Whitehall Palace.—His plan of Whitehall Palace provided for an immense rectangle, 1152 by 720 feet, surrounded by façades, three stories high. The interior court was to be divided into three parts by two wings of two stories, which were to be united to the main side-façades by transverse wings, so that the plan would have embraced a large court and six smaller courts, one being circular in plan. However, a scheme of such magnificence was entirely beyond the King’s means and the only part erected was a small portion of one of the interior wings—the Banqueting House, which now abuts on the street that retains the name, Whitehall.
The façade that it presents to the latter is in the Paladian style and of extreme purity. Constructed throughout of fine, rusticated masonry, it consists, above the basement, of two stories, decorated, respectively, with the Ionic and the Corinthian orders, while a well-proportioned cornice, surmounted by a balustrade, defines the sky-line. An admirable feature, apparently originated by Inigo Jones, for it is not found in Italy, is the slight prominence given to the central three window bays by substituting columns for pilasters and breaking the entablature and cornice round them. The interior contains a handsome vaulted hall, divided into three aisles.
Another design by Jones, which recalls Palladio’s Vicenza gates is the Water Gate, now in the Embankment Gardens, which formerly was the water entrance from the river to old York House, which has been destroyed. He also built S. Paul, Covent Garden (1638), a severe but imposing design that suffers from its proximity to the market, the arcades of which are also his. His design for the river façade for Greenwich Hospital, in which the two lower stories are included in one colossal Corinthian order, was executed by his pupil, John Webb. Among the examples of Jones’s domestic buildings are Raynham Hall, Norfolk; Wilton House, Wiltshire; Chevening House, Kent; Stoke Park, Northamptonshire, and Coleshill, Berkshire.
But the erection of country houses and indeed all architectural activity were seriously interrupted by the Civil War and the consequent unsettled conditions.
Wren.—More fortunate in opportunity was Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723), upon whom it devolved to repair some of the damage wrought by the Great Fire of London, in 1666. He was never in Italy and his foreign experience was limited to six months in Paris, where Bernini’s design for the Louvre, fortunately never executed, was being commenced. Consequently he did not possess the technical equipment of Inigo Jones and was not always successful in the decorative sheathing which he applied to the construction. It was on the constructive side that his genius lay and in this he was assisted by his previous career as a mathematician and professor of astronomy at Gresham College and the University of Oxford.
Wren’s earliest architectural works, executed before he went to Paris, were the Library of Pembroke College, Cambridge and the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford. His scientific knowledge was demonstrated in the ceiling of the latter, which has a span of 68 feet. After the fire of London he planned to lay out the devastated part of the city on new and broader lines; but the reconstruction was defeated, as city replanning is liable to be in our own day, by the opposition of property owners. Meanwhile a plan he had previously made for the enlargement of S. Paul’s was now superseded by the necessity of erecting an entirely new building.
S. Paul’s.—The plan of S. Paul’s is a cross with short arms; both the choir and nave, comprising three bays, flanked, like the transepts, with aisles. The choir terminates in a small apse; the transepts in semi-circular porticoes and the west end in a vestibule with lateral chapels.
The internal piers are embellished with Corinthian pilasters, supporting an entablature and attic, the latter containing clerestory windows, which, however, though giving light to the interior, are not visible from outside. The ceilings, throughout, are composed of repetitions of flat, saucer-like domes.
But the dominant feature of the interior is the octagon at the crossing, which comprises the width not only of the nave and choir but also of the aisles. It permits four great arches, opening into the nave, choir, and transepts, and four smaller and lower arches, connecting with the ambulatory, which is formed by the aisles. This arrangement is somewhat similar to the octagon of Ely Cathedral and may be compared with the plan of the dome of the Invalides.
Surmounting the eight pendentives of St. Paul’s is a circular gallery, known as the “Whispering Gallery,” above which rises a circular peristyle. The latter’s entablature supports the interior dome, which mounts to a height of 281 feet from the floor.