London and Its Environs Described, vol. 4 (of 6): Containing an Account of Whatever is Most Remarkable for Grandeur, Elegance, Curiosity or Use, in the City and in the Country Twenty Miles Round ItAnonymous
History
London and Its Environs Described, vol. 4 (of 6): Containing an Account of Whatever is Most Remarkable for Grandeur, Elegance, Curiosity or Use, in the City and in the Country Twenty Miles Round It
Anonymous
London (England) -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; London (England) -- Gazetteers -- Early works to 1800
The body is seventy feet long and sixty broad, the height to the roof is
thirty-five feet, and that of the tower an hundred and thirty feet. The
lower part of the tower occupies the center, and on each side there is a
regular extent of building. The principal door opens in the lower stage
of the tower, which rises with angulated corners from the ground,
forming a kind of base, terminated at the height of the body of the
church. The second stage, which is plain and lofty, has two tall
windows, one over the other, properly shaped for the style of the
building; this is terminated with a truly Gothic cornice. The third
stage is exactly in the form of the two others, only they are plain, and
this is covered with ornaments, the angulated corners are fluted, and
terminated by cherubims heads under a cornice: the plain face between
has four windows in two series. Above the cornice, over the uppermost of
these windows, runs a battlement on the plain faces of the tower, and
from the corners are carried up four beautiful fluted turrets, cased a
part of their height with Doric turrets; these terminate in pinacle
heads, from within which rises a spire at each corner crowned with a
fane. The author of the _Critical Review of the public buildings_
observes, that this Gothic tower is very magnificent, and justly
deserves to be esteemed the finest thing of that sort in London.
The advowson of this church was anciently in the Abbot and Canons of
Evesham; but in 1503 they conveyed it to the Drapers company, who
settled upon that convent a perpetual annuity of 5l. 6s. 8d. and that
company have been its patrons ever since. The Rector, instead of
uncertain tithes, has by act of Parliament a settled stipend of 140l. a
year.
_St._ MICHAEL’S CROOKED LANE, on the east side of St. Michael’s lane, in
Candlewick ward, receives its additional epithet from its vicinity to
Crooked lane. A church dedicated to St. Michael stood in the same place
before the year 1304; but suffering by the fire of London in 1666 was
soon after rebuilt.
It is a plain Structure built with stone, and enlightened by a series of
large arched windows. The tower, which is at the west end, is carried
square to a considerable height, and the uppermost window in the center
of each face, is ornamented with a head, and handsome festoons. From
hence, instead of a balustrade, is a range of open work of the Gothic
kind, with vases at the corners. From within this part, the tower rises
circular, diminishing in three stages, with an open buttress rising from
each corner of the square tower, to the top of the first stage; from
this buttress rises a large scroll to the top of the second, and a
smaller to the top of the third stage, above which rises a kind of short
round spire of a peculiar kind, it swelling out at the bottom, and then
rounding off, rises to a small height, where it is terminated by a gilt
ball and fane.
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