Wren set instantly to work, and in August 1682 the foundations were being laid; the whole building was not completed until William and Mary’s reign; but during all that time Wren’s energy and care never flagged, but were extended even to the minutiæ of the regulations, all of which he drew up, for the health, comfort, and economy of the building. As architecture the building has been severely criticised; but when the worst is said, it still remains picturesque, cheerful and spacious, and a beautiful object as seen from the Thames.
The Royal Society continued its meetings at Gresham College, which it did not quit until, in 1710, the members purchased a house in Crane Court, which has only very lately been pulled down. The next year saw many of Wren’s churches finished.
All Hallows the Great, in Thames Street, a plain brick and stone edifice with a strong square tower, was then completed: it, like by far the greater number of the City churches, had been repaired and beautified under the vigorous rule of Laud while Bishop of London. Thomas White, who came into the living a few months only before the Fire, was afterwards as Bishop of Peterborough one of the famous ‘Seven Bishops.’ At the time when Wren rebuilt the church the living was held by the learned church historian, Dr. William Cave.[183]
S. Mildred’s, Bread Street, is another church belonging to this date. It is so hidden by the tall warehouses that have sprung up round it that it is but little known; but its red brick tower, tall spire, and, above all, its most light and graceful dome, are all after Wren’s best manner. The destruction of this beautiful little church has actually been threatened, but it has been ably defended, and it is to be hoped it will not add another name to the black list of desecrated City churches.
S. JAMES’S, WESTMINSTER.
A third church belonging to this year is S. James’s, Westminster, then called ‘in the fields,’ from the large parish of S. Martin’s, out of which it was taken. It was built principally at the expense of Henry Jermyn, Earl of S. Albans, Wren’s Paris friend, who gave his name to Jermyn Street, where the church stands.
The proportions of S. James’s and the technical skill displayed in building it, especially the construction of the roof, have been always admired. Wren, who was allowed but a moderate sum to expend upon it, was proud of having combined beauty with ‘the cheapest of any form I could invent.’[184] When the church was newly done, with its bricks red instead of darkly grimed with smoke, with the handsome pillared entrance to the south aisle, a flight of steps leading up to it, which have vanished, leaving only as a mark the closed iron gates in the railings, without the strange excrescence that now does duty as a porch—its exterior must have been far more attractive than it is now; the little pinched steeple[185] is said, as indeed one would imagine, to be no building of Wren’s. Within, Evelyn[186] gives us his description of the effect.
‘I went to see the new church at S. James’s elegantly built; the altar was especially adorned, the white marble inclosure curiously and richly carved, the flowers and garlands about the walls by Mr. Gibbons in wood; a pelican with her young at her breast, just over the altar in the carved compartment and border, invironing the purple velvet fringed with I.H.S. richly embroidered, and most noble plate were given by Sir R. Geere to the value (as was said) of 200l. There was no altar anywhere in England nor has there been abroad more handsomely adorned.’
The font, now well placed in a baptistery beneath the tower, is one of Gibbons’ few works in marble. It represents Adam and Eve, two detached statuettes standing on either side of the Tree of Knowledge, the branches of which support a bowl whereon are finely cut in low relief the Ark of Noah, and the baptism of the Ethiopian Eunuch. With all this, and without the high, stiff indevout pews which now disfigure the church—pews that Sir Christopher did not put there, and to the presence of which in any of his churches he always strongly objected, it must have been a decidedly handsome edifice. The organ, built by Renatus Harris, was made for James II.’s timber chapel at the camp on Hounslow Heath; after the King’s flight Wren obtained the organ from Queen Mary for S. James’s Church.
S. BENNET, PAUL’S WHARF.