“all London poured forth for the spectacle, which had been publicly announced, and were looking up in wonder to the old man, or his son, if not the old man himself, who was, on that wondrous height, setting the seal, as it were, to his august labours.
“When one enters the west door one cannot fail to be struck with the vastness of the space enclosed within its massive walls; there is no screen to break the view towards the east, and, as one stands beneath the dome and looks up into its enormous hollow, the sense of overpowering height is felt as in no other church in England.”—(T. P.)
Entering through the western door we are struck with the immensity of the Nave and overspreading dome, the effect of the lights, and, if service is being held, the peculiar beauty of the chants of the choristers, whose voices seem to come from the dome and float through the misty light to our ears.
It would be interesting to know if Wagner ever heard the choir-boys of St. Paul’s and sought to reproduce the effect in Parsifal, by arranging the voices of knights, squires and youths at various stages in the dome of Montsalvat to sing softly of the “wondrous work of mercy and salvation.”
“The interior of the nave is formed by an arcade resting on massive pillars and dividing the church into a body and two aisles. The eastern piers of the nave serve at the same time for the supports of the cupola. They are wider than the other piers, and are flanked by pilasters at their angles and have shallow oblong recesses in the intercolumniations. The roof over these piers is a boldly coffered waggon-vault, which contrasts very effectively with the rest of the vaulting.
“The nave is separated from the choir by the area over which the cupola rises. From the centre of this area, the transepts, or traverse of the cross, diverge to the north and south, each extending one severy, or arch, in length. The choir, which is vaulted and domed over, like the nave and transepts, from the top of the attic order, is terminated eastward by a semicircular tribune, of which the diameter is, in general terms, the same as the width of the choir itself. The western end of the choir has pillars similar to those at the eastern end of the nave, uniform with which there are at its eastern end piers of the same extent and form, except that they are pierced for a communication with the side aisles. Above the entablature and under the cupola is the Whispering Gallery, and in the concave above are representations of the principal passages of St. Paul’s life in eight compartments, painted by Sir James Thornhill.”—(M.)
We should note that there are three stages—the main arcade, the triforium and the clerestory. The piers are faced with Corinthian pilasters that divide off the bays east and west. The arches spring from an entablature. They are very high. The “triforium belt,” as the “attic” is termed by those critics who have dropped the Classical nomenclature, and clerestory above are easily understood at a glance.
“The great arches overhead divide the vault as the greater pilasters and their continuations do the walls. Between these arches are the small saucer-shaped domes, 26 feet in diameter. The reason for these and their accessories, the pendentives, may best be understood from Wren’s own words. He says that his method of vaulting is the most geometrical, and ‘is composed of Hemispheres, and their Sections only; and whereas a Sphere may be cut all Manner of Ways, and that still into Circles.... I have for just Reasons followed this way in the Vaulting of the Church of St. Paul’s.... It is the lightest Manner, and requires less Butment than the Cross-vaulting, as well that it is of an agreeable View.... Vaulting by Parts of Hemispheres I have therefore followed in the Vaultings of St. Paul’s, and with good reason preferred it above any other way used by Architects.’ The saucer-shaped domes are sections of spheres, as are both the pendentives, and the sides of the clerestory windows. The wreaths, garlands, and festoons, and the various conventional patterns with which the edges and surfaces of the various parts of the vaulting is adorned cannot be estimated from the pavement.”—(A. D.)
From the Crypt to the dome the space measures 190 feet.
“When Wren planned his dome interior he had the difficulty caused by the four limbs and their side aisles to overcome. He must have turned to his uncle’s cathedral at Ely for enlightenment. In the earlier years of the Fourteenth Century the central tower of Ely collapsed, and the sacrist Alan de Walsingham, who acted as architect, seeing that the breadth of his nave, choir and transepts happened to agree, took for his base this common breadth, and cutting off the angles, obtained a spacious octagon. The four sides terminating the main aisles are longer than the four alternate aisles at the angles of the side aisles; but at Ely this presents no difficulty, owing to the use of the pointed arch. As you stand in the centre of the octagon under the lantern you see eight spacious arches of two different widths, all springing from the same level and rising to the same height of eighty-five feet, the terminal arch of the Norman nave pointed like its opposite neighbour of the choir. Amongst Gothic churches the interior of Ely reigns unique and supreme, certainly in England if not in Europe. Wren was familiar with this cathedral, and even designed some restorations for it; and he adopted the eight arches in preference to any possible scheme of four great arches of sixty feet: but the use of the round arch, as distinct from the pointed, deprived him of Sacrist Alan’s liberty, who without incongruity made his intermediate arches of the shorter sides, springing from the same level, rise to the same height as the others. Wren was compelled to make use of some expedient to reconcile his two different spaces between piers of forty feet and twenty-six feet, and accordingly arched these four smaller intermediate spaces as follows. A smaller arch, rising from the architrave of the great pier, spans each shorter side of the octagon, and has a ceiling or semi-dome in the background, coming down to the terminal arches of the side aisles. A blank wall space above is relieved by a section of an ornamental arch of larger span, resting on the centre of the cornice; and above this a third arch, rising from the level of the triforium cornice, rests more upon the outer side of the great supporting pier, and thereby obtains the required equal span of forty feet, and equal height of eighty-nine feet from the ground. This also has a semi-dome; and the platform beneath on a level with the clerestory is railed.