Full-height north–south section of south-west tower, endorsed as completed on 25 February 1704, and including a revision to the Dean’s Door, an initial scheme for the Geometrical Stair, and a later design for the clock on a separate plan, upper right, c.1704–06. Reverse: superseded section of the clock/belfry and lantern stages

WRE/6/2/9

c.1704–06

Sir Christopher (1632–1723) Wren, William (1671–1725) Dickinson

Pen and brown ink over pencil, with pen shading and additions in pencil and in reddish-brown, black and ochre-coloured ink of the plan of the clock stage. Two joined sheets of laid paper. 113.7 x 44.8 cm overall (the upper one, 52.7 x 37.4 cm, with a flap on the right, 14.6 x 8.6 cm, and an overlay at the top, 18.1 x 14.5 cm, both fixed with red sealing wax). Fold lines two-thirds down the upper sheet and two-thirds up the lower sheet. Countermarks: bottom sheet, IHS, surmounted by a cross over LLAR, and top sheet, the same, but over IVILLEDARY.

A full-height study, with revisions, of the south-west tower from the crypt to the apex of the lantern (stage 5), developed from a study on the reverse (stage 4) and from the half-plan, WRE/6/2/8. The front design includes a revision, bottom right, of the vault and external frame of the south-west door, and two pasted extensions showing the plan at clock stage and a revision to the upper attic and capping. Now separately mounted, but originally attached at the upper left of the lower sheet, is a folded flap bearing a long section of the south library chamber; see WRE/6/2/10. Drawn by Dickinson. Datable 1703-04; revised c.1704-06. Drawn scale, 5.7 ft to 1 in (10 ft = 45 mm). Reverse: On the reverse, Dickinson wrote vertically along the left edge, just above the join with the lower sheet, ‘Concluded on Feb: 25th 1703/4’. When the upper and lower thirds of the sheet are folded inwards from the back, this title is in the middle. As Downes has noted, it endorses the design on the front rather than titling the one on the back (Downes 1988b, p.150). Similarly, at bottom right, Dickinson wrote (inverted) the title, ‘S. W. Tower’. Written vertically alongside this note in a darker ink, probably in another hand, is the title, ‘Section of the / South West tower / St Pauls Ch.’. The section on the reverse revises the design at stage 4; see WRE/6/2/6 and 7. The clock/belfry stage has reverted to the square-cornered scheme at stage 3 (see WRE/6/2/3), the dial opening, pediment and vaults have all been raised higher, and a corridor has been re-introduced at the lower level. The lantern remains as in WRE/6/2/7 but with a modified attic and dome, the latter in two shells, pierced by oculus windows. Dickinson noted against the section: ‘top of the Gt Roofe’ (twice); ‘Levell wth ye Grand plinth round ye Church’; and over the left curve of the vault, ‘15 : 4 upon ye Girt’. Front: The front design for the clock and lantern stages has been drawn over the pricked-through outlines of the section on the reverse. Dickinson sketched an initial section in pencil on the left. This modifies the profiles on the reverse. On the right side he drew the final scheme in ink. The levels of the pediment, drum and peristyle all move upwards and the wall of the drum is narrowed to 1 ft 6 inches from 2 ft. The columns move inwards on the cardinal axis, but are set outwards in pairs in the diagonal bays. In the lowest attic stage, arches and piers stand over the diagonal bays, and concave panels above them rise to an upper attic. Above this level Dickinson added a revision to the uppermost attic and capping of the lantern which modifies the design in the half-plan; see WRE/6/2/8. The technique and annotations match those on the rest of the drawing but were mistaken as Wren’s by the cataloguer of the Bute Collection sale - presumably John Summerson - in 1951 (p.4), and by later commentators (see Downes 1988b, p.150). The capping was further revised in execution, possibly when William Kempster completed a model for the ‘finishing of the Tower’ in January 1707 (Wren Society 15, p.147): it has eight rather than sixteen leaded facets and only four oculus windows. Vertical pencil dashes on the inner right-hand face of the drum are probably the rungs of an iron staircase for access to the top of the lantern, in place of the masonry spiral staircase within the peristyle of the half-plan, WRE/6/2/8. A dotted horizontal line above the 100-ft scale bar along the right edge of the sheet marks the top of the ‘grand plinth’, a level reached in 1703 (Wren Society 15, pp.92, 101). Below this level, the cantilevered Geometrical Staircase is drawn loosely in pencil within dotted outlines. The drawn profile does not agree with the built work, rising clockwise rather than anti-clockwise and arriving on the west side of the triforium door rather than the south side of the library door. Absent from the section is the niche beneath the staircase landing at church-floor level and the niche-recess at half-height on the north side. Revisions to the design were probably made shortly before William Kempster’s masons spent 16 days making and altering ‘the Modell of the Round Stayres at the West End’ in February 1704. In September that year they began cutting into the ashlar to install the staircase (Wren Society 15, pp.104, 122-24). In the two main stages of the tower, the section displays the windows of the west elevation in solid outlines. Drawn to the right of the south door at ground level (the ‘Dean’s Door’) is a revised section of the lower storey. The internal vault of the door has been raised and the external frame enlarged. Both were built in 1688 although probably not carved (Wren Society 14, p.48). In April and May 1705 Kempster’s masons were paid for the ‘Alteration of the South Doore’, including the cutting away and raising of its vault (Wren Society 15, pp.122-24). The built work conforms to this revision. It was the most significant change to the fabric during construction. A grander entrance was needed to serve the Consistory Court in the south-west chapel and the Library above. The library door itself is not shown; it was installed when the Library was fitted out in 1708-09. Dickinson wrote vertically within the arch that frames the door and the window above, ‘G:t Dore 26 f: 10’ into ye S: Library’. Dickinson’s other inscriptions are: (right of the upper storey tower window), ‘6f: Cleere’; level with the frieze of the lower entablature, ‘3:f 4 ½ by 2f: 6 Cleere without Rabitt’ [rebate]; and to the right of the lower tower window, ‘5f: Cleere’. Sketched and dimensioned in pencil on the left side of the tower are profiles of two floors in the north-west tower: the floor of the bell ringing chamber, marked 2-ft deep (Dickinson marked the same floor on WRE/6/1/9), and the lower one of the clock-weight chamber (marked 12 inches). Proposals for the clock and bells, c.1704-06 The flap on the right extends the sheet to show a plan of the clock and bells, within a part-plan of the clock and lantern stages, orientated ‘W’ at the bottom. On the south, in reddish-brown ink, a rectangular metal frame, 2 ft 6 inches by 8 ft, encloses three equal drums. It stands on a larger wooden frame, in yellow-ochre. Three long spindles, in black, connect the middle drum to the ends of the dial shafts. On the west, three circular clock weights, marked ‘8 C, 5 C, 3 C, / [hundred] weight’, stand within the circumference of the lantern. Spanning the chamber, east to west, is a thick wooden bell frame for three bells, the largest being the ‘Great Tom’ hour bell, 6 ft in diameter. Known from a record elevation by John Talman in 1708 (Wren Society 14, pl.51), it had been acquired from Westminster Palace in 1699. Recast by Philip Wightman in 1700 and 1706, it was installed in 1707 and replaced in 1709 by a new hour bell cast by the clock-maker Langley Bradley with Richard Phelps. This bell was recast in 1716. The smaller circles, measuring 3 ft 9 inches and 3 ft in diameter, are for the quarter-hour bells, cast by Bradley in 1707 (Wren Society 15, pp.xxxviii, 63, 158, 193, 221; 16, pp.31-32). The clock in the section of the tower is at an earlier stage in the design, for it is shown north-south rather than east-west. The later orientation is indicated by a ruler-drawn side-elevation of the clock frame and spindle on the right. The ink-drawn elevation is itself a revision of a deleted, pencil-drawn version lower down, with three equal drums. Sketched in pencil above the clock is the ‘Great Tom’ bell, set within a vertical circular frame. This arrangement was superseded by the horizontal wooden frame in the plan. All the designs for the clock on this drawing predate the contract for the clock signed by Bradley on 15 November 1706 (Wren Society 16, pp.29-30). This describes a rectangular clock frame 2 ft 6 inches by 8 ft 7 inches containing ‘three great wheels’ of differing sizes: 2 ft 6 inches, 1 ft 6 inches, and 1 ft 3 inches in diameter. No visual record of the clock and bell frame survives. The ‘Great Tom’ and its frame were replaced by the larger ‘Great Paul’ hour bell in May 1882 (see Penrose’s design for the bell and frame, February 1882, SPCAA/D/1/7/9). The clock was replaced in 1893. Two years later the Great Paul was rehung on a new frame at a higher position within the lantern.

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.

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SPCAA/D/1/7/9, WRE/6/1/9, WRE/3/4/2, WRE/6/1/1