: Turner's Water-Colours at Farnley Hall by Turner J M W Joseph Mallord William Artist Finberg A J Alexander Joseph - Turner J. M. W. (Joseph Mallord William) 1775-1851; Fawkes Walter Ramsden Hawksworth 1769-1825 Art collections

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

A Walk Round Westminster Abbey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

FACING PAGE

INTRODUCTION

With the last of the Tudors there is no doubt that the strong and living bond between the palace and the Abbey was slackened, although it has never been altogether snapped, nor will it be as long as the coronation of our sovereigns continues to take place in Westminster Abbey. Then and then only does the king resume all his ancient rights, the collegiate body is practically deposed, and people realise that their national church is really a royal peculiar. For while the kings came less and less to St. Edward's shrine, their subjects in ever-increasing numbers, like the pilgrims in olden times, were and are drawn hither as by a magnet, till Westminster has become the sanctuary of a nation, and is no longer the sepulchre of the seed royal. A plain English squire, one of that "happy breed of men" to whom his native land--"this little world, this precious stone set in a silver sea"--was dearer than the blood of kings, was destined to inaugurate a new epoch in the annals of the Abbey. To this man, Oliver Cromwell, it is that we owe the first conception of this church as a fitting burial-place for our national worthies. From the State obsequies of Admiral Blake, which were held here by Cromwell's command, has germinated the seed which has borne fruit in the public funerals and in the monuments, ordered and paid for by Parliament, of statesmen, soldiers and sailors. The nineteenth century has closed, and there is little space available in the Abbey for the worthies of the twentieth, but the national feeling still turns instinctively to Westminster on the death of a great man. For a long time past memorial services have been substituted for the grave or cenotaph, so lavishly granted to practically the first comer only a hundred years ago. Yet although the material fabric of this ancient foundation can no longer receive her sons within her bosom, her spirit is perhaps more alive than it has ever been since her altars were demolished and the images of her saints torn from their high places. No longer do the smoke of innumerable candles and the fumes of incense blacken and obscure her arches, but the spiritual breath of supplication and of thanksgiving still as of yore ascends to heaven from this ancient church, consecrated by the prayers of so many past generations. The old order has changed, and a Protestant form of worship has long taken the place of the florid mass; what further changes the future has in store no man can prophesy. But at present churchmen of all shades of religious feeling may worship in this church with no extreme ritual to disturb their minds, and at the same time with none of that irreverent and jarring carelessness in the ordering of the services which vexed the souls of many in the days long ago, before any of the present generation were born. On one festival in the year, the Translation of St. Edward the Confessor, the 13th of October, Roman Catholics return in ever-increasing numbers to the West Minster, which was once their own, and pilgrims may be seen kneeling round the shrine, offering their devotions to the saint. On this historic day the Abbey clergy, mindful also of the founder's memory, keep his feast at their own service in the choir, by a sermon preached in his honour, Protestants and Catholics thus uniting in a common homage to the memory of the sainted English king.

There are several points of view whence the group of buildings formed by the Abbey, St. Margaret's Church, Westminster Hall, and the Houses of Parliament, can be seen above the roofs of the houses, or without any intervening obstruction. The foreigner who arrives at Charing Cross first sees Westminster from the railway bridge, and gets another and a nearer aspect as he reaches the bottom of Whitehall. Now that passenger-steamers ply once again upon the river, many persons are familiar with the unrivalled water approach, but no longer does the wayfarer coming from the south or east hire a boat from the Lambeth side, and thus follow the traditional route taken by St. Peter, when he came to consecrate the original church on Thorneye. Although the Roman road, which led from north to south of England, and crossed the river here, is entirely lost sight of in London, the intending visitor will be well advised if he walk to the Abbey by the parks. From the bridge over the Serpentine he gets a distant view, and all the way, by Green Park and St. James's, there are glimpses of the Westminster Towers. At present, in the temporary absence of any building where the old aquarium used to be, he has but to cross Birdcage Walk, take the old Cockpit passage into Queen Anne's Gate, and from Dartmouth Street, just across the way, he will see a magnificent view of the Abbey Church with her small daughter, St Margaret, by her side. As he approaches nearer, down Tothill Street, the ugly Western Towers, which we owe in the first instance to Wren's incapacity to understand Gothic architecture, in the second to his successor Hawkesmore's want of taste in the execution, become too prominent.

GENERAL VIEW OF THE ABBEY FROM WHITEHALL

The traveller who approaches Westminster from this direction has a fine view of the whole extent of the Abbey from east to west. St. Margaret's Church, while it certainly somewhat hides the more ancient building, adds to the impression of size. The statues of statesmen on the green in front prepare the minds of those who enter the north transept by the triple doorway, which we have already seen in the frontispiece, for the galaxy of politicians within, and when we stand beneath the lantern we can realise the plan of the whole far better after this general view than we could if we had entered immediately by the west door at the farther end.

The exterior of the church has suffered much from the ravages of time and of smoke. Before entering, it is well to take a survey of the outside, and so prepare ourselves for a more exhaustive ramble round the interior.

THE WEST FRONT

At that time, with the approval of Dean Atterbury, the decaying tracery of the north rose window was completely destroyed and remodelled. The south had already been tampered with, and Wren anathematises the little Doric passage, which in Atterbury's time was patched on before the northern window, and the "cropping of the pyramids." In the first years of the eighteenth century Wren was himself Surveyor of the fabric, and, while he saved much of the stone-work from irretrievable ruin, fresh havoc called by the name of restoration was wrought under his directions and after his time by his successors. The decaying stone all round the nave and both transepts was in urgent need of repair, if not actually in ruins, and, probably in order to save trouble and expense, the small Early English pilasters supporting the window tracery were remorselessly cut off, and an acorn was substituted in every case. These pilasters have since been restored again under Mr. Pearson's supervision. As we walk along the green to the north front, we see the whole north side of the nave, but before leaving the west end we may note that repairs have recently been carried out, as one or two of the crockets were showing signs of immediate ruin, and even the eighteenth-century towers required new faces. The north fa?ade was completely restored and, in fact, practically rebuilt about twenty years ago: the portico from designs left by Sir Gilbert Scott, who was Surveyor of the fabric for some time, and the upper part by his successor, Mr. Pearson, who carried out the whole work. Both north and west fronts recall Wren, who remodelled the north and restored the west. Whether he or Hawkesmore was guilty of finally sweeping away the last vestiges of Richard the Second's northern entrance and such of the figures which still remained intact at the west end, we do not know. In any case, Crull, writing in 1713, says that a few of the statues of the twelve apostles which adorned Richard's portico were still in a fair state of preservation, as were many of the "benefactors" on the west, "all undeniable witnesses of their former excellency." It is impossible to enter into the history of the fabric fund and the many restorations of the Abbey. Enough for our present purpose to call attention to the fact that the soft stone is constantly corroding, and that frequent supervision is necessary. The saying that "the arch never sleeps" is only too true, and the Clerk of the Works has to keep a constant and vigilant eye over the church which he so dearly loves, ever ready to report any sign of change in stone-work or actual fabric to the Dean and to the architect.

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