Great as was the pressure of Wren’s London work, he did not confine himself to that city alone, but in 1677, we find him at Cambridge, busied with buildings there. The beautiful chapel of Emmanuel College, which still stands unaltered as he left it, was Sir Christopher’s work in that year. More than thirty years before, Bishop Wren, when Bishop of Ely, had instanced amongst the irregularities to be amended at Cambridge the absence of a chapel at Emmanuel College,[157] and it well became his nephew to supply this lack. Sancroft had first set the plan on foot, and when he was removed in 1665 to S. Paul’s—a removal so costly that, little knowing, he consoled himself by thinking the next would be to his grave—his successor, Dr. Breton, continued his work.
A picturesque cloister runs north and south across the façade built of stone instead of the brick with stone dressing as Wren at first intended; within the chapel the rich stucco ceiling, the pannelling and wood carving, the tall columns which support a pediment behind the altar, as well as the bold metal scroll-work of the altar rails, all show Wren’s hand and eye. In the manuscript list of Wren’s architectural works in the ‘Parentalia’ the Chapel of Queen’s College at Oxford is assigned to him as built at about this time; but it does not appear in the more accurate printed list, and is not generally reckoned amongst his works.
The Observatory at Greenwich, known by the name of Flamsteed House, was being completed. It was built at the suggestion of Sir Jonas Moor, the Surveyor-General of the Ordnance, for the purpose of ascertaining the motions of the moon and the places of the fixed stars, in order, if possible, to discover accurately the longitude at sea.[158] Wren, confessedly one of the best astronomers in England, was on the commission for building the Observatory, and was its architect. Greenwich was chosen as the site at his suggestion; the King, who took a great interest in the project, allowed 500l. towards it, and Sir Christopher used in the work some spare wood, iron, and lead from the Tower Gatehouse, and the bricks taken from Tilbury, the fort built by Elizabeth to repel the Spanish Armada.
The Observatory was begun in June, 1675, and roofed in at the Christmas of the same year, and Flamsteed shortly afterwards installed there.
A COLLECTION OF ‘RARITIES.’
The Museum at Oxford, known as the Ashmolean, was Sir Christopher’s work in 1677. It contained a collection of objects of natural history which was then reckoned a very good one: it had been collected by John Tradescant, and bequeathed by him to Mr. Elias Ashmole, the historian of the Order of the Garter, who made the whole over to the University, endowing a lecture upon them.
The collection contained several curious specimens of Roman, Indian, and other weapons, some clothing made of feathers; among other ‘rarities,’ a ‘toad included in amber,’ and a ‘habit of feathers from the Phœnix wing as tradition goes.’[159] Ashmole was of the Royal Society and a student of astrology.
In the November of this year, Sir Christopher’s only daughter Jane was born, and was baptized at S. Martin’s, probably by the Rev. William Lloyd, then the vicar, who bore the high character of ‘an excellent preacher, a man of great integrity and piety, one who thoroughly understood all the parts of his function and had a mind fully bent to put them in execution.’ Wren’s fourth and youngest child was born in June, 1679, and baptized, also at S. Martin’s, by the name of William. Sir Christopher’s good friend Evelyn was one godfather, the other was Sir William Fermor, the head of an old Cavalier family of Northamptonshire, whose father, all but ruined in the civil wars, survived to attend as one of the Knights of the Bath at Charles II.’s coronation. Sir William, who was by his mother’s side first cousin to Lady Wren, was a friend of Evelyn’s, whose tastes he shared. He was created Lord Lempster[160] by William and Mary. The other sponsor was Lady Newport, daughter of the Earl of Bedford, and wife of the Lord Treasurer, Lord Newport, who, greatly distinguished by his loyalty and his suffering in the Civil War, was made Comptroller of the Household, and in 1672 Lord Treasurer, an office which he held under the two succeeding monarchs.[161] Lord Newport was a friend both of Wren and of Evelyn, and entertained them, Prince Rupert, and others at his house, where he had a fine collection of pictures.