ST. PAUL’S

Evening Star, Issue 19128, 21 December 1925, Page 2

ST. PAUL’S

PRESERVING THE BUILDING QUARTER MILLION AVAILABLE On January S of this year the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul’s, after consultation with the Lord Mayor of London, appealed through ‘ The Times ’ for a sum of from £120,000 to £IIO,OOO for the preservation of St. Paul’s Cathedral. 'Thanks to the generosity ol the public, the larger sum was reached by January 22. On August 26 wo announced that the fund had passed £2-50,000; and donations have not yet censed to reach us (says ‘The Times’). The time will come when the Cathedral authorities and the others now joined with them in this great task will bo able to say to each subscriber; “Si even turn roquiris- eire.iimspiee. ” The work you entrusted with us is clone; the Cathedral is safe. But that time cannot be yet. It is natural that those who have given to any of the funds shnuld wish to know what progress is being made with the work. . . . At present the principal field is the crypt. ’The lower parts of the piers supporting the dome must bo made secure before their upper parts are taken in hand. All day and every day (undisturbed now by the Cathedral services) the workmen arc drilling the necessary series of holes in the piers and forcing into them the cement which is to make a solid core in place of the nibble, now decayed, with which Wren perforce filled in the stone casings. The foundations, it is held, may he trusted to go on bearing the enormous weight: it is the piers that must be fortified. When this has been accomplished in the crypt, the same process will bo begun on the Cathedral floor, two of the piers having already been made secure by the Cathedral authorities before the present appeal was issued, The work in the crypt may probably be finished early next year. Let us siippose that, perhaps by the end of next year, perhaps later, the core of every'pier has been made solid. Then will”come an operation which, it is thought, may ho even longer and more difficult. That operation is the replacing of faulty stones by sound stones in the masonry of the piers. The failure of the'cores has thrown the weight of the drum and all above it—of “ the three domes at St. Paul’s ” which we described in the early days of the fund—on to the masonry, which was never intended to hear it unaided, and was rendered the more unfit to bear it by the contractors’ disregard of Wren’s instructions about the proper use of iron rods. The effect has'been to split and break a number on the stones —a number which on examination (as the Cathedral authorities found in their work upon the northeast and two southern piers) may ho found to involve the replacing of many tons of masonry. And besides ail this there is yet another groat undertaking —the bracing of the drum with a metal hoop. ... A great saving of time is now affected by the separation of a part of the Cathedral whore services may he held without interruption of the repairs. Before the works were begun on the present scale it was impossible to hold services in the din of the modern substitutes for axes and hammers; and the regular and special services in St. .Paul's" Cathedral take up many hours of the week. Now the high altar has been brought down into the nave, and sot up decently and in order just east of the Wellington Monument. A few of the choir stalls have also been brought down, and "Wren’s beautiful wooden pulpit has hocn set up hard by. Behind the altar hoarding has been run up to the top ol the arch,stained a quiet green, and hung with fabrics. A separate church, as it were, has thus been made, where as maiiv as 1,1)01) people may worship, while cast of it the repairs go on all tlio working day. All these different operations are necessary to the preservation of the fabric, to the worthy maintenance of the Cathedral as a Christian church in continuous use for the worship ol many thousands of people, and to its convenience and safety as a place of pilgrimage for men of all races and creeds. But not all of them, obviously, fall under the head for which the public has so generously subscribed. And since no great public work of this kind can bo too carefully guarded against any possibility of reproach, it may be well that the public should; know the principle which the administrators of the fund have laid down and to which they scrupulously adhere. The various works in the Cathedral are divided by them under two heads; those which are necessary to the. preservation of the fabric, and those which arc not. The former are paid for out of the fund; the latter are paid for out of the Cathedral’s other resources. A simple instance will make the principle clear. The removal and the future replacing of the organ are necessary to the preservation of the fabric, because it could not have been carried on while the organ was in its usual place. The fund, therefore, will bear the cost. But the long overdue improvements to the organ, for making which the present opportunity is to ho taken, are not necessary to tha preservation of the fabric; therefore no part of their cost will be borne by the fund.