Upper elevations and west end, c.1685–94

WRE/3

65 drawings

{\rtf1\ansi\ansicpg1252\deff0\deflang2057{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 Microsoft Sans Serif;}{\f1\fswiss\fprq2\fcharset0 System;}} {\colortbl ;\red0\green0\blue128;} \viewkind4\uc1\pard\cf1\f0\fs20 The accession of James II after the untimely death of his brother Charles II on 6 February 1685 transformed the fortunes of St Paul\rquote s Cathedral. The new king, though ardently Catholic, immediately committed himself to \lquote take care to defend and support\rquote the Church of England, and within days had promised to renew the Commission for Rebuilding St Paul\rquote s (Miller 2000, p.120; Higgott 2004b, p.543). James II\rquote s first Parliament convened on 19 May and voted on 25 June to raise the percentage of coal tax revenue allocated to St Paul\rquote s by more than three times the existing amount, beginning in 1687. Wren had become Member of Parliament for the small south Devon town of Plympton St Maurice to promote the interests of St Paul\rquote s and help steer this bill through the House. It allowed the Rebuilding Commission to borrow forthwith on the security of anticipated coal tax revenues (Lang 1956, pp.122-25; Little 1975, pp.143-46). The Commission started raising funds by these means soon after it met for the first time in February 1686 (Wren Society 16, pp.48-50). Over the next decade, income from coal tax and loans averaged about \'a323,000 per annum: more than double the annual amount in the first ten years of construction (Higgott 2004b, pp.538-39). \par \par The dramatic increase in funding from 1686 helps explain a major revision to the design that can be dated from the middle months of 1685 to the start of masonry construction at the west end in March or April the following year. None of the drawings connected with this revision is signed or dated, but many, including two at All Souls known as the \lquote Revised\rquote or \lquote Definitive\rquote design, can be attributed to the young Nicholas Hawksmoor (c.1661-1736). He began his architectural career as Wren\rquote s \lquote domestic clerk\rquote in about 1680 and is first documented in a professional capacity in 1684, in connection with the building of Winchester Palace for Charles II (Colvin 2008, p.496; Geraghty 2007, p.11; Wren Society 7, p.42). Although not salaried as a draughtsman from the St Paul\rquote s accounts until 1691, he must have started working there for Wren in a private capacity soon after James II ordered a halt to construction at Winchester in February 1685. \par \par By about June 1685 Hawksmoor had drawn two initial studies for a west front with a giant-order portico: WRE/3/3/1 and 2. These designs, and another with a Corinthian rather than Ionic portico, recall the west end of the Great Model: WRE/3/3/3 and 4. They predate a series of larger-scaled drawings for a two-storey western body in which the tower bays are 45-ft square externally, as built, and the external elevations are fully detailed; see WRE/3/3/5. The aedicule frames of the windows of the upper elevations in these early studies were repeated as frames for niches and triforium windows in the \lquote screen walls\rquote which link the western body with the upper elevations of the transept ends and apse; see WRE/3/1/9. Wren thus created an all-round two-storey elevation which would serve visually as a podium for an enlarged dome. This two-storey church body took its inspiration from Jules Hardouin-Mansart\rquote s domed church at Les Invalides in Paris, begun in 1676 and published in an engraved volume in 1683 (Higgott 2004b, pp.542-43). The design for the new upper storey went through several revisions, inside and out. Only towards the end of the process did Wren revise the pitch of buttresses that were to transfer the thrust from the high vaults to the outer walls; see WRE/3/1/10. \par \par The overall layout of the west end was complete by the time Edward Strong\rquote s team began work on the foundations of the north-east quarter of the western body in March or April 1686 (Wren Society 14, pp.5, 12-13). Designs which predate the start of construction are either too wide on plan (those with a giant-order portico) or too narrow in the central portion between the aisles. To the last category belong several groups in which the paired columns of the portico are equally spaced, without a wider central intercolumniation (e.g. WRE/3/3/13 and 15; WRE/3/4/1 and 11). This arrangement required a distance of 76 ft between the centres of the aisles. However, the distance had been fixed at 78 ft before the start of construction in the eastern arm and crossing 1675 (that is, 39 ft from centre-aisle to centre-nave). It was fixed again at 78 ft when work began at the west end in 1686. Wren must have had good reason for initially preferring regularly spaced columns, for in one plan he made the axis of the aisle slant inwards by 1 ft from the nave to the portico: WRE/3/4/2. \par \par Construction reached church-floor level across the west end in late 1688. The accession of William and Mary early in 1689 may have prompted Wren to reconsider the scheme he had produced in 1685 for a giant west portico, WRE/3/3/4, for either he or Hawksmoor inserted the names \lquote William III and Mary II\rquote to the pencilled inscription above the west door. The idea went no further than this, and once the joint monarchs\rquote new Rebuilding Commission had met for the first time in March 1691 attention turned to the preparation of designs for fitting out the choir and the Morning Prayer Chapel (see WRE/4).\cf0\b\f1\par }

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