Sir Christopher Wren Part 14

Pepys[117] says that in April 1667:--

'Moorefields have houses two stories high in them, and paved streets, the city having let leases for seven years, which will be very much to the hindering of the building of the city; but it was considered that the streets cannot be pa.s.sable in London till the whole street be built; and several that had got ground of the city for charity to build sheds on, had got the trick presently to sell that for 60_l._ which did not cost them 20_l._ to put up; and so the city being very poor in stock, thought it as good to do it themselves and therefore let leases for seven years of the ground in Moorefields.'

Thus Wren had by no means clear ground on which to work, and an opportunity was forfeited, which, _absit omen_, may never recur, of making London one of the beautiful cities of the world.

Important sanitary improvements were, however, made: the houses were not built of wood; the princ.i.p.al streets were less narrow; and, above all, the lingering contagion was burnt away. Nothing less would probably have availed; but the fire was a cleansing one, and left behind it this blessing, that though more than two hundred years have elapsed the plague has not, as yet, reappeared.

The Custom House of London was one of the first buildings to be restored, and Wren began it in 1668. It was a stately stone edifice, built in three sides of a square, with an open court in front. The same fate befell this building which had overtaken its predecessor; in 1719 it was burnt down.

[_FAITH COGHILL._]

Besides all these architectural and scientific cares, Wren had business of his own on hand, and was at this time engaged to be married to a lady four years younger than himself, whom probably he had known for some time. His bride was Faith, daughter of Sir Thomas Coghill and Elizabeth his wife, who lived at Bletchingdon in Oxfords.h.i.+re. Sir Thomas was sheriff of the county in 1633, and was knighted at Woodstock in that year, the same in which King Charles was crowned in Scotland. Sir Thomas was a grandson of Marmaduke Coghill,[118] of Coghill, Knaresborough. He married, in 1622, Elizabeth Sutton, the heiress of Horsell and some lands in Surrey. Faith, their daughter, was born on March 17, 1636, and baptized in the same month at Bletchingdon by her relation the Rev. John Viell, the then rector. It seems likely that Wren made her acquaintance while both were children when staying with his sister Susan and her husband, Dr. William Holder, at Bletchingdon Rectory. It may have been Faith who comforted him when, on June 3, 1656, they laid Dean Wren in the chancel of Bletchingdon Church.

One letter to Faith Coghill from her lover, exists among the curious autographs of the 'Parentalia,'[119] its delicate, finished and yet firm writing, eminently characteristic of Christopher Wren: it is as follows--

'Madam,--The artificer having never before mett with a drowned watch, like an ignorant physician has been soe long about the cure that he hath made me very unquiet that your commands should be soe long deferred; however, I have sent the watch at last and envie the felicity of it, that it should be soe neer your side, and soe often enjoy your Eye, and be consulted by you how your time shall pa.s.se while you employ your hand in your excellent workes. But have a care of it, for I put such a Spell into it that every Beating of the Ballance will tell you 'tis the pulse of my Heart which labours as much to serve you and more trewly than the watch; for the watch I believe will sometimes lie, and sometimes perhaps be idle and unwilling to goe, having received so much injury by being drenched in that briny bath, that I dispair it should ever be a trew servant to you more. But as for me (unlesse you drown me too in my teares) you may be confident I shall never cease to be,

'Your most affectionate humble servant, 'CHR. WREN.

'June 14.

'I have put the watch in a box that it might take noe harm, and wrapt it about with a little leather, and that it might not jog, I was fain to fill up the corners either with a few shavings or wast paper.'

On December 7, 1669, Christopher Wren and Faith Coghill were married in the Temple Church in London. Of their married life there is absolutely no record; they probably lived chiefly in London, as Wren had a house in Scotland Yard, which went with the office of Surveyor-General.

One of Wren's early works was the rebuilding, on a somewhat larger scale, of the Royal Exchange. 'Charles II. went to the Exchange with his kettle-drums and trumpets to lay the first stone of the new building of the Exchange on the 23rd of October 1667.'[120] Wren's own wish had been, as has been said, to make it the nave or centre of the town, in which case he meant to contrive it after the form of a Roman Forum with double porticoes. Thwarted in this, he restored it as much as possible to what it had previously been, replacing the statue of Sir Thomas Gresham, the only thing in the building uninjured by the Fire. It is curious that this restoration should have begun just a hundred years from the time when Queen Elizabeth was feasted by Sir Thomas Gresham at his house, visited the new building, and caused it to be proclaimed 'the Royal Exchange' by the sound of the trumpet.

The rebuilding was very quickly performed, though at considerable cost.[121] Readers of the _Spectator_[122] will remember Addison's fine description of the Exchange, and 'the grand scene of business which gave him an infinite variety of solid and substantial entertainments.'

[_TEMPLE BAR._]

Next came Temple Bar, which was begun in 1670, and finished in 1672. It was built of Portland stone, and had in its four niches statues of James I. and Anne of Denmark on the west side, Charles I. and Charles II. on the other.[123] Blackened and defiled as it was, and disfigured by the neighbouring houses, it was one of the picturesque, characteristic buildings of London, now disappearing with alarming rapidity, and had seen many a generation pa.s.s in triumph or in sorrow under its archway.

The thanksgiving for the Prince of Wales's recovery (1872) was the last historical spectacle with which Temple Bar was connected. On that occasion the City was moved to wipe off some of the smoke of two hundred years, and to let Temple Bar be seen somewhat as it must have been when the great architect finished it, as the entrance to a city which, in spite of all drawbacks, might be fairly called his creation.

Wren attempted to prosecute his design for the quay along the northern bank of the Thames, but the ground was being rapidly encroached upon by buildings, some few of which were tolerable, but the greater part unsightly. Various interests;--the immense water traffic, doubled, one can believe, at a time when the city streets were still impa.s.sable; the uncertain support given by the King--all combined to defeat his plan.

Could he now walk along that glorious achievement the Embankment, what would not his feelings be on seeing the hideous buildings which it has revealed!

The Surveyor-General's office was one which entailed endless work. There was not a street laid down, hardly a house built, in any part of the town, without the surveyor being first consulted;--now about 'a parcel of ground bought by Colonel Panton' (the present Panton Street, S.W.); now about the houses pulled down for the safety of Whitehall during the Fire.--Into every case Wren made careful inquiry, visiting the places himself, and insisting on the buildings being of stone or brick, with proper paving in the streets, and having a due regard to health.

In spite of his care several wretched buildings were put up in places which, as a few surviving names testify, were then fields near the City.

['_MEAN HABITATIONS._']

When Wren found that the owners persisted in erecting such shabby buildings he presented a pet.i.tion to the King, as follows:--

'To the King's Most Excellent Majesty. The humble pet.i.tion of Christopher Wren, sheweth. That there are divers buildings of late erected, and many foundations laid, and more contrived in Dog's Fields, Windmill Fields, and the fields adjoining to Soe Hoe,[124]

and several other places without the suburbs of London and Westminster; the builders whereof have no grant nor allowance from Your Majesty, and have therefore been prohibited and hindered by your pet.i.tioner as much as in him lieth. Yet, notwithstanding, they proceed to erect small and mean habitations which will prove only receptacles for the poorer sort, and the offensive trades, to the annoyance of the better inhabitants, the damage of the parishes already too much burthened with poor, the rendering the government of these parts more unmanageable, the great hindrance of perfecting the city buildings, and others allowed by Your Majesty's broad seal; the choking up the air of Your Majesty's palace and park, and the houses of the n.o.bility; the infecting or total loss of the waters which by many expenseful drains and conduits, have formerly been derived from these fields to Your Majesty's palace of Whitehall and to the mewes; the manifest decay of which waters (upon complaint of your serjeant plumber) the office of Your Majesty's works by frequent views and experiments have found.

'May it, therefore, please Your Majesty to issue a royal proclamation, to put stop to these growing inconveniences and to hinder the buildings which are not already or shall not be licensed by Your Majesty's grant; and effectually to empower your pet.i.tioner to restrain the same or otherways to consider of the premises as in Your Majesty's wisdom shall seem most expedient.

'And your Pet.i.tioner, &c.'

The pet.i.tion was considered by the King in council, a proclamation was issued, and full powers were given to the surveyor, backed by commands that he should take effectual care that the proclamation was obeyed.

This Wren was very ready to do: with all his gentleness and courtesy he had inherited much of Bishop Wren's firmness, and had no intention of swerving from his point.

The churches of the City began to rise gradually. Pepys says:[125]--

'It is observed, and is true, in the late fire of London, that the fire burned just as many parish churches as there were hours from the beginning to the end of the fire; and next that there were just as many churches left standing as there were taverns left standing in the rest of the City that was not burned, being, I think, thirteen in all of each: which is pretty to observe.'

There has been much dispute as to whether or not Wren repaired S.

Sepulchre's Church. Mr. Elmes and others declare that he repaired it in 1671, but Mr. Hoby, one of its churchwardens, who made a careful study of all the parchments and papers belonging to S. Sepulchre's, gives it as his deliberate opinion that--

'The church was not destroyed, but very much injured, by the Fire of London, in 1666. The inhabitants would not wait until Sir C.

Wren could attend to them, but repaired their own church, and did it so badly that a long time elapsed before he would grant the certificate necessary to enable them to obtain the money from the commissioners.'[126]

As has been said, such unauthorised building and patching took place pretty frequently, and all that recent researches have brought to light goes to prove that Wren had very little to do with S. Sepulchre's.

[_S. MARY LE BOW._]

S. Mary le Bow, with its proverbial bells,[127] was begun in this year and finished five years later, on a very old foundation. The first S.

Mary's was built by William the Conqueror,[128] on marshy land, and stood upon arches of stone, whence the church took the name of S. Maria de Arcubus or le Bow. The 'great bell of Bow' was, in 1469, ordered by the common council to be rung at nine o'clock every evening, and money was left for this object; when the church was burnt in the Great Fire it had twelve very melodious bells hung in its steeple. When Sir Christopher came to rebuild the church he found an older foundation to work upon than even that in 1100. In clearing the ground he came upon a foundation firm enough to build upon, which on examination proved to be the 'walls, with windows and pavement, of a Roman temple.' Upon these walls he built the body of the church, but for its beautiful steeple it was necessary to buy the site of an old house and to advance about forty feet to the line of the street. Here the workmen dug through about eighteen feet of made earth, and then, to Wren's surprise and their own, came to a Roman causeway of rough stone firmly cemented, about four feet thick, underneath which lay the London clay.

With this foundation Wren was content and built up what has ever ranked as one of his finest churches. A good judge of architecture has p.r.o.nounced that the steeple is 'beyond all doubt the most elegant building of its cla.s.s erected since the Reformation ... there is a play of light and shade, a variety of outline, and an elegance of detail, which it would be very difficult to match in any other steeple.'[129]

The Arches Court of Canterbury derived its name from this church, where, until the fire, its sittings were held. The court then sat at Exeter House in the Strand, then at Doctors' Commons, and finally in Westminster Hall.

The vane which completes the spire is the City dragon, with a cross on either wing, curiously chased in gilt copper.

The ancient Church of S. Christopher le Stocks in Threadneedle Street suffered severely in the Fire, only the mere sh.e.l.l of the building remaining; it had been made a storehouse for a quant.i.ty of papers hastily rescued from some merchant's office and placed in S.

Christopher's, where they perished and greatly damaged the church. It had been lately repaired and was endowed with 20_l._ in trust 'for a minister to read divine service there daily at 6 o'clock in the morning for ever. 50_s._ each yearly to the clerk and the s.e.xton for their attendance, and 5_l._ yearly to provide for lights in winter time.' In 1671, Wren finished the repairs of the church, carefully preserving its pinnacled Gothic tower; in 1696 he further adorned the interior. It is curious that the first church which came under Wren's hands should have been one dedicated to his patron saint; curious also that this should have been the first of the churches destroyed by those who should have been their guardians. S. Christopher's was literally sacrificed to Mammon; it was destroyed for the enlargement of the Bank of England in 1781.

[_JOINS THE ARTILLERY COMPANY._]

In 1669 Wren appears in a new character as a member of the Honourable Artillery Company. He was admitted at their festival on August 17, when the company marched in state to a church in Broad Street, probably one of the many temporary ones put up after the Fire, and rewarded Dr.

Waterhouse for his sermon with three of the newly-coined guinea pieces.

A great banquet in the Clothworkers' Hall in Mincing Lane, where the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, the Archbishop of Canterbury and many other distinguished persons were present, concluded the festival.[130] It is hardly conceivable that Wren could have found time to be more than an honorary member, but scattered notices here and there of observations made when 'firing off my piece' seem to point to his having attended the drills of the company.

One wishes there was a portrait extant of Sir Christopher in his uniform, wearing the red-plumed high hat which appeared on gala days!

In 1673 Wren resigned the Savilian astronomy professors.h.i.+p, to which the pressure of his architectural work made it impossible he should any longer attend. No doubt it was with great regret that he gave up the post, with all its curious speculations, its boundless possibilities of discovery, and turned himself from the study of the heavens to the dust and turmoil, the endless difficulties and petty quarrels, which thwarted him at every step of his London labours.

In truth, the pressure of business was enormous. Not a moment could be spared while the population of the City had neither churches, places of traffic, nor houses to dwell in; and the architect, whose plan had been marred, had to do the best he could in the midst of every kind of incongruity.

The futile attempts to patch up S. Paul's were in 1673 at last abandoned, and Wren ordered the ground to be cleared that new foundations might be laid. A great ma.s.s of material for building had had to be disposed of while the repairs were going on.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London, Winchester, and Oxford, and the Lord Mayor, were commissioners for the repair of S.

Paul's; from them Wren obtained an order that--