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The Setting-Out of St Paul’s Cathedral
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 April 2016
Extract
In 1975 the tercentenary of the start of work on the reconstruction of St Paul’s Cathedral was commemorated in its crypt by an exhibition illustrating the design, the structure and the subsequent repair of the building. ‘Resurgam’ not only seemed a very apt name for a display showing how St Paul’s had risen again out of the devastation of the Great Fire but was of course also that ‘single Word in large Capitals’ on the ‘Piece of a Grave-stone’ with which, according to Parentalia, Wren had set out the centre of the dome ‘at the Beginning of the new Work’. Parentalia goes on to say that ‘the first Stone of this Basilica was laid in the Year 1675’, implying that, as might be expected, the two events occurred fairly close together. But when the material for the exhibition was being prepared, it was thought wiser to check this.
- Type
- Section 6: Cathedrals, Abbeys, Churches and Chapels
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain 2001
References
Notes
1 The 1975 exhibition was thus opportune for showing the works carried out and the discoveries made following the 1970 appeal.
2 ‘I shall rise again.’ Resurrection of course comes from the supine of the same verb.
3 Wren, Stephen (ed.), Parentalia, or Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens (London, 1750), p. 292 Google Scholar. ‘Resurgam’ is still to be found in large capitals beneath the phoenix in the south-transept pediment.
4 This article is a recast version of research done in November 1974.
5 Several early sources give this date for this somewhat mysterious informal occasion.
6 Guildhall Library, MS 25622/1.
7 Wren Society, xvi, p. 206.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid., p. 204.
10 Ibid., p. 201.
11 Wren, op. cit., p. 284.
12 Wren Society, XIII, p. 23.
13 Ibid., xvi, p. 190.
14 Ibid.,pp. 191-93.
15 Ibid., p. 194.
16 Ibid., pp. 196-97. A tower pier about 10 feet square by 60 feet high would weigh about 375 tons. Thus many of the details and the version of events on p. 284 of Parentalia are contradicted by the building accounts. It is clearly not true that Wren used battering rams only after he had tried gunpowder.
17 Ibid., pp. 197-99. The damage to a neighbouring property resulting from the use of gunpowder recorded in Parentalia, p. 284, is confirmed in the building accounts (Wren Society, XVI, p. 199).
18 Ibid., p. 201.
19 See above nn. 10 & 11.
20 Authorized by the Act of Common Council of 29 April 1667, pursuant to the 1667 Rebuilding Act.
21 Wren Society, XIII, p. 24 & XVI, p. 197.
22 Ibid., xv, p. 191.
23 Now conveniently to hand as The A to Z of Restoration London, published by the London Topographical Society, no. 145 (1992).
24 Also now to hand in the Godfrey Edition, ‘St Paul’s 1873’, sheet 7.65, 1987.
25 Kent, W., An Encyclopaedia of London (London, 1951), p. 69 Google Scholar.
26 Shown as a vacant site by Ogilby and Morgan, since the church was not rebuilt till 1684.
27 Shown as one property on the third edition of Horwood’s map ofLondon, 1813, now available as The A to Z of Regency London, London Topographical Society, no. 131 (1985).
28 Likewise, The A to Zof’Georgian London, ibid., no. 126 (1982).
29 Ralph Hyde, in his introductory notes to The A to Z of Restoration London, p. xi, warns that ‘the user must always bear in mind’ that Ogilby and Morgan’s map ‘is not a large-scale Ordnance Survey plan, and it should not be used as ifit were.’
30 Wren, Parentalia, p. 321: probably a slip of memory on Wren’s part since he also says that ‘The Houses were seventeen’, while the building accounts record in June 1710: ‘To Richard Billinghurst. For Pulling down 19 Houses on the North Side of Church, and Cleansing the Bricks of same at £5.14.0 per House, as by Agreement. £108.6.0.’ While Wren says that the houses ‘were but eleven Feet distant from the cathedral’, the distance measured in 1969 was only 9 feet 3 inches from the corner of the western block at the end of Paul’s Alley to the plinth of the cathedral. The main rusticated face of the cathedral is another 2 feet 9į inches back from that of the plinth, thus making a total of 12 feet 9½ inch.
31 SirDownes, Kerry, Christopher Wren: the Design of St Paul’s Cathedral (London, 1987), p. 181 Google Scholar. The drawing was formerly known as Bute 32.
32 Some idea of how this setting-out was done may be formed from the following. From what is known of the relationship of the present cathedral to Old St Paul’s, it would have been possible to extend the centre line of the top of Ludgate Hill, line ‘A’, through the old south aisle door and then for some 80 feet along the old south aisle, whether directly, with or without removing stones from the door jamb, or by a parallel alignment around such obstacles. Line ‘A’ could then have been marked by the ‘standards’ mentioned in the building accounts. Similarly the north-south line from the centre of Canon Alley, Line ‘B’, could be sighted through the old north transept door and marked out. Line ‘C’, set out at a right angle to line ‘B’, would intersect line ‘A’ conveniently inside the south aisle of the old cathedral.
33 The changing of the axis of the new cathedral from that of Old St Paul’s in order to have an axial approach from the top of Ludgate Hill also allows the north elevation of the cathedral to be sunlit for longer and for a greater part of the year.
34 The ‘slot view’ could still be seen in the early post-war years before it was destroyed by Holford’s Paternoster scheme. This replaced it by a ridiculous view of not much more than the stumps of the north portico columnsl It is intended to reinstate the dramatic slot view in the new Paternoster scheme by Sir William Whitfield.
35 The problem of maintaining 45-feet width for the main thoroughfare was thus transferred from the south side of the churchyard to its east side in the siting of the new cathedral. A dimension of 45 feet between the apse and the east side of the churchyard is marked on the drawing no. 45 in vol. in of the Wren drawings at All Souls’ Library, Oxford (reproduced as Plate I in Wren Society, XIII); but it is clear that the 45—feet dimension must be measured from the main rusticated face of the apse and not its plinth, which (see n. 30 above) projects 2 feet 9j inches beyond.
36 Thus the Great Model design continues the tradition of Old St Paul’s in which Paul’s Alley and Chain led to the Little North and Little South Doors respectively and virtually established a right of way across the nave. But the shorter distance around the west front and the flights of steps into the Great Model should have prevented this from being reinstated. As interesting as this echo of Old St Paul’s in the Great Model design may be, the straight line connecting the ends of Paul’s Alley and Paul’s Chain was of far greater importance in determining the design of the new cathedral. For the main north-south axis from the end of Canon Alley, i.e., line ‘B’, on which the centre of the dome was placed, had to be parallel with this line between Paul’s Alley and Paul’s Chain. The constraints not only of fitting the Great Model design on the site so as to leave both 45 feet clear around its southern edge and a reasonable space around its northern, but also of placing its west front axially on the centre line of Ludgate Hill, this would have left very little freedom indeed to vary the dimension between the centre of the dome and the external face of the west front.
37 Wren, Parentalia, p. 292.
38 Stow, John, A Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster . . . 6th edn, ed. Strype, John (London, 1754), 1, p. 659 Google Scholar.