SAFETY FIRST

Northern Advocate, 9 February 1925, Page 5

SAFETY FIRST

HISTORIC ST. PAUL'S. trifling alteration. AT COLOSSAL COST. (Received 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, February 8. Mr. John Todd, City Corporation Surveyor, who was responsible for the declaration that St. Paul's Cathedral is a "dangerous building," when interviewed, said that eminent men who from, time to time had reported on the building had placed all their information at his disposal. After long and anxious thought all ho did was to conclude that he must act under the Dangerous Structure Clause S of the London Building Act. Discussing the construction of the Cathedral he said that Sir Christopher Wren was a mathematician, an astronomer and a physicist, but was not a builder. When he started building St. Paul's Sir Christopher Wren, though he followed traditional methods of building a cathedral, realised and guarded against a danger in the design. This was an oblique wall which, without necessary support, would have rested on the edge of the piers instead of the piers taking the weight evenly. Sir Christopher Wren designed and built properly, but probably owing to constant financial embarrassments built the piers of inferior material, from which the whole of the present evil resulted. They could not take down and rebuild the dome, but could literally hold the dome in its present position and make the piers good and then lower the dome bodily one threethousandth part of an inch. The dome would then take a new seating on the piers, resulting in the stressing returning to the original position. This would ensure St. Paul's enduring for 1000 years.—A. and N.Z.

VOLUNTARY STATEMENT. NO OFFICIAL RECOGNITION. (Received 12.20 p.m.) LONDON, February S. Mr. J. H. Pakeman, chairman of the special committee of the Corporation of the City of London which is dealing with the question of St. Paul's, declared that Mr. Todd's statement was made without the knowledge of the committee and it must not be taken that the committee approves of his view.—Reuter.