Summary and Conclusions
There are few documentary references to the crossing tower at Westminster Abbey and, despite being of crucial importance in the English coronation ceremonial, the architectural history of this part of the abbey church has never been seriously studied. The evidence of the Bayeux Tapestry confirms that nine-hundred-and-fifty years ago, the crossing was crowned by a prominent tower and lantern, erected by Edward the Confessor. Then Henry III, two hundred years later, rebuilt much of the church and raised a lofty new crossing, but never completed the tower and lantern above roof level. However, consideration of the design aesthetics of the church as a whole, comparisons with contemporary French architecture, and a modest amount of archaeological evidence, all combine to suggest that the crossing was intended to support an octagonal lantern and a spire or flèche, all set within a quartet of octagonal corner-turrets. This feature would have been intended to dominate both the exterior of the church and the skyline of Westminster.
For about a century after Henry’s death in 1272, the rebuilding programme stagnated, but sometime before the sixteenth century an octagonal stone lantern, supporting a timber-framed cupola was erected on the existing stump over the crossing. Arguably, this occurred around the end of the fourteenth century, when the Abbey’s building programme was restarted. If this dating is correct, then the architect is likely to have been Henry Yeveley, the King’s Master Mason. The lantern, which appears in a drawing of 1532, looks like a smaller, simpler version of the famous octagon at Ely, and may have been very similar to the lost lantern of Peterborough Cathedral.
The chance survival of three drawings dating from the first half of the sixteenth century not only records the existence of the later medieval lantern, but also its destruction by c. 1544, leaving a windowless, box-like enclosure over the crossing. Although acknowledged to be unsatisfactory, this situation obtained until the end of the seventeenth century, when the Dean and Chapter determined to improve the Abbey’s somewhat run-down image, and Parliament voted substantial funds to ‘repair and complete’ the building.
A feature which has frequently given rise to comment, since the early sixteenth century, is the slight inward bowing of the four crossing piers. This was caused by the combined lateral thrusts exerted upon them by the main arcades and the triforium arches, and it is clear that deformation occurred very soon after construction (probably before the end of the thirteenth century). Centuries later, Sir Christopher Wren’s assessment of the situation was most likely correct: had Henry III completed the construction of his crossing tower and lantern, the superincumbent weight of masonry would have countered the propensity of the piers to bow. Recent engineering calculations have confirmed that, notwithstanding its elegant and slender proportions, the crossing was fully capable of supporting a great lantern and spire.
The decision was made in 1697 to complete the three unfinished towers of Westminster Abbey, and Wren was charged with the task. At the opening of the eighteenth century we enter an era from which the first architectural drawings of the Abbey have survived, these being the products of Wren, his assistants and successors, most notably William Dickinson and Nicholas Hawksmoor. Also extant are the minutes of some meetings, a few letters, various bills, and other documents relating to a range of proposals for the erection of a tower and spire – or, alternatively, for a cupola – over the crossing. Additionally, scale models in timber and stone were made of the crossing, or parts of it, to illustrate architects’ proposals in the early eighteenth century. Wren’s magnificent oak model survives in the Abbey Collection, as do fragments of Hawksmoor’s stone model. Finally, by the mid-seventeenth century, topographical artists and architectural draughtsmen were beginning to record the building in more detail than had been attempted hitherto, thus providing a valuable and continuing record of developments.
Welcome though all this additional evidence is, it does not add up to a comprehensive and easily read narrative in respect of the later history of the crossing tower: only a tiny proportion of the documentation that must once have existed has survived; half of the extant drawings are undated; some have been modified to show variant designs; and most relate to unexecuted schemes. Moreover, some of the works by topographical artists accurately reflect the appearance of the Abbey, while others show proposals; also, captions claiming that Wren was responsible for the schemes illustrated are not always accurate, and designs wholly or partly by his successors have been attributed to him. Nevertheless, Wren’s comprehension of the need to complete the crossing in a worthy manner was soundly based and his inspiration was long-enduring. Add to this, the three remarkable paintings by Pietro Fabris, the true purpose of which has never before been explained – they have been dismissed as mere ‘fantasies’ – and it is small wonder that the architectural history of the lantern in the eighteenth century has remained obscure. However, research shows that it need not be.
Every architectural account of the works of Wren and Hawksmoor mentions the western towers at Westminster and notes the survival of a few related drawings, but the archaeological evidence for the crossing tower, preserved in the fabric itself, has neither been recorded nor considered capable of contributing to the overall picture. Yet it is critical. In short, the full gamut of historical and archaeological evidence, from the mid-thirteenth century to the mid-twentieth, can be assembled and arranged in a plausible sequence. It may be compared to a jigsaw puzzle with half the pieces missing: it is possible to make some secure connections, and arrange other fragments in such a way as to reveal the basics of the original design. Consequently, when the totality of the extant evidence has been laid out in an orderly fashion, an intelligible pattern begins to emerge, and more knowledge could be recovered through detailed archaeological study and recording of the fabric when the lantern is next scaffolded.
Both Wren and Hawksmoor appreciated that the focal point of coronation was all-important and that the central tower needed to dominate Westminster Abbey, not the western towers. Although the reasoning would have been different in the thirteenth century, the emphasis would certainly have been on the crossing, as was manifest in many great French churches. The western towers were always intended to be subordinate in the architectural hierarchy of the building, and it was doubtless that reasoning which led to the rejection of Hawksmoor’s schemes which involved topping them with short spires. Until the secular buildings which were close to the Abbey were demolished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and Victoria Street was laid out (1851), the west end of the church did not constitute a prominent façade.
Two other aspects were of far greater importance, and had been so since the thirteenth century. First, there was the view of the Abbey from the king’s lodgings in the Palace of Westminster to the east. It may have been no accident that the west door of his hall (known as the White or Lesser Hall) was aligned with the axis of the Abbey church (cf. Figure 4), and the symbolic importance of marking the crossing with a soaring tower or spire which would rise well above all the apses is self-evident.183 The absence of such a feature gives the impression today that the Abbey has its back turned towards the Palace. The second important view was that seen when approaching the Abbey from the north. The great portal in the north transept was the royal entrance, and the processional route leading directly to it was aptly named King Street. While the transept gable has always been dignified with a series of large pinnacles, rising axially behind these and dominating the skyline above should have been the crossing lantern and spire. Such an arrangement still obtains in some of the great continental churches, such as Amiens Cathedral. [110]
110 Amiens Cathedral. The axial approach to the south transept portal, with the flèche rising above the crossing and dominating the skyline. © The Courtauld Institute of Art, London
Hence, it is readily apparent that the ungainly stump of tower we see today does not itself represent a complete structure of any date, but is manifestly only the beginning of a scheme that was prematurely halted. When we marry the extant physical evidence with the appropriate drawings by Hawksmoor, one of Fabris’s paintings (no. 3), and the Woodperry chimneypiece, we can readily comprehend the full picture. In 1727, a square lantern tower with corner pinnacles and a tall, slender spire was under construction, but work had to be halted, the scaffolding removed and the crossing made seemly for the coronation of King George II in October of that year. Had it not been for the death of George I and the consequent coronation, the lantern tower would almost certainly have been finished according to the design depicted in the paintings, with the western towers following on subsequently. In the event, after the coronation, attention turned to the western towers, which were duly completed according to Hawksmoor’s final scheme. Then in 1743, just when it was expected to resume work on the lantern, Parliament terminated its series of annual grants for ‘repairing and completing’ the Abbey. We can only assume that, as late as 1748, there was still an expectation that the lantern tower would be completed: otherwise there is no logical explanation for its depiction in the Woodperry painting.
Throughout the ensuing two-hundred-and-sixty years, the manifestly incomplete state of the lantern, and its unworthiness to cap the crossing of Westminster Abbey, has been a constant source of comment. The lantern has twice been burnt out – in 1803 and 1941 – and has been repaired and tinkered with by Wyatt, Scott and Dykes Bower. But it still remains just as unsatisfactory and ‘temporary’ looking, and continues to stand out as a very visible challenge for completion. Both Scott and Dykes Bower were admirers and builders of Gothic towers, but during their respective surveyorships at Westminster circumstances were not conducive to embarking on such a major construction project. Had the opportunity arisen, both would undoubtedly have relished the challenge of fulfilling Parliament’s mandate in 1697 of ‘completing’ Westminster Abbey.
One fact, however, is not in doubt: for almost a thousand years Westminster Abbey has either had, or been intended to have, a lantern tower rising majestically above the crossing.