INTERIOR OF THE MODEL.
A sketch by the Rev J.L. Petit.[ToList]
The clergy and others wanted something with more resemblance to the old cathedrals; and first of all the surveyor tried to humour them by adding another secondary dome to the west. He next set to work making a great number of sketches, merely, as his grandson says, for "Discource sake"; and one of these was so much approved of that a model was again made. But the demand for a building with choir, nave, and aisles complete continued, and required to be satisfied; and at length one design met with the approval of the king; and on the 14th of May, 1675, Charles issued his warrant to the commissioners accordingly, stating that he approved of this particular design because it was "very artificial, proper, and useful," and could be built by parts, and that his commissioners were to begin at once with "the East-end or Quire."
Wren had already become disgusted with the impediments and delays caused by incompetent judges, and had determined to discontinue making his drawings and plans public.[63]
We shall never know all that took place during the building so as to be able to account for the deviations from this design. The king gave the surveyor permission to make alterations "rather ornamental than essential," and left the whole to his management, so that the royal commission was chiefly employed as treasurers. But even this scarcely explains the great alterations made. The drum and dome of the design, of comparatively modest dimensions, are crowned with a minaret-like spire. The west front has but one order of columns, and the towers are insignificant to a degree. These are amongst the features which were altered, and they were "essential" as distinct from "ornamental." We know that Wren developed as his experience was enlarged; and we know also that certain alterations were made contrary to his wish. Beyond this we are lost in conjecture at the poverty of his design. Perhaps, despising the taste of the commissioners, he never seriously intended to adhere to it, anticipating he would be his own master.
THE "WARRANT" DESIGN.
From a drawing in All Souls' College, Oxford. Reproduced from Blomfield's "Renaissance Architecture."[ToList]
Quickly following on the royal warrant, the first stone was laid June 21, 1675, at the south east corner of the choir.[64] By 1685 the walls of the choir were finished, with the north and south porticoes, and the dome piers raised to a like height. When fixing the centre of his dome, Wren directed a labourer to place a stone as a mark. The man took a broken fragment of an old gravestone on which was inscribed the word Resurgam; and by many this was naturally taken as a favourable augury. In 1686 the old west end, hitherto left undisturbed in its ruins, was cleared away, and two years later the choir was ready for its roof; but shortly after, a fire at the west of the north choir aisle, in a room allotted to the organ-builder, caused a slight delay. Not until 1697 was the choir ready for divine service.