Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.Phillimore, Lucy
History
Sir Christopher Wren: His Family and His Times: With Original Letters and a Discourse on Architecture Hitherto Unpublished. 1585-1723.
Phillimore, Lucy
Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714 -- Biography; Wren family; Wren, Christopher, Sir, 1632-1723
Three Poets in three distant ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn;
The first in loftiness of thought surpassed,
The next in majesty; in both the last.
The force of nature could no further go,
To make a third she joined the other two.
Here also it is supposed that Sir Isaac Newton was buried, though the
exact spot was not known.
Wren built on the old site a stone church of considerable beauty, whose
tall pinnacled tower had a singular grace of its own. All, alas!
destroyed, the ancient site desecrated, and the materials sold, no
matter for what purpose.
[_CHURCH BUILDING._]
S. Peter's, Cornhill, a small compact brick and stone church with a low
tower and a key for its vane and camerated roof, was rebuilt in this
year. Several small charitable legacies belong to this church: Sir B.
Thorowgood settled three shops, at the west end of the churchyard, upon
the parish for the maintenance of an organist to play on Sundays and
Holydays for ever. In 1700 these shops were all three let for 24_l._!
S. Clement Danes in the Strand, which had been patched up in 1674, was
taken down and rebuilt, being finished in 1682. Sir Christopher, who
received the moderate salary of 100_l._ for the rebuilding of the _City_
churches, had nothing necessarily to do with S. Clement's, but yet, as
is recorded on a marble slab on the north side of the chancel, he
'freely and generously bestowed his great care towards the contriving
and building.' It stands in too frequented a place and is too well known
to need description, and will, I think, be readily admitted to bear
Wren's mark. Evelyn calls it 'that pretty and well-contrived church.'
The steeple surmounting the tower was added by Wren's pupil Gibbs[181]
in 1719. S. Antholin's, Watling Street, was entirely consumed by the
fire, so that all its registers perished, a misfortune which happened to
but few of the churches. Sir Christopher spent especial care upon it.
The roof was a cupola adorned with rich festoons; the octagonal spire
was built of freestone, with three circles of windows and considerably
ornamented, was the chief feature of this beautiful little church. At
the time of its building the spire was much remarked, and must have
formed a pleasant contrast to the little neighbouring church of S.
Augustine in the same street, with its tower cupola and small steeple,
which was added in 1695. This church was finished in 1683 and survives
S. Antholin's, which has shared the evil fate of All Hallows, Bread
Street.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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