The west front was not built till about one hundred and fifty years
after Richard II. had added a porch to the north transept, and thus
completed the thirteenth-century façade. The inside of the nave had
been slowly growing all this time, and early in the reign of Henry VII.
the vaultings were at last finished, and the exterior carried up as
high as the basement of the towers, under the supervision of two
successive abbots, Esteney and Islip. We scarcely see the upper part
of the towers in the illustration, but we can well dispense with them,
for they were added under the auspices of Wren and his followers in the
eighteenth century, and are by no means a success. Owing to the
crumbling state of the stone used for the fabric in former days, this
façade and the towers themselves have recently been refaced, and the
pinnacles strengthened. To the right of the picture are the windows of
the Jerusalem Chamber, in which room Henry IV. died. To the left,
appear St. Margaret's Church and a portion of the north transept,
whilst in front is a monument erected to the memory of those "Old
Westminsters" who were killed in the Crimean War.
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Like the timbers of Nelson's old ship the _Victory_, the surface of the
stone, often the very stones themselves have been completely renewed
since monastic times. The whole church has been frequently restored,
but the exterior has suffered from the vagaries of architects, who
found less scope for their own ideas inside the building, where the
original stone-work was in better preservation. Much of the damage was
due also to neglect, for after the dispersal of the monks, most of whom
were themselves capable of superintending the repairs, {13} the lesser
brethren, in fact, working on the building with their own hands, a long
period went by during which neither the authorities of the Church nor
of the State took note of the decaying stone-work. At last, in the
time of Charles I., Dean Williams--afterwards Archbishop of York--took
Abbot Islip as his pattern, and spent much of his own private income,
since there were no funds available, in repairing the most ruinous
parts of the church, notably the north-west, the west end, and the
south-east chapels. He also remodelled the monks' dormitory, which he
made into a library. So ungrateful was the public for these benefits
that the Dean was accused of paying for this necessary work "out of the
diet and bellies of the Prebendaries," but he was completely exonerated
by a chapter order in 1628, indignantly denying the truth of "this
unjust report." Williams's own disgrace and then the long interregnum
put a stop to these benefactions, and the ruin continued unchecked for
the next score or more of years. Dolben, an energetic man who had
fought for his king during the Civil War, was made Dean soon after the
Restoration, and on the very day of his installation the first fabric
fund was instituted out of the Abbey revenues, a very inadequate sum,
as it proved, for the {14} expenses. With this money, however, Dolben
was able to repair the roof and vaulting, then in danger of falling;
and later, in the seventeenth century, the fund was augmented by a
Parliamentary grant.
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 {15} 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
façade 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
{16} 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.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The Chapter House and East End of Henry VII.'s Chapel]
* * * *