The Cathedral Towns and Intervening Places of England, Ireland and Scotland:: A Description of Cities, Cathedrals, Lakes, Mountains, Ruins, and Watering-places.Silloway, Thomas W. (Thomas William)
History
The Cathedral Towns and Intervening Places of England, Ireland and Scotland:: A Description of Cities, Cathedrals, Lakes, Mountains, Ruins, and Watering-places.
Silloway, Thomas W. (Thomas William)
Great Britain -- Description and travel
In this year also, 1723, was erected our old Christ Church on Salem
Street, Boston. The design of this has been attributed to Wren, and
we are inclined to think that indirectly he aided its conception. As
he died at the great age of ninety-one, and was very feeble before
his death, it can hardly be presumed that he made the drawings; but
he may have dictated them. More probably he may have made a design
some years before, which, being at hand, found its way to Boston; or
the plan may have been made by a former apprentice, who carried on
his master's work. Again, this design may have been copied, almost
without the change of a line, from St. Bartholomew's-by-the-Wardrobe;
for that, so far as the interior is concerned, is its prototype, even
to the painted cherub-heads in the spandrils of the arches over the
galleries. St. Bartholomew's was built from Wren's designs in 1692,
and so was 31 years old at the time of the erection of our Boston
church. The London church is 79 feet long, 59 feet wide, and 38 feet
high. The dimensions of Christ Church are 70 feet, 50 feet, and 35
feet. Aside from the likeness of their interiors, there is a singular
agreement in the pillar-capitals and gallery fronts, and also in the
mouldings, combinations, altar-work, and vases. Their exteriors have
little in common. There are two ranges of windows in each; but those
of the London church are circular-headed on the second range, and only
segmental for the first, like those at Boston King's Chapel; while at
our Christ Church all the windows have circular tops. The London church
has a plain flat-roofed tower, 80 feet high, without a steeple, though
it is quite possible there may at some time have been one. This tower
is at the right-hand corner instead of at the centre of the front.
The steeple on our Christ Church was blown down in the great gale of
1815, and rebuilt by Bulfinch, it is said, according to the original
design. In its important features, and even details, this steeple
is much like Wren's. This is not the place to argue the case,--but
we repeat, the probabilities are that Christ Church was indirectly
designed by the distinguished architect of St. Paul's.
The National Gallery of Paintings is a building of large dimensions,
situated on Trafalgar Square, one of the main business centres, which
is not far from half a mile from the Thames, and about midway between
Westminster and St. Paul's. It contains eleven rooms for the display
of over six hundred pictures, all of them being choice works of the
Masters. The building is open to the public daily.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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