WESTMINSTER ABBEY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24634, 16 June 1941, Page 10

WESTMINSTER ABBEY

DAMAGED BY INCENDIARIES LANTERN ROOF DESTROYED WRECKAGE ON CORONATION THRONE (0.C.) LONDON, May 14. . Four years almost to the day alter the King and Queen were crowned in, Westminster Abbey, the spot on which they sat was buried under the debris of the lantern roof, which crashed in a mass of burning wreckage on to the floor. A Nazi incendiary bomb set fire to the low square tower at the.centre of the Abbey and destroyed it. but no structural damage was caused to the main building. . ".„.« Only the fact that, there, is a 4000gallon tank of water in one of the twin towers saved the Abbey from, being a total wreck. The fire was difficult to fight on the roof, but it was quickly attacked by the fire watchers and localised. Flaming, wooden, beams, masonry, and dribbling molten lead made their task difficult, but the water supply and the pressure of the water were sufficient to keep the fire from spreading. , : ■ ! Fell in Front of Altar The aisles of Westminster Abbey form a cross, and it was in the very centre, where the aisles meet, that the roof fell, immediately in front of; the high altar. Powdered masonry, muddied by water, blackened and shrivelled beams and twisted lead guttering made a harsh, ugly heap on the floor, which had seen such a brilliant pageant four short years ago. But the damage is not irreparable, and it need not be long before the sky,is shut out froni the Abbey again. The Deanery and Westminster School suffered far more severely than did 'the Abbey. The Deanery was one of the best examples.of mediaeval houses in England; but the Nazi incendiaries quickly reduced it to the status of just another gutted building. Houses hi the Little Cloisters were also destroyed, and are now shapeless brick ruins. Westminster School lost several of its buildings, including , the dormitory, where it had been the practice since Elizabethan days to perform plays in Letin every year. The famous old hall, where pancakes were tossed on Shrove Tuesday, was also destroyed. The school had been evacuated and no boys were present. Dr Perkins, the sacrist, described the scene in the Abbey when the roof of the lantern fell in. "In spite of every effort by a large number of firemen and fire watchers," he said, "we were unable to get the flames in hand before the incendiaries destroyed, the roof of the lantern, the pulpit, and many of the pews. "Before this happened we had lo endure the agonising sight of the lovely houses in the college garden occupied by Canon Barry and Dr Bullock going up in flames. Then the Deanery went, Dr de Labilliere and his wife inspired us all by the calmness and fortitude they displayed in the) face of the loss" of their lovely home and of every stick of their .personal belongings. I can imagine the Storm of anger that will sweep over'our dominions and America when the new* of this latest exhibit of Aryan culture reaches them."

Surface Injury to Chapel The bombing caused surface injury to the Henry VII .Chapel, but its fantracery ceiling, Qne of the finest in the world, is undamaged. The graves of the illustrious of the land through the centuries, from Edward the Confessor and Chaucer to the Unknown Warrior, are unmolested. The Archdeacon stated that the Deanery was not only an almost-per-fect example of mediaeval architecture, but embodied architecture of- Saxon times as well. Its loss is irreparable. "All my records." he said, "with manuscripts and the careful notes of many year' work, have been burnt, with the whole of rhy library, containing thousands of books collected for over 50 years from school and college days. Documents of great importance and the collection of a lifetime of Engish furniture—Sheraton, Chippendale and Hepplewhite—have also perished. But while all these things, many of them priceless and irrepl.acable, have gone, it remains that no life has been sacrified and the Abbey has been saved."