at Chichester, was therefore built at the north-west corner of the close. Its style was evidently similar to that of the cloisters and the chapter house. Multangular in form, an early historian calls it, but the engravings still existing show it to have been a somewhat ordinary specimen of Early English design. Its special feature was a single central pillar of Purbeck marble that supported the weight of the bells and belfry. The spire was doubtless of wood, and, apparently, the upper lantern-like tower also.[6] Although its destruction is not ordered in the official document wherein the Chapter gave Wyatt authority to do so much mischief, on some pretext, probably his craze for what he called "vistas," it was demolished in the terrible destruction of 1789, opening up a view of the Cathedral that was entirely unnecessary, and wilfully destroying a feature of the close that could ill be spared. The custom of climbing the spire during the Whitsun fair, to which Francis Price, in a naive description, attributes much damage to the leadwork of the roofs, has only ceased in recent times, some sixty or seventy years ago. Arnold, a watchmaker, wound up his watch while leaning actually against the vane. When a lad, during a royal visit, stood on his head on the capstone, George III. refused to reward him, saying that he was bound to provide for the lives of his people. On June 26th, 1741, the timber braces of the spire were found to be on fire. According to Francis Price, "there was, about ten o'clock the night before in a very great storm, a particular flash of lightning observed by many of the inhabitants to strike against the tower with a sort of smacking noise, and then to have been lost.... It may well be called dreadful since, had it continued half an hour longer, all the assistance on earth could not have prevented the total destruction of the pile."