With the energy which his sixty-seven years had not checked, he examined the grand building where he had worshipped as a schoolboy, and instantly ordered some of the most needful repairs.
In 1713 he sent in a statement to Dr. Atterbury, who was both Bishop of Rochester and Dean of Westminster, having in that year succeeded to Wren’s old friend, Bishop Sprat: from this paper, though it is anticipating the date, some extracts are here given.
‘When I had the Honour to attend your Lordship, to congratulate your Episcopal Dignity, and pay that Respect which particularly concerned myself as employed in the chief Direction of the Works and Repairs of the Collegiate-Church of S. Peter in Westminster, you was pleased to give me this seasonable admonition, that I should consider my advanced Age; and as I had already made fair steps in the Reparation of that ancient and ruinous Structure, you thought it very requisite for the publick Service, I should leave a Memorial of what I had done, and what my Thoughts were for carrying on the Works for the future.’ Then follows the history of the building of the abbey up to the reign of Henry III., who rebuilt it ‘according to the Mode which came into Fashion after the Holy War.
‘This we now call the Gothick manner of Architecture (so the Italians called what was not after the Roman style), tho’ the Goths were rather Destroyers than Builders; I think it should with more Reason be called the Saracen Style; for those People wanted neither Arts nor Learning, and after we in the West had lost both, we borrowed again from them, out of their Arabick Books, what they with great Diligence had translated from the Greeks.... They built their Mosques round, disliking the Christian form of a Cross: the old quarries whence the Ancients took their large blocks of marble for whole Columns and Architraves were neglected, for they thought both impertinent. Their carriage was by camels, therefore their Buildings were fitted for small stones, and Columns of their own fancy consisting of many pieces, and their Arches were pointed without key-stones which they thought too heavy. The Reasons were the same in our Northern Climates abounding in free stone, but wanting marble.... The Saracen mode of building seen in the East, soon spread over Europe and particularly in France, the Fashions of which nation we affected to imitate in all ages, even when we were at enmity with it.’...
Wren laments over the mixture of oak with the less-enduring chestnut wood in the roof of the Abbey, and the use of Rygate stone which absorbed water, and in a frost scaled off. He says he cut all the ragged ashlar work of Rygate stone out of the east window, replacing it with durable Burford stone, and secured all the buttresses on the south side. The north side of the Abbey is so choked up by buildings, and so shaken in parts by vaults rashly dug close to its buttresses, that he can do little.
‘I have yet said nothing of King Henry VIIth’s Chapel, a nice embroidered Work and performed with tender Caen stone, and though lately built in comparison, is so eaten up by our Weather, that it begs for some compassion, which I hope the Sovereign Power will take as it is the Regal Sepulture.’
THE ORIGINAL INTENTION.
The most necessary outward repairs of stone-work, he says, are one-third part done; the north front, and the great Rose Window there are very ruinous; he has prepared a proper design for them. Having summed up the repairs still essential for the security of the building, he proceeds to state what are, in his judgment, the parts of the original design for the Abbey still unfinished.
‘The original intention was plainly to have had a Steeple, the Beginnings of which appear on the corners of the Cross, but left off before it rose so high as the Ridge of the Roof, and the Vault of the Quire under it, is only Lath and Plaister, now rotten and must be taken care of.