In the siting of churches, Wren is against too nice an observation of “east and west in the position, unless it falls out properly,” and wants to see them brought as forward as possible into the larger and more open streets. “Such fronts as shall happen to lie most open to view should be adorned with porticoes, both for beauty and convenience; which together with handsome spires or lanterns rising in good proportion above the neighbouring houses (of which I have given several examples in the City of different forms) may be of sufficient ornament to the town, without a great expense for enriching the outward walls of the churches, in which plainness and duration ought principally, if not wholly, to be studied....” A long paragraph is devoted to the question of materials. He complains bitterly of the badness of the available bricks, despite the fact that London earth will yield a brick more durable than “any stone our island affords.” Wren is all for Portland-stone for windows and doors, and likes oak for roofs “because it will bear some negligence. The churchwardens’ care may be defective in speedy mending drips: they usually whitewash the church, and set up their names, but neglect to preserve the roof over their heads.” There is an oddly topical flavour in the note that “the wars in the North Sea make timber at present of excessive price,” and a prophecy of Imperial trading in: “I suppose, ere long, we must have recourse to the West Indies, where most excellent timber may be had for cutting and fetching.” As to roof coverings, “our tiles are ill-made and our slates not good: lead is certainly the best and lightest covering, and being of our own growth and manufacture, and lasting, if properly made, for many hundred years, is, without question, the most preferable; though I will not deny but an excellent tile may be made to be very durable: our artisans are not yet instructed in it, and it is not soon done to inform them....” If the Gothic Revivalists had worked on Wren’s lines, the Church would not now be saddled with a legacy of badly built Kentish rag and rubble churches and spires, thinly roofed with Welsh slates, an endless anxiety to parishes unable to find money to remedy original defects of construction. Wren’s next point is of the essence of the problem which he was facing, how to provide the accommodation required for the people.