Cathedral Cities of England

by George Gilbert

The chief event which took place within its walls was the first great Ecclesiastical Council of the English Church under the presidency of Archbishop Lanfranc. Twelve years afterwards, in 1087, a great conflagration completely destroyed the church. No time was lost, for apparently in the same year building operations were put in hand for what many writers call Old St. Paul's, the second church. By this time we may take it that architecture in England had advanced considerably, and if anything it was a rather fortunate accident that overtook Ethelbert's building. The nation had by now realised that 1000 A.D. was the dreaded millennium of the past; they recognised they had a stern master in William the Conqueror, who, though he might be harsh upon them, would allow no one else to be so. For some years prior to the millennium few buildings of any importance were erected, so thoroughly had the mind been terrorised at the prospect of the world coming to an end, and even after it had proved false, the reaction does not seem to have taken place till the accession of the Norman. When it did occur, we see by examples now extant what a great advance architecture had made, or rather, the knowledge of stone-work had become more general. This can only be attributed to the monks and stonemasons who followed in the wake of the Conquest. The plan of the Norman church of St. Paul's was the Latin cross. The body of it appears to have been narrower and considerably longer than Wren's cathedral. In fact we are much indebted to the numerous discoveries of Mr. Penrose, and we learn that the west front came right to the fore of Queen Anne's statue, which then did not exist. Another great difference was that the axis of Old St. Paul's, as one faces the west front, was more to the left of the statue, whereas that of the present building runs right through the centre of it. At the outset the Cathedral consisted of a nave of twelve bays, transepts, and a short apsidal choir built in the round arched style peculiar to Norman architecture. The whole then stood within spacious precincts enclosed by a continuous wall. In the wall were six gates. The principal one opened in the west on to Ludgate Hill, whilst the second, at St. Paul's Alley, led to "Little North Dore"; the third, at Canon's Alley, showed the way to the north transept door; the fourth was called Little Gate, and led from Cheapside to Paul's Cross (where now stands a fountain); the fifth, St. Augustine's Gate, faced Watling Street; and the sixth was the entrance from the side of the river to the south transept. A matter of 130 years later, it was decided to extend eastwards from the choir and introduce the newly developed style, which was the use of the pointed arch. The new work, consisting of eight bays, was carried out, but it caused the demolition of the old parish church of St. Faith, which lay right in the course. As some compensation the parishioners were allowed to use a portion of the crypt under the new choir as their parish church. After the Great Fire much controversy arose. The parishioners of St. Faith's claimed their right to bury their dead in the whole space beneath the choir of Wren's cathedral. This the Chapter disallowing, a lawsuit ensued, which resulted in a compromise, the parishioners being satisfied with rights of burial in the north aisle of the crypt. The "new work" was solemnly dedicated in 1240. In the meantime a spire, 489 feet in height, was put in hand and was finally completed in 1315. The spire of Old St. Paul's proved to be a great source of anxiety. It was struck by lightning three times, and eventually was completely destroyed by fire, from a fourth lightning in the reign of Elizabeth, in 1561. It was never put up again. Right in the angle of the south transept and the nave existed a fair-sized Chapter House, which appears to have had cloisters, the remains of which can still be seen in the gardens on the south side of the nave, whilst on the north side of the choir the position of Paul's Cross is defined by the insertion of stones let into the ground. Paul's Cross, which by order of Parliament was demolished in 1643, was a pulpit of wood, mounted upon steps of stone, and covered with lead. At this place, the Court, the Mayor, the Aldermen, and the chief citizens used to assemble to listen to sermons from the most eminent divines, who were appointed to preach every Sunday in the forenoon. It was used as early as 1259, and not only were sermons delivered from it, but also political and ecclesiastical discourses were held.

Old St. Paul's, by the time of Charles I., got into such a terrible state of dilapidation that steps were taken to put it into thorough repair. A fund was established and the work was intrusted to Inigo Jones. He got as far as the refacing of the Cathedral inside and out, and the adding of a classical portico, when his labours were interrupted by the Commonwealth. The famous architect died before the Restoration. In the meantime Cromwell's troops did considerable damage, what with stabling their horses within the sacred edifice and employing their leisure time in defacing the building. They removed and sold the scaffolding, which Inigo Jones had set up for the purpose of restoring the vaulting, and in consequence much of the roof-work fell down. At the Restoration, Dr. Wren, as he was then called, was appointed Assistant-Surveyor-General of his Majesty's Works, and instructed to repair the fabric. However, on September 2, 1666, the Great Fire of London broke out and completely destroyed Old St. Paul's. Instead of carrying out his scheme of restoration, Wren was afterwards enabled to leave to posterity this masterpiece of genius that took him from the year 1675 till the year 1710 to realise.

How is one to describe London, the capital of the British Empire, and the largest city in the world? The subject-matter would take volumes, if an exhaustive treatise be required. Here it necessarily can only be a slight sketch. If we are to put any reliance on Geoffrey of Monmouth, a city existed here 1107 years before Christ was born, and 354 even before Rome came into existence. The founder, he asserts, was Brute, a lineal descendant of the Trojan Æneas, by whom the city was called New Troy, or Troy-novant, till the advent of Lud, who changed it to Cœr Lud or Lud-town, and encompassed it with walls. Though the king's name is made evident in Ludgate Hill, which runs up to St. Paul's west front, this author's statements are considered as pleasing fictions by serious-minded authorities. Again, it is said to have been the capital of the Trinobantes in 54 B.C. With the arrival of the Romans we get more definite information, yet we are inclined to think that they must have found some kind of a British settlement, the more especially if we bear in mind that, until the Romans came, the mouth of the Thames was close at hand. The Thames of to-day was not the Thames of that time. It was very much shallower, possibly quite easy to ford at low tide. This was caused by the great inundation over large tracts of the counties of Kent and Essex, which took place every time it became high tide.

Till the Romans set the example of reclaiming the land and confining the river to its channel, a great volume of water had thus expended itself and reduced the depth considerably. But to the early Britons, where the higher level of land checked and brought back the wandering Thames, to continue its upward course within its proper confinement, must have appeared the mouth. In their belief that such was the case it is only natural to suppose that the Britons would take advantage of such an excellent site. A clearing was gradually made, for London was well wooded once, on the highest ground, which would be somewhere from the site of St. Paul's to as far as the Bank of England, and a temple was erected within some groves. To the Romans in 61 A.D. it was known as Londinium or Colonia Augusta, the former, no doubt, being a Latinised form of Lyn-Din, meaning "the town on the lake." Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, in the same year is credited with having reduced it to ashes, and to have put 70,000 Romans and strangers to the sword. This wholesale slaughter was punished, in the same year, by Suetonius, who retaliated by a massacre of 80,000 Britons, a defeat that so preyed upon Boadicea that she promptly poisoned herself. Tacitus, the Roman historian, who lived about 90 years after Christ, relates how Suetonius felt constrained to abandon London, "that place of busy traffic and thronged with traders," to the British, because he did not feel equal to the task of defending it. This is surely a proof that London was no mushroom city, though Tacitus makes no mention of a mint, as he does when he describes Verulamium and Camulodum. There also appears to have been another British settlement on the south bank, now known as Southwark. This district, by the way, has just within the last few days been erected into a see with the cathedral, or throne, installed in its fine old church of St. Saviour. This is where Gower, the father of English poets, is interred, and is honoured with a quaint coloured monument principally of carved wood, and the holy precincts also contain the remains of Shakespeare's brother. Southwark is the Londinium attributed to Ptolemy's description as being on the south bank of the Thames, though it does not discredit the existence of that on the north. As to the actual size and exact site of early London, it will be many years before that can be accurately determined. As old buildings are pulled down and excavations are made for foundations, speculation becomes much narrowed. The discoveries by Wren, and recently by Mr. Arthur Taylor, the late Mr. H. Black, Mr. Roach-Smith and Mr. J. E. Price, one of our greatest authorities, have thrown much light on early London. It has been found that cemeteries once existed in Cheapside, on the site of St. Paul's, close to Newgate and elsewhere, which are known to date from the Later Roman period. On the assumption that it was an illegal Roman practice to bury the dead within the city walls, it follows they must have been outside, thus limiting the habitable area.

As to when and where the first bridge spanned the Thames are points difficult to decide. Sir George Airy supposes that the bridge mentioned by Dion Cassius (43 A.D.) at the mouth of the Thames was not far from the site of London Bridge, on the inference that the mouth of the Thames of early times was close to this site. Dr. Guest, on the other hand, recognises it as a bridge made by the Britons, but places it as being constructed over the marshy valley of the Lea, near Stratford, his theory being that the Britons would have been unable to bridge over a tidal river like the Thames with the width of three hundred yards, and a difference of nearly twenty feet in the rise and fall of the water. From remains found of ancient piles in the river-bed, and the great number of Roman coins, a well-known practice observed by this Latin race to commemorate any important undertaking, antiquarians seem to agree that there was a Roman bridge in the Anno Domini period of their occupation, and that indications point to its location at London Bridge. In their time London was a port of considerable importance. As many as eight hundred vessels are said to have been employed in exporting corn alone in the year 359, which shows that agriculture was in full swing. With the departure of the Romans in 409 the city became the capital of the Saxon kingdom of Essex, and was called Lundenceaster. Subsequent events of importance are those that occurred under the dynasties of the Norman (1066-1154), the Plantagenet (1154-1485), the Tudor (1485-1603), the Stuart (1603-1714), interrupted in the midst by Cromwell's Protectorate, and finally the Hanoverian succession, which brings us down to this year of grace, with Edward VII., King of Great Britain and Ireland, Emperor of India, and monarch of the greatest and most prosperous empire. To attempt to give a detailed account of all that happened under the successive heads of the State is clearly impossible. Two events, however, stand out prominently. One was the Great Plague of London that commenced in December 1664, and carried off a matter of ninety thousand victims. The horrors of this pestilence are graphically described in the Diary of Samuel Pepys, who was an eye-witness. Daniel Defoe, though writing some years after, has given us a wonderfully realistic account in his "History of the Plague." Fires were kept up night and day, to purify the air, for three days. No sooner did the infection come to an end than the great conflagration of September 2, 1666, broke out. It began at one o'clock in the morning in a baker's shop in Pudding Lane, behind Monument Yard. It spread from the Tower to the Temple Church of the Middle Temple in Fleet Street, and away to Holborn. In the short space of four days it destroyed eighty-nine churches (including St. Paul's), the city gates, the Royal Exchange, the Custom House, Guildhall, Sion College, and many other public buildings, besides some fourteen thousand houses and the ruin of four hundred streets. The Monument, built by Wren in 1671-1672, commemorates the origin of the fire, 202 feet from its base.

It is only within recent years that London—by which is meant London in its broadest sense; that is, including the city and excluding the suburbs—has been divided into a number of townships. It is now no longer correct to call Marylebone, Paddington, and many other such, "parishes." They are all boroughs, and possess a mayor and corporation of their own, each with a townhall to support the dignity. They have a certain amount to say in local affairs, the more important being under the control of the London County Council, who in turn hold themselves responsible to Parliament.

The jurisdiction of the Lord Mayor of London proper is confined within certain limits, as defined by an irregular line of boundary commencing from the Tower, northward through the Minories, past Aldgate, behind Liverpool Street Station, working round to Holborn, across Chancery Lane, to end at Middle Temple. His career is generally marked by an apprenticeship of seven years' duration to some city guild, such as the Mercers', the Grocers', Merchant Tailors', Vintners', Armourers and Braziers', and some seventy others. At the end of this period he obtains, on the payment of a certain fee and a glance at a series of Hogarth's "Progress of the Rake" at the Guildhall, the freedom of the Ancient City of London. As a vacancy occurs in his company he fills it as a "Liveryman." After these initial stages he is open to become a Master of the said company, and becomes eligible for alderman, sheriff, and Lord Mayor. The candidate's ambition, however, is tempered according to his means; for to worthily fill the office of the first magistrate he must be prepared to be considerably out of pocket, though the loss is generally compensated by a knighthood, and on special occasions by a baronetcy. Though he may be entirely devoid of any legal training, the Lord Mayor during his tenure of office, or the aldermen, are always present on the bench at the Central Criminal Court, which sits at the Old Bailey. This court was created in 1834 to bring under one jurisdiction the criminal cases that are supplied by the immense population around the city. Opposite the Mansion House, the official residence of the Lord Mayor, is the Bank of England. The Royal Mint faces the Tower of London, and was constituted as now about 1617, whilst the buildings date about 1810. The first known Warder or Master was in the reign of Henry I., the wardership becoming extinct with Lord Maryborough (1814—23), and the last Master was Professor Thomas Graham, who died in 1869. By the Coinage Act in the following year the Master of the Mint, who as such had existed up till then, was abolished, and the post was combined with that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. On the other side of the road is the famous Tower of London, the White Tower or central keep of which was built in 1078 by Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester, in obedience to the command of William the Conqueror. By the side of this historic pile is the Tower Bridge, the marvellous engineering feat of Sir Horace Jones and Sir J. Wolfe Barry. It opens upwards in the centre to allow the shipping to pass through. Right away towards the east are the great docks, the principal of which are the London Docks and the East India Docks.

Passing west of the city are the great Law Courts in the Strand, designed by Streeter.

Behind them is Lincoln's Inn, and in front across Fleet Street, is the Temple. Gray's Inn is in Holborn, as well as Staple Inn, with the picturesque old-fashioned frontage, once the prevailing style of London's domestic architecture. Smaller Inns are Clifford's Inn, threatened with demolition, with Old Serjeant's Inn adjoining, while Serjeant's Inn is on the other side of Fleet Street, nearer to Ludgate Circus, and not far from the Temple.

In Trafalgar Square a priceless collection of old masters' paintings are housed in the National Gallery, once the premises of the Royal Academy of Arts, who moved to Burlington House, Piccadilly.