Transcriber’s Note: italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold
text by =equals signs=.
LEADWORK
“_That which gives to the leadwork of the Middle Ages a particular
charm is that the means they employed and the forms they adopted
are exactly appropriate to the material. Like Carpentry or Cabinet
work, Plumbing was an art apart which borrowed neither from stone
nor wood in its design. Mediæval lead was wrought like colossal
goldsmith’s work._”--VIOLLET-LE-DUC.
LEADWORK
OLD AND ORNAMENTAL
AND FOR THE MOST PART
ENGLISH. BY W. R. LETHABY
WITH ILLVSTRATIONS
[Illustration]
1893
Macmillan & Co., London & New York.
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED
LONDON AND BUNGAY.
CONTENTS
SECT. PAGE
I. OF MATERIAL AND CRAFTSMANSHIP 1
II. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 5
III. OF LEAD COVERINGS TO BUILDINGS 17
IV. OF LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS 20
V. OF DOMES 33
VI. OF ROOFS 36
VII. OF LEAD COFFINS 40
VIII. OF FONTS 51
IX. OF INSCRIPTIONS, ETC. 65
X. OF THE DECORATION OF LEAD 72
XI. OF LEAD ORNAMENTATION OF OTHER MATERIALS 80
XII. OF DECORATIVE OBJECTS 84
XIII. OF LEAD GLAZING 87
XIV. OF LEAD STATUES 90
XV. OF LEAD FOUNTAINS 112
XVI. OF VASES AND GATE PIERS 114
XVII. OF FINIALS AND CRESTINGS 124
XVIII. OF CISTERNS, ETC. 131
XIX. OF GUTTERS 137
XX. OF PIPES AND PIPE HEADS 139
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
1. EGYPTIAN INSCRIBED TABLET 7
2. GREEK QUIVER 8
3. BUILDER’S PLUMMET 9
4, 5. GREEK WEIGHTS 10
6, 7. GREEK WEIGHTS 11
8, 9. CISTS FROM THE KIRCHERIAN MUSEUM 12
10. ROMAN JEWELLED CUP 14
11. SPIRE, BARNSTAPLE 26
12. ANOTHER SPIRE 27
13. TURRET, BARNARD’S INN HALL 29
14. CALAIS BELFRY 32
15. ORNAMENTS FROM COFFINS, CONSTANTINOPLE 41
16, 17. CISTS, BRITISH MUSEUM 42
18, 19. ROMAN COFFINS, BRITISH MUSEUM 44
20. ROMAN COFFIN, BRITISH MUSEUM 45
21. THIRTEENTH CENTURY COFFIN, TEMPLE CHURCH 46
22, 23. THIRTEENTH CENTURY COFFINS, TEMPLE CHURCH 47
24. COFFIN, WINCHESTER 48
25. AT MOISSAC 49
26. VESSEL, LEWES MUSEUM 52
27. FONT, BROOKLAND, KENT 54
28. FONT, BROOKLAND 55
29. FONT, EDBURTON, SUSSEX 57
30. FONT, WALTON, SURREY 59
31. FONT, PARHAM, SUSSEX 61
32. HEART BOX OF KING RICHARD 67
33. INSCRIBED CROSS 68
34. ARMS FROM BOURGES 70
35. INCISED DECORATION, BOURGES 75
36. PAINTED DECORATION, BOURGES 76
37. FLASHINGS, BOURGES 77
38. A VALANCE 78
39, 40. LEAD GLAZING 88
41. VENTILATING QUARRY 89
42. STATUE OF MERCURY 98
43. SUN-DIAL, TEMPLE GARDENS 100
44. CYMBAL PLAYER 106
45. TERMINAL AT CASTLE HILL 107
46. TIME, TEMPLE DINSLEY 108
47. VASE, HAMPTON COURT 115
48. FROM VASE, HAMPTON COURT 116
49. VASE, CASTLE HILL 117
50. ALBERT GATE 118
51. ALBERT GATE 119
52. VASE, KNOLE 120
53. CUPID, TEMPLE DINSLEY 121
54. SPHINX, SYON HOUSE 122
55. SYON HOUSE 123
56. FINIAL AT LILLE 126
57. FINIAL AT ANGERS 126
58. ANGERS 128
59. FINIALS, BOURGES 129
60. FROM NEWCASTLE 130
61. POUNDISFORD PARK, TAUNTON 132
62. CISTERN, EXETER 133
63. CISTERN, LONDON 134
64. CISTERN, S. KENSINGTON MUSEUM 135
65. GUTTER, LINCOLN CATHEDRAL 137
66. GUTTER, TAUNTON 138
67. BRAMHALL, CHESHIRE 140
68, 69. PIPE HEADS, HADDON HALL 141
70. PIPE HEAD, HADDON 142
71. BODLEIAN, OXFORD 143
72. ST. JOHN’S, OXFORD 144
73. SHERBORNE 145
74. LIVERPOOL 145
75. ASHBOURNE 146
76. HADDON 147
LEADWORK
§ I. OF MATERIAL AND CRAFTSMANSHIP.
To none of the processes of modern mechanism do more vulgar associations
cling than to “Plumbing.” It is the very serviceableness and ductility
of lead as a material that have brought about the easy and familiar
contempt with which it is treated. While few are more worthy of artistic
care no metal is more perfectly adaptable to noble use through a range
of treatments that cannot be matched by any other metal whatsoever. It
combines extreme ease of manipulation with practically endless
durability, and a suitability to any scale, from a tiny inkwell, or a
medal, to the statue of horse and rider, a Versailles fountain, or the
greatest cathedral spire.
The range of method in handling follows from the equal ease with which
it can be hammered out, cast, or cut, and all three, employed
concurrently on the same piece.
The main purpose of the pages which follow is not to set out a history
of the use of this material in various forms, although this is involved.
It is intended by pointing out the characteristics and methods of the
art of lead working in the past to show its possibilities for us, and
for the future. A picture of what has been done is the best means of
coming to a view of what may again be done. But it cannot be too
strongly asserted that the _forms_ of past art cannot be _copied_; that
certain things have been done is evidence enough to show that we cannot
do them over again. Reproduction is impossible; to attempt it is but to
make a poor diagram at the best.
Commercially produced imitations of ornamental works are infinitely
beneath the merely utilitarian object which serves its purpose and
attempts nothing more. Behind all design there must be a personality
expressing himself; but certain principles of treatment and methods of
working may be understood in some degree by a study of past work without
going all through it again. History thus makes the experience of the
past available to us, but it does not relieve us of the necessity of
ourselves having experiences. There is a great stimulus in feeling one
of a chain, and entering into the traditions of a body of art. The
workman Bezin said to Mr. Stevenson of museums, “One sees in them
little miracles of workmanship--it fires a spark.”
New design must ever be founded on a strict consideration of the exact
purpose to be fulfilled by the proposed object, of how it will serve its
purpose best, and show perfect suitability to the end in view when made
in this or that material by easy means. This, not the torturing of a
material into forms which have not before been used, is the true ground
of beauty, and this to a certain extent is enough without any
ornamentation. Ornament is quite another matter, it has no justification
in service, it can only justify itself by being beautiful.
In so far as history is involved here it has been necessary to refer to
and to figure many works, not bearing the impress of a fine living
style, but only passable exercises in the respectabilities of a sort of
conventional design learnt by rote. As a general rule it will be found
that the workers of the middle ages penetrated at once to the reason of
a thing in structure and then decorated it with an evidence of fresh
thought--a delight in growth, form, humanity, in one word Nature, the
source of all beauty and subject of all art. Each thing made is
evidently by an _artist_; it expresses reasonable workmanship and happy
thought in pleasant solution of some necessity of actual service. Many
of the later things are not thus natural and spontaneous but pedantic
and pompous, fulfilling their chief intention if they were expensive;
while to-day the chief care of design is often to _appear_ expensive
without being so in fact.
Only in our century in England would it be possible for the metals which
are so especially hers, iron, tin, and lead, to have been so degraded
that it is hardly possible to think of them as vehicles of art. It
should not be so, for each of the metals can give us characteristics
that others cannot, and the capabilities of lead have been sufficiently
proved by more than two thousand years of artistic manipulation.
The only way in which the crafts can again be made harmonious by beauty
is for men with a sense of architectural fitness and a feeling for
design to take up the actual workmanship and practise it themselves as
they would painting or sculpture, seeking the delight of being good
artists not the reputation of being successful merchants or clever
professional men. To any such, lead-working may be recommended.
§ II. AN HISTORICAL SKETCH.
The ease with which lead ores may be gained from the earth and then
worked, is sufficient to show that the application of lead to the
service of the arts must have been made very early.
Nowhere does it seem to have been so easily found as “in England herself
which is the classic land of lead and tin” (Abbé Cochet). These two
metals made the early fame of Britain; they brought here the Phœnician
trader and had doubtless much to do with the Roman occupation of this
distant island.
“Tin and lead,” says Harrison in his _Description of England_, “metals
which Strabo noteth in his time to be carried into Marseilles from
hence, as Diodorus also confirmeth, are very plentiful with us, the one
in Cornwall, Devonshire, and elsewhere in the north, the other in
Derbyshire, Weredale, and sundry places of this island.... There were
mines of lead sometimes also in Wales which endured so long till the
people had consumed all their wood by melting of the same.”
Tin, which was of such sovereign necessity for the composition of
bronze, was, with lead, an object of wide commerce, as we may learn from
the prophecy of Ezekiel against Tyre, whose long black ships did the
carrying trade of the world. As the Tarshish of Scripture is the
Tartessus of classic authors--an entrepôt of Phœnician trade in
Spain--it may well be of English mined metal that the prophet
speaks:--“Tarshish was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all
kinds of riches; with silver, iron, tin, and lead they traded in thy
fairs.”
The Assyrian slabs which contain the accounts of the expedition into
Syria in the ninth century B.C. include among the tribute exacted of
Tyre and of Jerusalem itself “bars of gold, silver, copper, and lead.”
Solomon used lead in the structure of the great wall of Jerusalem.
Sir H. Layard says the mountains three or four days’ journey from
Nineveh furnished iron, copper, lead, and silver in abundance, and he
found instances of its actual use at Nineveh. Place also, in his
excavations at Khorsabad, discovered a foundation inscription of Sargon
II., the great builder of the eighth century B.C. engraved on a plate of
lead. A leaden jar and a piece of pipe were found by Loftus at Mugheir.
In Egypt it was sparingly used. Sir G. Wilkinson says:--“Lead was
comparatively useless, but was sometimes used for inlaying temple
doors, coffers and furniture, small statuettes of the gods were
occasionally made in this metal, especially those of Osiris and Anubis.”
In Egypt as well as in Babylonia it was the custom to make a deposit of
several objects in the foundations, a tradition which we still follow
to-day. At Daphnae Mr. Flinders Petrie found a set of little slabs of
different stones and small plates of metal, gold, silver, copper, and
lead, all engraved with the name of Psamtik. The lead tablet is here
figured.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
The ornamental objects of lead to which the earliest date can be
assigned are those found by Dr. Schliemann in his excavations at Mycenæ
and Tiryns.[1]
[1] _See_ Dr. Schuchardt, translation 1891 (Macmillan).
The Greeks very largely used lead for many purposes. It is twice
mentioned in the Iliad, and its familiar use as a building material is
shown by Herodotus, who says that Queen Nitocris built a bridge over the
river at Babylon, of stone bound together with lead and iron; and the
story the Greek historian gives of the celebrated hanging gardens
describes how they were raised on high terraces of arches covered with
bitumen and sheets of lead.
Sufficient actual examples of Greek lead work are stored up in museums,
masonry with dowels of lead, inscribed tablets, small toys and tokens,
little vases for eye salve about as large as a thimble, boxes for
unguents, and sling bullets. These last are often inscribed so that the
warrior might know his work, often with flouts and jibes and jeers. One
in the Lewes Museum has ΕΥΓΕΙ,--“Well done”; others have “Hit Hard,” &c.
In the museums of Athens are some small figures, a Dionysiac wreath of
gilt lead leaves to be worn as a garland, a lead quiver for arrows about
fifteen inches long, also plummets and market weights, with other
objects. Mr. Cockerell found that parts of the early pediment sculptures
at Ægina were of lead, and lead is inlaid in the volute of the early
Ionic capital from the archaic temple of Ephesus now in the British
Museum.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
The plummets are interesting to us as builders’ implements; there are
two or three dozen in the British Museum, about three inches high and
one inch at the base tapering upwards: some are marked with the letter A
on one side and on the obverse a little relief, a throne-seat with an
owl. The owl was Athene’s own symbol, and appears on the coinage of
Athens in a form from which this seems copied. The Acropolis was her
throne. We will stretch our imaginations far enough to believe that the
A stands for Athens and that these are the very implements used in
setting the masonry of one of the corner stones of the world’s art--the
Parthenon.
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
The market weights are remarkable in bearing devices like the types of
coins. For the most part they are square cakes and the devices simple
almost to rudeness, yet they have that impress of style and grace in the
design, with the large free handling in which is the exquisiteness of
Greek art. A sketchiness so simple and easy can be the only right
treatment for a metal so likely to receive injury in the use; to these
as in all art so considered the inevitable injuries of wear are little
loss. We can hardly suppose that such a simple industry as making lead
weights for the markets would have had artists capable of designing, and
suggesting in relief types like these, rather we may suppose that some
of the great coiners furnished the models, especially as they would be
issued by the authorities of the several towns.
We may take this first opportunity of remarking that the patterns for
all ornament _intended for casting_ should be _modelled_ like these,
never _carved_, as is now so universally the case for cast iron and the
applied enrichments of picture frames, the reason being that cast
material of this sort, so easily injured, is unsuited for giving
definition and high relief, and should accept all the limitations of
material frankly and make the most of dull suggestiveness; for in all
these the “best are but shadows” the modelling emerging from or melting
away in the ground. In two attempts the present writer has made in
modelling for lead casting wax was used in one instance, and in the
other, where very delicate relief was required made up mostly of threads
and dots, gesso was found to answer.
[Illustration: FIGS. 4 and 5.--Greek Weights.]
The ram’s head (see Fig. 4) for instance has only the frontal, the
lips, and the horn, made out, the rest the imagination sees
transparently below the field. In the words of Blake “it is everything
and nothing.” The raised rim is a good protection.
[Illustration: FIGS. 6 and 7.--Greek Weights.]
The second, a half Mina of Ægina, is yet simpler--just a pot, but a
beautiful one well placed. The third is Attic, a quarter Dimnoun with
scarabeus-like tortoise. The last is a Mina of Ægina, it bears the
well-known Greek rendering of the Dolphin and the letters ΜΝΑ ΑΓΟΡ.
“Market Mina.” The dolphin has the “bowed back” Sir Thomas Browne
pointed out as a “popular error” of painters, but the dolphin was to the
Greek mind, rather the genius of the waving sea itself than any mere
particular fish, and this is the time consecrated form, like this it
swims amongst the undulating hair of the Arethusa of Syracuse, the most
beautiful coin in the world.
The Romans used lead extensively and much in the same way as we do--for
roof coverings and water pipes, in masonry and for coffins. In Rome an
immense quantity of lead piping has been found. The pipes were formed of
strips of cast lead bent round a rod and then soldered. Most of the work
was signed by the plumber, his name and that of the owner being
impressed in the sand mould.[2]
[2] _See_ Prof. Middleton, _Ancient Rome_.
[Illustration: FIGS. 8 and 9.--From the Kircherian Museum.]
There are many beautiful cistae or circular boxes in the museums of
Naples and Rome. These are decorated with little medallions, shells,
beaded rods, &c., stock patterns which were impressed in the sand mould
in such fresh combinations as the thought of the workmen suggested,
just as a cook makes pie crust, which is the subject of nearly the only
spontaneous decorative art now remaining to us. Figs. 8 and 9 are from
the Kircherian Museum.
Of the Roman leadwork in the British Museum the specimens are mostly
coffins, and a number of ingots of lead. These “pigs” have been found in
Cheshire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Nottingham, Norfolk, Hants,
Somerset, and Sussex. Of these there are ten in the British Museum
bearing names of emperors and dates which, put into our era, are--A.D.
49, Claudius; 59, Nero; 76, Vespasian; 81, Domitian; 117, Hadrian.
These pigs are about 4½ by 18 inches; and even they are not without
design, for some of them have the well-known classic label to receive
the name.
A beautiful object, remarkable as an instance of lead used in an article
of price, is a vase some 5 inches high. This is evidently a wine cup
from the figures and emblems which decorate it--Bacchus, Silenus, thyrsi
bound with cords, and four genii of the Seasons carrying appropriate
symbols, one being a garland, another a sheaf of corn; around the middle
is a belt set with glass jewels of varied colour, dull reds, greens, and
blue, and below this is a wreath of vine (Fig. 10).
Compare a very richly decorated vessel in the engravings of the Museo
Borbonico.
Lead water pipes of Roman make are frequently found in England; at Bath
there is a water channel 1 foot 9 inches by 7 inches, of lead nearly one
inch in thickness, and sheets of it 10 feet long lined the basin of the
great bath, 30 lbs. in weight to the foot. In the refuse of the Mendip
mines Roman lamps and other articles of lead have been found.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.--Roman Jewelled Cup.]
During the Byzantine era lead was much used. In a curious relief found
at Tunis “the founder seems to have used up all the old models in his
studio. Here a Good Shepherd, Peacocks, and stags drinking from the four
mystical rivers, palms and vines, are found side by side with Silenus, a
Victory, a Nymph, an Athlete, and scenes of the chase.”[3] In Saxon
England lead was a staple commodity for export and used in great
quantities at home. English merchants of lead and tin are mentioned as
attending the French fairs from the time of Dagobert. During the middle
ages it was largely applied to many purposes and manipulated by the
various methods and decorated with the ornaments, particulars of some of
which follow. England was still the best esteemed source of supply.
About 1680 M. Felibien wrote a book on the crafts connected with
architecture, in which he says that “The greatest part of the lead we
use in France comes from England in large ingots called ‘Salmons,’ a
little lead also comes from Germany, but it is dry and not so sweet as
the English.”
[3] Pératé, _L’Archéologie Chrétienne_.
Up to the 15th century sheet lead was cast only, but a coffin of the
Duke of Bedford (Joan of Arc’s) at Rouen is already laminated.
Lead is an easy medium for the forgery of antiques, and some of the
objects so produced are quite pretty. In the museum at Taunton there is
a small lead bottle which seems to be a forgery.
The Plumbers’ Company in London appears to have been in existence early
in the fourteenth century. In 1365 (39 Edward III.) ordinances were
granted to the Company which had then been in existence some years. In
1588 (31 Elizabeth) arms and crest were granted; and in 1611 (9 James
I.) a charter was given renewing all powers and privileges.
Throughout the middle ages lead was more extensively used in England
than elsewhere--our cathedral roofs, for instance, were all of lead,
whereas abroad they are often of corrugated or flat tiles, stone or
slate. The methods of conducting water from the roof by stone gutters
and gargoyles was much further developed in France than here, where lead
always came to hand. Lead pipes with ornamental heads were first
introduced here in England for this purpose, and they reached a
development without parallel abroad. During the eighteenth century there
was, as we shall see, a large industry in lead statues, and the
plumber’s art continued to the opening of the present century; indeed,
cisterns decorated with the old devices may be seen as late as 1840, and
some of the old methods have not yet passed entirely out of memory. The
Exhibition of 1851 marked exactly the general eclipse of craft
tradition. England was no longer to be saved by work, but by commerce.
§ III. OF LEAD COVERINGS TO BUILDINGS.
Sheeting buildings with decorative plates of metal has been one of man’s
architectural instincts. M. Chipiez, in his essay on the origins of
Greek architecture, considers first:--“The temple, metallic or covered
with metal, which obtained in Medea, Judaea, and in Asia Minor. Greek
writers like Pausanias speak of edifices having been constructed of
brass; such was the legendary temple of Apollo at Delphi, that of Athena
Calkhioecos in Sparta, and the treasury of Myron, tyrant of Sicyon. In
the _Eneid_ the temple erected at Carthage by the Phœnician Dido is also
of brass.” From Homer to the _Arabian Nights_ and the mediæval romance
writers, a metal-cased architecture, shining with gold, has been
preeminently the architecture of the poets.
It would almost seem as if in the Merovingian age Western Europe passed
through the phase of a metal-cased architecture, but in this case it was
lead that formed the external vestment--an architecture of lead. “Under
the Merovingian kings,” says M. Viollet-le-Duc, “they covered entire
edifices, churches, or palaces, in lead. St. Eloi is said to have so
covered the church of St. Paul des Champs with sheets of lead
artistically wrought.”
In England Bede mentions a parallel instance. Finian the successor of
St. Aidan in the See of Lindisfarne built a church after the manner of
the Scots of hewn oak with a thatched roof; afterwards “Eadbert also
bishop of that place (638) took off the thatch and covered it both roof
and walls with lead.”
The exaggerated lead roofs of the early mediæval churches in England
were in nowise dictated by utilitarian considerations. The creeping of
the lead on steep surfaces, the many burnings, and the great expense in
large churches which would take literally acres of lead, made
maintenance a burden, but they liked this metal casing, and that was
enough.
This is still more evident in the mediæval delight in the tall leaded
spires, not in their aspect as mere roof coverings, but intrinsically as
metal shrines, looking on them with their decorations as vast pieces of
goldsmith’s tabernacle work. The steep pitch of the roof of the main
building when applied to a square tower quite naturally produced leaded
spires. These already appear in the drawing made of Canterbury Cathedral
about the year 1160. That these metal-sheeted spires were the best
loved form, and that stone was adopted at last but as a truce with fire
is proved by the spires of lead which appear in the wall paintings
(those that were at St. Stephen’s for instance), in the MSS., and by the
splendid leaded spire of St. Paul’s which we shall speak of below. The
spire so treated is not a mere roof, or a cheap substitute for stone,
but takes its place in metal-cased architecture, as do also the leaded
Byzantine domes of St. Sophia and St. Mark’s.
In that most splendid work of the English renaissance, the palace of
Nonsuch, which was begun by Henry VIII. in 1538, the structure was what
we call half-timber, the panels were filled with coloured and gilt
reliefs by Italian modellers, and the timber framing is described by
Pepys, who visited it in 1665, as sheeted with lead. This casing we may
be sure was covered with delicate Italian arabesques. His words are,
“One great thing is that most of the house is covered, I mean the posts
and quarters in the walls, with lead and gilded.”
§ IV. OF LEADED SPIRES AND TURRETS.
Our own old St. Paul’s, the once highest steeple in the world, which
rose 500 feet and more into the clouds, from whence it at last drew the
lightning to its destruction, was the proudest example of these lead
spires which for beauty at least equalled the finest examples in stone.
When the second church, begun at the end of the eleventh century, was
but just completed; “the quire was not thought beautiful enough, though
in uniformity of building it suited with the church: so that resolving
to make it better they began with the steeple, which was finished in
A.D. 1221.” This was the lead-covered steeple, the only spire of the
church which stood centrally over the crossing. It was 1312 before the
modification of the old church was done, and thenceforth that part was
known as the “new work.” Within three years afterwards a great part of
the spire of timber covered with lead being weak and in danger of
falling was taken down and a new cross, with pommel large enough to
contain ten bushels of corn, well gilt was set on the top thereof by
Gilbert de Segrave the Bishop of London with great and solemn
procession, and relics of saints were placed in it.[4] The relics of
saints were thus put at the apex as a safeguard from lightning.
[4] Longmans, _Three Cathedrals_.
This lead spire, repaired in 1315, must have been the work spoken of as
finished in 1221, and it was thus the earliest lead spire of
considerable dimensions of which we have any knowledge: it was an
extraordinary development from the square lead pyramids that covered the
Norman towers at Canterbury and other places.
Stow says the height was 520 feet “whereof the stone-work is 260 feet,
and the spire was likewise 260 feet. The cross was 15 feet high by 6
feet over the arms, the inner body was of oak, the next cover was of
lead, and the uttermost was of copper red varnished. The bowl and the
eagle or cock were of copper and gilt also.” The ball at the apex was
three feet across and the weathercock four feet from bill to tail and
three feet six inches across the wings. “Certes,” says Harrison, “the
toppe of this spire where the weathercocke stode was 520 foote from the
ground of which the spire was one half.” The measurements of Wren
confirm the height of the stone tower (which alone was standing in his
day) as being 260 feet, the spire, he says, had been 40 feet diameter
at the base and rose 200 feet or more. It must have been altogether
worthy of this vast church of twenty-five compartments in the interior
vista of arch and vault, 600 feet in greatest length and 100 feet high.
In 1444 the spire narrowly escaped destruction by lightning, but the
fire was put out. “In the year 1561, the 4th of June, between the hours
of three and four of the clock in the afternoon, the great spire of the
steeple of St. Paul’s Church was fired by lightning, which brake forth
as it seemed two or three yards beneath the foot of the cross: and from
thence it went downwards the spire to the battlements, stonework, and
bells, so furiously that within the space of four hours the same steeple
with all the roofs of the church were consumed to the great sorrow and
perpetual remembrance of the beholders.”[5] It was thus destroyed a
hundred years before the great fire when the cathedral perished.
[5] Stow.
London was a city of lead spires. Stow tells us that at St. Paul’s
School close by the Cathedral was “of old time a great and high
clochiard or bell-house, four square built of stone and in the same a
most strong frame of timber with four bells the greatest that I have
ever heard. The same has a great spire covered with lead with the image
of St. Paul on the top.” It was said that Sir Thomas Partridge won it by
a throw of dice from Henry VIII., and pulled it down. Stow, who would
have thought the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings, to
which we owe so much good work, much too cautious in its methods,
reports with much pleasure, “This man was afterwards hanged on Tower
Hill.” At St. Bartholomew’s Priory, Smithfield, was another of these
timber spires.
A spire said to have been even higher than this of St. Paul’s was
erected in the fourteenth century over the central tower at Lincoln. The
two western towers also had spires which were taken down to save the
cost of repair within this century. This group of three great leaded
spires crowning the Hill-city must have been one of the most wonderful
the whole world over. The central tower as it now stands is 270 feet
high 54 feet on the face; it was finished in 1311. “The spire of timber
covered with lead reaching a height of 524 feet which once surmounted it
was destroyed by a tempest in 1548.”[6]
[6] _Cathedral Guide._
The plates in Dugdale’s _Monasticon_ engraved by Hollar and others
surprise us by the number of leaded spires to the cathedrals not one of
which has survived storm and flames or the crueller hatred of beauty
which the modern mind has developed. There are those of the two west
towers of Durham, western spires at Canterbury, Peterborough, and Ely,
all three at Lincoln, and four smaller pinnacles at Norwich. Two square
pyramids shown to the west tower of Southwell, were probably the
original covering of the twelfth century. These are now “restored” and
they look as false as the word.
The great central spires at Rochester and at Hereford and the central
and two western spires at Ripon are shown of lead, as is also that of
the beautiful isolated belfry at Salisbury, which was destroyed “to
improve the view of the cathedral.” Of three of these large central
spires shown in Dugdale, Rochester and Hereford rise from square towers
with “broaches”: the first is of a curious and yet happy form, with
recessed faces, and the other is an octagon of which the cardinal faces
are wider than the alternate sides. The great spire of Ripon rose within
the stone parapet of the tower, apparently at first twelve-sided with
gables, and the spire itself twenty-four, each pair making a slight
reentering angle--a beautiful composition it must have been of light and
delicate shadow on the silver white of the old lead. This fair colour is
of great importance; several of the old spires which remain to us are as
white as if whitewashed. Modern ones, like the grimy thing at Lynn,
would be improved by being whitewashed. The old, that at Minster in Kent
for instance, tell as bright high lights in a general view of the
landscape such as that you obtain from Richborough.
The finest of the English spires now existing constructed of timber and
sheeted with lead is that of Long Sutton in Lincolnshire, the highest,
oldest, and most perfect. The stone tower with octagon projections at
the angles, is 25 feet square and 65 high, standing free from the church
to which it is attached by one angle only. The flèche itself is 85 feet
from the eaves to the top of an enormous relic “pommel” some four feet
in diameter, which is thus 150 feet in the air. The four octagonal
projections carry large pinnacles 25 feet high, which at a little height
disengage themselves wholly from the great flèche, but with consummate
art all lean their axes inwards towards it as much as two feet. The
wooden framing, carefully measured by Mr. Austin,[7] shows that this
grouping of the lines was as much done from set purpose as the
inclination of the lines in the Parthenon of which we hear so much. Each
face of the leading has the rolls arranged in a double row of
herringbone, and the faces of the pinnacles have the leading slanting in
one direction only. Altogether it is a most interesting and most
beautiful work of the thirteenth century.
[7] _Spring Gardens Sketch Book_, vol. v.
[Illustration: FIG. 11.--Spire, Barnstaple.]
The drawing here given is of the fine old steeple at Barnstaple, which
was saved from destruction by the good advice of Sir Gilbert Scott--and
lack of funds! It is a delightfully careless and cheerful looking
object, like that at Chesterfield, warped and nodding, which outrages
the precise sensibilities of the townspeople; it was erected in 1389, as
appears from the accounts and was repaired and altered in the
seventeenth century (as shown by a date and initials, “1636 W. T.”), at
which time the spire lights were opened out. The external bells are
unusual in England. There are two other spires of village churches in
the neighbourhood at Braunton and Swymbridge. The spires at
Chesterfield, Godalming, Almondsbury in Gloucestershire, Wrighton in
Northumberland, and Harrow (1481), are among the finest that remain. Of
the destroyed church at Reculver the west towers, which are retained as
landmarks, had lead spires. In some spires in Norfolk, about Cromer, two
or three feet of the leading is omitted, thus forming an open band
through which the timbering and a bell hung here may be seen. In some of
the spires the lead is laid in vertical strips, as at Minster in Thanet,
and a sketch given from a church in Hertfordshire shows the lower part
in a way arcaded by an ingenious arrangement of the rolls. At great
Baddow Church, Essex, vertical rolls run up about two-thirds of the
spire, and the rest is plain. Generally, however, the lead work is
arranged in herring-bone with careful irregularity and change so as to
get a texture in the surface so different to the dead and dreary
accuracy we should attain to. Low square spires at Ottery St. Mary are
good examples of lead texture for those who see some beauty in the
jointing of the armour of a tortoise.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
The construction of the wood framing of the greater of these spires is a
forest of intricate interlacing timbers, the best authority for which is
the article _Flèche_ in Viollet-le-Duc, or Burges’ drawing of Amiens in
his volume of careful studies of the Gothic art of France.
The most decorated of these lead spires in England--although not very
large--is at East Harling in Norfolk. It rises within the stone
battlement and has an open stage with wood pinnacles and crocketed
“flying buttresses” all covered with lead. The sides of the spire
proper, very narrow and acute, have the rolls arranged in lozenges
instead of the usual herring-bone or vertical lines, the lozenges are on
one side as wide as the face, breaking into a zig-zag above, on another
side are smaller lozenges three or four in the width changing into one
again above: at the apex is a large finial knob.[8]
[8] _See_ drawing in _Sketch Book of Architectural Association_, 1881.
Wren’s knowledge of the spire of old St. Paul’s possibly led him to try
his hand at leaded spires, and the result in some of the City churches,
particularly that one on Ludgate Hill that is such a perfect foil for
the great dome of St. Paul’s, shows his usual assured mastery. The
spire of St. Olave, Hart Street, is said to have a crystal ball at the
apex.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.--Barnard’s Inn Hall.]
The smaller turrets on college halls are generally covered with lead in
an ogee form. Those at Oxford have often a lozenge raised on each face,
that on Barnard’s Inn in the City is wholly enveloped in lead. A turret
on the alms-houses at Abingdon has large letters and crowns, which are
gilt, standing up free on the slanting faces. At Hampton Court there are
turret roofs, ogee with crockets and finials and little pinnacles set
round at the springing. At Nonsuch leaded turrets surmounted the great
octagons at the angles, they were probably much decorated and certainly
of considerable size, making very picturesque compositions, as we may
see in the rude views of the palace which exist.
In France and Germany there are many remarkable leaded spires, but we
can only stay to mention the steeple at Chalons-sur-Marne, the central
flèche at Amiens, and the belfry at Calais. The steeple at Chalons is a
most interesting work, large and well-designed, with faint and
fascinating remains of a gorgeous scheme of colour decoration patterning
the whole surface of the lead with figures and canopies resembling the
drawing on stained glass, the lead rolls passing across the design like
the iron glazing bars. This was carefully drawn by Burges and
illustrated in the _Builder_ for 1856, and the whole spire is
represented to scale in the Sketch Book of the Architectural Association
for 1883. This is a work of the end of the thirteenth century, and the
decoration was done in the following century. It will be well to mention
it more particularly later, but as Viollet-le-Duc says that nearly all
the lead work of the middle ages was so decorated we may conclude that
such a magnificent spire as St. Paul’s was not entirely bare of gold and
colour.
The flèche at Amiens, which rises from the roof some 100 feet of
“transparent fretwork which seems to bend to the west wind,” is well
illustrated in Viollet-le-Duc’s Dictionary as well as by Burges. Every
resource of the art was lavished on it, pinnacles and niches, lead
statues, tracery, great circular coronets of pierced cast work. The
sheet lead was diapered with fleurs-de-lis, and all was decorated with
designs in colour and gold. Although perfectly Gothic in form it is a
work of the sixteenth century, and the painting is in the manner of the
Renaissance.
At Calais the fine belfry represented in Fig. 14, which was completed
about 1600, is in some respects very English in character, while on the
other hand it is a northern representative of a class of bulbous spires
which are as much cupolas as spires, and were probably often intended as
fantastic domes. These, although later found all across Europe, from
Russia to Belgium, were never naturalised in England on a large scale,
our nearest approach to them being in the ogee cupolas of small turrets
and lanterns and some of Wren’s spires. In Holland they were very much
affected in the most extravagant forms, and they are now the constant
form of church spire seen in eastern Europe. They seem much at home in
such a city as Buda-Pesth, and have doubtless characteristics which
endear them to those of Mongolian blood and speech. It is an interesting
point to decide whether these forms are in origin actually
Eastern--“travelled topes” as a friend says--or whether they are the
natural outcome of a combination of spire and dome in a period of
extravagant and declining taste.
[Illustration: FIG. 14.--Calais Belfry.]
§ V. OF DOMES.
The Romans covered domes in lead; during the Byzantine empire they very
generally did so. Constantinople in the age of Justinian was a city of
lead domes, as it has always since remained. The domes of St. Sophia are
still covered with lead laid over the brickwork. This tradition was
carried on by the Greek master builders who erected the great mosques
for the conquerors. A large mosque has as many as twenty or thirty domes
of all sizes grouped about the central one. The bazaars, caravansaries,
and bakeries, have long level rows of cupolas. This prospect of dome
beyond dome in a succession as of billows is of marvellous beauty in a
general view of the city as seen from the sea. The lead is laid over the
brickwork, the rolls are very small, and as they have no wood core the
lines are very irregular. Some of the lead domes of Constantinople were
melon-shaped, that is having large _convex_ gores. A Turkish example of
this remains in an ogee-shaped dome at the angle of the Seraglio wall
near St. Sophia.
Most interesting works of this tradition are the “domes” or rather
domical roofs of St. Mark’s at Venice. Those eastern-looking forms which
give such fantasy to it were raised to their present form on wooden
framework in the thirteenth century. They are sheeted with plain rolls
except the bulb-formed lanterns, which are much like an umbrella in
which every gore has a salient angle, a “ridge and valley.” These five
timber-framed spire-like domes, erected for their own sake and not lying
close to the interior form of the building, in this respect resemble
northern spires. The whole group rising over the level front of St.
Mark’s is a work of the highest imaginative genius. It is not a building
with a dome but a building roofed in domes, bubbling over with domes;
and it expresses the metal shrine idea in perfection. The original
leaded domes of St. Mark’s were copied from those of the church of the
Holy Apostles at Constantinople, a church built by Justinian.
At the Renaissance the leaded dome became a popular commonplace
especially at Venice. For the most part these were covered like a roof
with ordinary rolls. By forming ribs and panels in the wooden foundation
a more elaborate but not more successful aspect is obtained. St. Paul’s
is well designed in this way. This design with the great ribs Sir
Christopher Wren considered “less gothick than sticking it full of rows
of little windows” as at St. Peter’s. It was first intended to cover
St. Paul’s dome with copper, but £500 was saved by substituting lead at
a cost of £2,500.
At the National Gallery--a very careful and refined work, one of the
last of the old scholarly dead language sort we call classic--the lead
covering is formed into raised scales and frets, very well and
successfully done of its kind.
§ VI. OF ROOFS.
The Romans used lead as a roof covering. In the West “one can hardly
(Viollet-le-Duc says) explore the ruins of a Gallo-Roman erection
without finding some sheet-lead that had been employed for gutters or
roofs.” In the East--Eusebius says of Constantine’s Basilica (the Holy
Sepulchre) at Jerusalem--“the roof with its chambers was covered with
lead to protect it from the winter rain.” In England Bede tells us of
Wilfrid having roofed his church at York with lead in the seventh
century, and it has continued without a break in its use as the most
perfect of coverings.
The methods employed in the middle ages are described by Burges and
Viollet-le-Duc. The latter well remarks that of lead covering, as well
as many other parts of the construction of buildings, we are a little
too apt to think overmuch of the perfection of our modern methods while
we are too little careful to learn the experience acquired by our
forefathers.
The old cast lead is much thicker than the modern milled lead, being as
much as twelve or thirteen pounds to the foot of surface. It is
certainly not quite even in thickness, and is subject to faults in the
casting, but it is not so liable to crack as is milled lead. The old
lead employed has also a considerable quantity of silver and arsenic in
it, which was the cause of the beautiful white oxide it obtained. Modern
lead blackens as the preparation of lead now includes its
“de-silverisation.” The acid of timber which has not lost its sap
decomposes lead; old building timber was water-seasoned as only ship
timber now is.
The chief difficulties that had to be overcome in the use of lead were
the weight of the sheets of lead to be maintained in position, and the
great dilatation of the metal under the heat of the sun, so that it had
to be at once strongly attached and free to move. The method followed
was to nail it at the top and roll the lateral edges together.
The roofing at Canterbury was of twelve-pound lead and about 2.0 between
the rolls. The thirteenth century lead of Chartres Cathedral, “covered
externally by time with a patina hard, brown, and wrinkled, and shining
in the sun,” was in sheets eight feet long, attached at the top by nails
with very large heads and held at the bottom by clips of iron that
passed down between the sheets and turned over the bottom edge of the
upper one. The rolls were formed by turning over the margins one in the
other without a wood roll; they were much smaller than the modern ones.
Our milled lead is rolled out in sheets about 16 × 6 feet and is usually
cut in half lengthways, and 4½ inches is allowed in each edge to form
the rolls which are thus 2′-3″ apart. Lead one inch thick is sixty
pounds to the square foot, so six-pounds lead is 1/10th of an inch in
thickness. We generally make the mistake of putting a longitudinal roll
along the ridge, but it is not so done in our old roofs, nor should it
be, for the running out of the rolls frets the ridge into a simple
decoration.
The lead covering of old roofs should be jealously maintained--its loss
is irreparable. If repair becomes absolutely necessary for the
protection of the building, such lead should be recast, it should never
be replaced by milled lead. The old metal is easily recast on the
ground, and this is now frequently done, but not frequently enough. It
was cast on a wood table with a projecting margin or curb all round; on
this slid up and down a cross piece notched down to give the proper
gauge to the lead which it levelled.
Where lead was applied to the vertical or steep planes of dormers or
spires the interlocking of the sheets in herring-bone was a practical as
well as an artistic expedient. Where nails had to be driven through
exposed lead, in repairs or otherwise, flaps like little shields were
laid over them soldered on the top edge. Lead, where used to incase
wood tracery, as in the open work of spires or dormers, was secured by
means of laps and rolls without solder so that it was free to expand and
contract. The modern plumber is much too apt to employ soldered joints
even in structural work.
Small openings were made like little dormers, for ventilation of the
roof timbers, by dressing a stout piece of lead up into a triangle or
half circle in front dying back on the roof with the back turned up
under the tiles or slates.
Sometimes cast ornaments were applied to a slated roof; the disc with
undulating rays on the slated apex of the north-west tower at Rouen is
an instance.
§ VII. OF LEAD COFFINS.
In the later classical period lead was much used for coffins; several of
very fine workmanship have been discovered in Syria, some of these, very
delicately ornamented are figured by Perrot, and Chipiez.[9] In the
Louvre there is a finely decorated example of the Roman period, and
large numbers of Roman lead coffins have been found both in England and
in France. There is a very beautifully decorated early Christian coffin
in the museum at Cannes, this has a border of vine and birds with
monograms of Christ--ΧΡ. ΙΧΘΥΣ.[10] Fig. 15 shows portions of
ornamentation from a remarkable series of coffins now in the museum of
Constantinople. There are some eight or ten of these and all decorated
in the most elaborate way with tendrils and medallions beautifully
modelled in very slight relief. None of the symbols are definitely
Christian, but they evidently belong to the same school as the last
named. The neighbourhood of Beyrout and the ancient Sidon was the site
of the discovery of most of these coffins of early Christian date.
[9] _History of Art_, “Phœnicia.”
[10] Illustrated by Reber.
[Illustration: FIG. 15.--Ornaments from early Christian Coffins,
Constantinople.]
The coffins found in England are not so much Roman as strictly
Anglo-Roman, for far more have been found here than in any other
country, such as have been found in France are near our shores as if
certainly made of our lead, and the ornamentation of the English
examples has a common likeness in the use of the scallop shell which is
not represented abroad. The comparison can best be made in a little book
by the learned archæologist Abbé Cochet of Rouen, _Les Cercueils de
Plomb_ (1871), in which the examples found in France are figured.
These English coffins and sepulchral cists are mostly in the British
Museum and at Colchester. The cists are plain circular boxes some ten
inches diameter by fourteen inches high; one of these is decorated by
simple circles and another has crossed rods of “reel and bead,” with
applied small panels of chariots and horses.
[Illustration: FIGS. 16 and 17.--Cists, British Museum.]