THE DOOM OF A FAMOUS ABBEY.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XXXXI, Issue 7054, 25 October 1900, Page 4

THE DOOM OF A FAMOUS ABBEY.

There are very few colonial-born visitors to London who do not make Westminster Abbey one of their first objectives. It is inseparably associated in their minds with the growth of the Empire, from far distant points of which they hail ; it is the sepulchre of the dead and gone patriots, sages, poets, who have helped in the building of the Empire, the creation of that spirit of loyalty and homogeneity which binds lands far apart in one .harmonious sentiment. Yet in all probability the present younger generation will outlive that venerable pile. Macaulay's Mew Zealander will not sit on London bridge and contemplate a ruined city, but there will be something sad, something incomplete, to him if there is no Westminster Abbey. Several years ago part of the overhanging portion of the main entrance was found to be decayed, and it was repaired at great cost. But now, it seems, that decay is general, and has attacked the foundations. The Dean of Westminster Abbey, realising the serious condition of the cathedral, owing to crumbling stonework,- recently appointed a committee of experts to examine the building. Their report, which is of a most alarming nature, declares that unless the fumes from the Daulton Potteries at Lambeth are stopped the abbey will become a ruin in a few years. Professor Church says : •• We were called in the riok of time. The noxious fumes have been rotting the stonework beneath the surface for years. We examined the Chapter House crypt particularly, but fear the abbey proper, especially the east end, is in grave pevil, too. Microscropic and analytic examinations of the crumbled stonework shows that hydrochloric acid causes the trouble. The potters must be induced to use less chlorine, or regulations will be framed to prevent the escape of the fumes." Professor Church has discovered a mixture with which to wash acid-eaten stones. It arrests decay and solidifies the crumbling mass, but unless the source of trouble be removed the ultimate destruction of the abbey must fojlow.and that at no very distant date. — H.B. Herald.