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\viewkind4\uc1\pard\cf1\f0\fs20 The drawings in this section can be linked to several contracts for masonry construction between September 1678 and April 1685. They record a significant change to the design of the transept portals and internal wall elevations in 1678-79. \par
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In late summer 1678, construction in the eastern arm and bastions was half way up the aisle walls, inside and out, and up to church-floor level in the transept-ends (Wren Society 13, pp.107-09). On 6 April that year master-mason Joshua Marshall died. He had been responsible for the eastern arm and bastions from the middle of the first window east of the apse, the south transept and the south-west quarter of the crossing. On 5 and 7 September Thomas Strong and two new master masons, Edward Pearce (c.1635-95) and Jaspar Latham (c.1636-93), signed contracts for the next phase of construction (Wren Society 16, pp.15-16). Strong was to continue as master mason for the apse and easternmost half-bay of the choir but he relinquished to Latham the north side of the choir, the north-east quarter of the crossing and the east half of the north transept. However, Strong retained the west half of the north transept and the north-west quarter of the crossing. Pearce took over the south side of the choir, the south-east quarter of the crossing and the whole of the south transept, except for the south-west quarter. A third new master mason, Thomas Wise (?-1685), took over this area in December 1678 (\i ibid\i0 ., 16, p.17). In September and November that year the Committee ordered a start of work on the foundations of the nave, west of the crossing. Strong took the north side of the nave and Wise the south side (GL MS, 25,622/1 pp.31, 32). \par
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Pearce was master mason at several City churches and had first worked with Wren at Pembroke College Chapel in 1663-65. He was an exceptional carver of figurative and relief ornament in stone and wood and a fluent draughtsman. He drew fruit and foliage in plump, rounded forms, freely shaded in pen, and often with \lquote dolphin-head\rquote profiles; he shaded Corinthian capitals in horizontal pen lines, often used double-ruled scale bars, and wrote in cursive, rightward-slanting hand with long looped \lquote f\rquote s and \lquote I\rquote s, and a secretary lower-case \lquote c\rquote (see WRE/2/4/1, 2, 5, 6, 14, 17, 18). \par
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Pearce's arrival as master mason for the whole south transept front coincided with revisions to the design of the external doorcase of the transepts. Wren began this process in a sketch design datable to 1678 by adding columns to the frame and an overdoor panel above the entablature: WRE/2/4/3. In the contracts of 7 September 1678 a memorandum excludes the door surround, stating that this feature was then \lquote Intended to be marble\rquote . The description implies a doorcase with a simple architrave frame of neo-Roman character, as shown in Pearce\rquote s earliest plan of the portico, WRE/2/4/1, and as adopted for the great west door. The enlarged surround in Wren\rquote s sketch and in subsequent drawings by Pearce was executed in Portland stone and its design probably postdates this contract. \par
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Revision of the transept doorcase was complete by 18 July 1679, the date of masonry contracts for construction to the top of the external frieze which include the \lquote Wall and Dorecase of the Portico\rquote (Wren Society 16, pp.17-18). By then, Wren had widened the opening from 9 to 10 ft and narrowed the outer bays of the inner wall by 6 inches on each side; see WRE/2/4/7 and 8. In two of Pearce\rquote s early studies the transept opening is 9 ft wide, outside and inside; see WRE/2/4/5 and 9. He and the unidentified draughtsman then prepared revisions to the internal wall of the transept to accommodate the wider opening; see WRE/2/4/10 and 11. These were incorporated into a half-plan in the hand of Edward Strong: WRE/2/4/12. Work on the doorcase itself was delayed until 1683-84 (Wren Society 13, p.189).\par
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In the first quarter of 1685 Pearce was paid for \lquote making of Divers Modells, & other extraordinary Works, by order of Mr Surveyors\rquote , including \lquote severall Modells for the Head of the great south door', 'the Model of the Portico\rquote and one of the \lquote great Tribune of the Dome\rquote (Wren Society 13, p.198). Drawings connected with these models are WRE/2/4/6, 16-20. \par
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The drawings in this section include a study for the transept window recess in the hand of an unidentified mason-draughtsman WRE/2/4/13. The same man was responsible for similar construction drawings for the larger recesses in the western chapels in the late 1680s; see WRE/3/4/20. \cf0\b\f1\par
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Conditions governing access
Access to the Wren office drawings held at London Metropolitan Archives is available only with advance notice and at the discretion of the Heritage Services Director, London Metropolitan Archives, 40 Northampton Road, London, EC1R 0HB.
