Four studies in section and elevation for the bays of the peristyle, with radial walls rather than arches. Reverse: pencil study for a funerary monument associated with William III

WRE/5/3/3

c.1695

Sir Christopher (1632–1723) Wren, Nicholas (c.1662–1736) Hawksmoor

Pen and brown ink over pencil under-drawing, with grey wash and additions in pencil. Four trimmed sheets of laid paper pasted together, with tears and folds and modern repairs on reverse: larger upper and smaller lower sheets on the left, joined at centre-right by narrower upper and lower sheets; the reverse with a pencil study filling the entire sheet. 64.7 x 79.0 cm, including 11.2 cm fold-back at bottom and 4.2 cm fold-back at right edge. Watermarks: fleur-de-lys on all four sheets; countermarks: CDG on one upper and one lower sheet.

A study in four drawings for the dome peristyle. Left to right: (i) radial section from the base of the drum to the top of the entablature, with stone types marked in pencil; (ii) internal elevation of a peristyle bay; (iii) cross-section of a peristyle bay showing an external window; and (iv) elevation of three bays, the right one a pier mass. Drawn by Hawksmoor. Datable c.1695. Reverse: unrelated pencil perspective study for a funerary monument. Implied scale, just under 4 ft to 1 inch (10 ft = 65 mm). The four studies (i-iv), discussed below, view the peristyle from the base of the drum of the dome to the top of the entablature. It shows the inner wall of the drum sloping inwards by 1 ft in 12 ft, as built from 1698, but this wall is 4 ft thick instead of 3 ft 6 inches as built. Radial walls link the columns to the wall of the drum. These walls first appear in revisions to the eighth-plan, WRE/5/2/6, and were replaced by arches at the next stage, WRE/5/3/4. (i) The window below the cornice of the drum has a stone course below it marked by a dotted line and an ‘A’ in pencil. Hawksmoor explains in a pencil note, bottom left: ‘Revesd [Reversed] Arches & how ye Drip at B is made’. The ‘A’ and ‘B’ were lost when the sheet was trimmed on the left side. ‘A’ is a reversed arch enclosing the window below the drip; ‘B’ is the cornice of the drum, designed as a drip moulding. This arch is sketched in pencil on a revised elevation of the peristyle bays, WRE/5/3/8. The small window was set lower in construction and the reversed arch was not used; see WRE/5/3/9. In pencil, Hawksmoor noted brickwork and types of stone to be used. Inscribed from top to bottom, inside to out, these are: ‘Bear’ (four times, for Beer stone), ‘Brick’, ‘portland’; ‘H[eadington]’, ‘Hedingt[on]’ ‘K[etton]’ (five times), ‘Kett[on]’, and ‘Port[land]’. Beer stone was to be used for carved elements of the internal peristyle, Portland for its pilasters, Headington for the levelling courses in the radial walls, Ketton stone for the external pier masses, and Portland for the external columns. Ketton and Portland are used in this way in the fabric. Beer stone was probably used for the internal peristyle (now painted), as supplies were delivered from 1699, when construction reached this level (see Wren Society 15, pp.50, 61). Hawksmoor also marked the column height ‘35’ ft and the entablature in three equal sections of ‘2 [ft]. 8 [inches]’ (8 ft in total, the built dimension). (ii) Sloping the inner wall of the drum allowed Wren initially to set the springing of the inner dome above a tall attic, a solution made possible by substituting a timber structure for the middle dome; see WRE/5/2/1 (reverse). The attic windows are framed by console-pilasters and have apron panels beneath their lintels to mask the tunnel vaults of the peristyle bays. These windows were removed when the brick cone was added to the internal structure of the upper dome in design changes around 1702; see WRE/5/3/9. (iii) Illustrates the external attic window in (ii). These windows were left blank when the internal attic was removed. (iv) The external niche in the pier mass is set lower than built. In the final scheme these niches were raised to align with the radial arches; see WRE/5/3/8. Reverse: An unrelated ruled-pencil perspective study for a canopied monument, drawn by an unidentified hand. Groups of four corner columns resting on a square plinth carry an open-pedimented attic stage, above which is a tall concave-sided pedestal with a square pedestal on top. In 1936 Arthur Bolton, co-editor of the Wren Society, mistook this sketch and several related studies at All Souls for an unrealised scheme by Wren for an altar baldacchino at St Paul’s (Wren Society 13, pp.xvii-xviii and pls.31-32). Bolton’s reconstruction (which misleadingly included steps up to an altar) gave W. Godfrey Allen and Stephen Dykes Bower’s a precedent for their baldacchino at St Paul’s, designed in 1948 and built 1954-58. However, several further studies came to light in the Bute Collection sale in 1951 (V & A Museum, E399-402). One is endorsed ‘Mausolea in honorem Guillemi iij’ (E399), another is a washed perspective sketch with an equestrian statue on a pedestal beneath a canopy (E402; see Downes 1979, pl.10b and p.66). All are now recognised as designs for an equestrian monument to William III, the pedestal having been mistaken for an altar by Bolton; see Geraghty 2007, nos.441-45. If so, they may date to 1702, when a project for an equestrian monument to the late king was discussed by the Privy Council. An alternative scenario is that the design began life as a monument to Queen Mary who died in December 1694 and was adapted for William III in 1702. The present study is not obviously in Hawksmoor’s hand, as the wavy outline drawing of the capitals is naïve and uncharacteristic. It may be in the same hand as the perspective sketch at the V & A, E402.

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.

WRE/5/2/6, WRE/5/2/1