The Early Twentieth Century, World War II, and the Aftermath
J.T. Micklethwaite was appointed Surveyor of the Fabric in 1898, and in his second report to the Dean and Chapter he observed: ‘The widening of Parliament Street has opened out a view of the north side of the church which has not existed before. And this has caused some newspapers to revive the old proposal to add a central tower and spire. As the suggestion is plausible, and one not unlikely to be popular, I take this opportunity to express my opinion that it is one which should not be entertained’.157 His objection was based on the belief that the measures required to strengthen the crossing piers would be visually unacceptable. He conceded that the present tower ‘has an unfinished look’ and that it ‘might be greatly improved without adding much to its weight, and that it would be well to do this’. Micklethwaite concluded: ‘Little more than a good parapet and pinnacles is wanted to make it quite sightly’.
Nevertheless, a surge of nationalistic pride in the closing years of the nineteenth century, and the opening decade of the twentieth, sparked a desire, on the part of both Church and State, to create a new building at Westminster in which memorials to ‘the great and the good’ could be housed. The Abbey was full to overflowing with memorials, and something needed to be done to provide additional space. Various schemes were adumbrated by leading architects of the day.158 One of these involved erecting a new building to the south-east of the chapter house, incorporating in it an enormous tower that would dwarf both Westminster Abbey and the nearby Victoria Tower in the Palace of Westminster. [98] The architects were J.P. Seddon and E.B. Lamb, and they published a scheme in 1904 for their ‘Imperial Monumental Halls and Tower’.159 An integral part of the scheme involved increasing the ‘presence’ of the Abbey by raising a large but unimaginative tower over the crossing. [99] The central towers at Canterbury and Wells may perhaps have provided their inspiration, but how they proposed to support this structure on the deformed crossing piers is not recorded.160 The grandiose concept of building a national mausoleum soon afterwards faded away, like the potency of the British Empire, and none of the potential schemes was pursued to the design stage.
Fire-Bombed, May 1941
During the Second World War, the Abbey was hit by a number of incendiary bombs, and one of those fell on the roof of the lantern on the night of 10/11 May 1941. Had the roof still been covered with Wyatt’s slate slabs, it may have been possible to deal with the offending device before the timbers of the roof ignited. That was not to be, and for the second time in 138 years the lantern tower became an inferno. Just as in 1803, the entire roof structure, together with the timber and plaster vault, were consumed in situ until they crashed down onto the marble pavement of the quire below, where fire-fighters extinguished the burning débris. [100, 101] The continuous rain of molten lead from the roof, onto the floor and quire stalls, was reported by eye-witnesses to be a spectacular element of the drama. The lantern roof, burning on the floor of the quire, was subsequently recorded in a tiny quarry in one of the stained glass windows installed in the chapter house in 1951.161 [102]
98 Gaye, 1904. ‘Design for the Imperial Monumental Halls and Tower, Westminster’. This scheme by Seddon and Lamb envisaged the erection of a dominant tower with a corona beside Westminster Abbey, and at the same time raising the height of the crossing tower considerably. View from the north-east. © RIBA Drawings Coll., Victoria and Albert Museum
99 Seddon and Lamb, 1904. Detail of Westminster Abbey with its proposed new crossing tower. View from the north-east. WA Lib. Coll.
Not only was Wyatt’s timber and plaster vault destroyed, but so too were four of the Victorian stained glass windows in the lantern. The other four were badly damaged. However, because the tower acted as a chimney, the venturi effect caused the fire to burn upwards and, just as in 1803, the walls sustained very little damage. Nevertheless, it was reported that ‘several tons of masonry from the injured lantern fell …’162 Blackening of the brickwork around the iron doors, particularly on the east, shows how smoke, but not fire, penetrated the roof voids. [97] The tower was quickly capped with a new roof of pyramidal form, comprising pre-cast concrete slabs supported on a steel framework. [103] The exterior was initially waterproofed with asphalt, rather than lead, and a concrete cap, cast in situ, was provided at the apex.
The structure was designed by B.L. Hurst and Peirce, civil engineers, and erected under the supervision of Sir Charles Peers (Surveyor, 1935–51).163 [104, 105] After the war, the manufacturers of ‘Bison’ concrete products, who had supplied the materials, published a photograph of the lantern roof in their trade brochure.164
Apart from clearing the débris and securing the damaged windows with clear glass, nothing else was apparently done to the lantern for the next fifteen years. However, while the scaffolding was in place in 1941, plumb-lines were set up against the crossing piers and three sets of measurements were taken for each. These recorded the verticality and bowing of each pier, at ten-foot intervals, on both its cardinal faces and on the diagonal (i.e. facing towards the centre of the crossing).165 These measurements indicated that three of the piers had moved only very slightly outwards at the top – away from the centre of the crossing – but that on the north-west was more seriously out-of-plumb (2¾ ins; 7 cm). All the piers are bowed fairly evenly throughout their height, the range being 2¼–3¾ ins (5.8–9.5 cm), with the exception of the north-west pier which is bowed by 5 ins (12.7 cm).
100 The burnt-out lantern, 11 May 1941, showing the remnants of Wyatt’s plaster vault. The painted inscription band around the crossing arch was added by Scott and obliterated by Dykes Bower in 1957. WA Lib. Coll.
101 The remains of Wyatt’s lantern roof and vault on the floor of the crossing, on the morning after the fire, 11 May 1941. The Dean, Paul de Labilliere, surveys the damage. WA Lib. Coll.
102 The timbers of Wyatt’s lantern burning on the floor of the crossing in 1941, depicted in a quarry in the south-west window of the chapter house, by Joan Howson, 1951. View looking east towards the sanctuary. Author
103 The present lantern roof of concrete and steel, constructed after the fire in 1941. The lead covering was added later. Viewed from the south-east. WA Lib. Coll.
The temporary installation of clear glazing in the lantern increased the natural light-level in the upper part of the crossing, causing a heavy shadow to be cast by Hawksmoor’s boldly projecting string-course; this seriously intruded upon the eye when looking eastwards along the nave, and broke up the visual continuity of the high vaults.166
Patching up the Lantern
It fell to Stephen Dykes Bower (Surveyor, 1951–73) to carry out reparations for the war damage, which was a tediously slow and bureaucratic process: many parts of the Abbey needed attention, some more urgently than others. Consequently, it was not until 1956–57 that, using funds obtained from the War Damage Commission, he was able to reinstate a ceiling over the lantern, to hide the hastily constructed concrete and steel roof of 1941. Dykes Bower also undertook minor repairs to the masonry and plasterwork, made good the damage to the chequered marble pavement of the quire,167 and reglazed the lantern windows, alleviating the undesirable shadow-effect caused by the introduction of clear glass.168 The glazing was carried out by Goddard and Gibbs, who salvaged some of the damaged glass and made up the existing ‘salad’ windows out of the fragments, mixing in also some Victorian glass recovered from the nave.169 [106] Scott’s painted inscriptions on the walls, although they survived the war, were unfashionable and were obliterated, while gold leaf was liberally applied to mouldings and head-stops. [107]
The destroyed ceiling was superseded by the present soffit by Dykes Bower in 1957. Funds were in short supply, and there was no possibility of reconstructing a vault or commissioning carved work. The simplest expedient was to erect an entirely flat timber ceiling, without mouldings, and to paint it. Accordingly, the new soffit was made of one-inch thick mahogany boards attached to timber joists supported by a framework of steel beams.170 [108] Dykes Bower commonly sketched out rough proposals for his commissions, and then passed them to an assistant to work up. In this instance, the design for painting the lantern ceiling was duly worked upon by Hugh Mathew of Great Dunmow.171 The drawings for the design layout, individual motifs and painting details are preserved.172
It is not difficult to trace sources for much of the detailing. The basic geometry is simple, comprising a square with semicircles abutting its sides, a saltire in the middle and a rectangular border around the outside. The square-and-semicircles is a motif found in many places in the Abbey, including in the Litlyngton Missal, which was perhaps the source of inspiration in this instance.173 Other details are recognizably derived from Victorian floor tiles and medieval ornament in the Abbey. The design is overtly Puginesque. The colours are copied from the Pugin-Minton range of floor tiles, designed initially for the Palace of Westminster.174 [109] Although highly decorative, the modern ceiling lacks the three-dimensional quality of Wyatt’s vault, which was more successful in articulating what is otherwise a square hole in the roof of the Abbey, surmounted by a box. Dykes Bower simply put a flat lid on the box, making it possibly the seventh ceiling in recorded history to adorn Henry III’s unfinished lantern.
104 Hurst and Peirce, 1941. Engineers’ design drawing for the concrete and steel roof installed over the crossing. WA Lib. Coll.
105 Interior of the lantern roof constructed in 1941, with the ceiling inserted in 1957. View north-west, with the apex of the pyramidal roof at the centre of the picture. Author
106 Stained glass window in the north side of the lantern, assembled in 1957 from salvaged fragments of Victorian glazing. Author
107 Scott’s label-stop on the doorway in the south side of the lantern; gilded by Dykes Bower in 1957. Author
Following the completion of war-damage repairs, Dykes Bower turned his attention to cleaning and decorating the interior of the Abbey, and to reconstructing the high roofs. The medieval timbers of the latter were showing signs of decay and, instead of carrying out sympathetic carpentry repairs, Dykes Bower embarked on a campaign of wholesale replacement, which involved the introduction of much concrete and steel as well as new timber. In a hugely expensive and publicly controversial campaign, he destroyed more of the historic fabric of Westminster Abbey in a few years around 1970 than the Luftwaffe had managed in 1939–45.
108 The crossing and lantern today, viewed from the floor. East is to the right. WA Lib. Coll.
Dykes Bower and the Crossing Tower: An Unfulfilled Desire?
The austerity of the post-war years militated against any ideas being put forward to make serious additions to the Abbey, but I suspect that Dykes Bower privately regarded his pleasing but simple ceiling in the lantern as no more than a medium-term measure, pending the day when a crossing tower could at last be built. He was an ardent admirer of the Abbey’s western towers at a time when Hawksmoor’s designs were not highly regarded by the architectural profession at large. I have little doubt that Dykes Bower would have wished, if possible, to complete the lantern according to Hawksmoor’s design, and he might also have sketched out his own ideas for a lantern at the Abbey, even though he must have known that it would not fall to him to build it. By the early 1970s he did not, in any case, enjoy unbridled popularity at Westminster, after the public opprobrium that he brought upon the Dean and Chapter over the roof débâcle. However, he clearly had an innate desire to construct a lantern tower, somewhere.
We have only to turn to St Edmundsbury Cathedral to appreciate how Dykes Bower’s creative mind worked when he was given free-rein. Like Scott, he had grand visions and an obsession with Gothic detail. He was possessed with the desire to build a crossing tower in full-blown medieval Gothic style at Bury, and persuaded the Provost and Council that they should have one. In 1960–70, Dykes Bower undertook the reconstruction and enlargement of the eastern arm of the cathedral, at the same time adding a crossing, transepts and cloister. The walls of the crossing were taken up to roof-ridge level, and then a temporary cap placed over the whole, pending the day when funding could be found to add the lantern tower. Thus, in 1970 the extent of the nascent structure at Bury precisely corresponded to that which had been achieved at Westminster, first in c. 1260, and again in 1727. At the time of Dykes Bower’s death in 1994, funding for the lantern tower had still not been secured, and so he bequeathed the cathedral £2 million as a pump-primer. Eventually, the Cathedral Council adopted the construction of the lantern tower as its Millennium project. Funds were raised, and it was duly completed in 2005.
109 Painted timber ceiling of the lantern by Dykes Bower, 1957. WA Lib. coll.
From Westminster’s viewpoint, there is an additional irony to this story, which is not widely known. Dykes Bower’s bequest to St Edmundsbury was conditional upon the cathedral authorities building a lantern tower: if they declined to do so, the £2 million was to be reallocated to Westminster Abbey.
The only work undertaken on the lantern since Dykes Bower’s surveyorship has been the introduction of high-level electric light fittings mounted on steel frames in 1988.175