Westminster Abbey | Page 5

the west front, in the richly
canopied niches, were formerly the statues of such kings and abbots "as
had been benefactors," headed by Edward the Confessor, to whose

piety we owe the very existence of the West Minster, and including
Henry III. and Edward I. Amongst them were the great builders,
Esteney and Islip, with, no doubt, Henry VII. himself.
The exterior of the church has suffered much from the ravages of time
and of smoke. Before entering, it is well to take a survey of the outside,
and so prepare ourselves for a more exhaustive ramble round the
interior.
* * * * * *
[Illustration: The West Front]
* * * *
THE WEST FRONT
The west front was not built till about one hundred and fifty years after
Richard II. had added a porch to the north transept, and thus completed
the thirteenth-century façade. The inside of the nave had been slowly
growing all this time, and early in the reign of Henry VII. the vaultings
were at last finished, and the exterior carried up as high as the basement
of the towers, under the supervision of two successive abbots, Esteney
and Islip. We scarcely see the upper part of the towers in the illustration,
but we can well dispense with them, for they were added under the
auspices of Wren and his followers in the eighteenth century, and are
by no means a success. Owing to the crumbling state of the stone used
for the fabric in former days, this façade and the towers themselves
have recently been refaced, and the pinnacles strengthened. To the right
of the picture are the windows of the Jerusalem Chamber, in which
room Henry IV. died. To the left, appear St. Margaret's Church and a
portion of the north transept, whilst in front is a monument erected to
the memory of those "Old Westminsters" who were killed in the
Crimean War.
* * * * * *
Like the timbers of Nelson's old ship the Victory, the surface of the

stone, often the very stones themselves have been completely renewed
since monastic times. The whole church has been frequently restored,
but the exterior has suffered from the vagaries of architects, who found
less scope for their own ideas inside the building, where the original
stone-work was in better preservation. Much of the damage was due
also to neglect, for after the dispersal of the monks, most of whom were
themselves capable of superintending the repairs, {13} the lesser
brethren, in fact, working on the building with their own hands, a long
period went by during which neither the authorities of the Church nor
of the State took note of the decaying stone-work. At last, in the time of
Charles I., Dean Williams--afterwards Archbishop of York--took Abbot
Islip as his pattern, and spent much of his own private income, since
there were no funds available, in repairing the most ruinous parts of the
church, notably the north-west, the west end, and the south-east chapels.
He also remodelled the monks' dormitory, which he made into a library.
So ungrateful was the public for these benefits that the Dean was
accused of paying for this necessary work "out of the diet and bellies of
the Prebendaries," but he was completely exonerated by a chapter order
in 1628, indignantly denying the truth of "this unjust report."
Williams's own disgrace and then the long interregnum put a stop to
these benefactions, and the ruin continued unchecked for the next score
or more of years. Dolben, an energetic man who had fought for his king
during the Civil War, was made Dean soon after the Restoration, and
on the very day of his installation the first fabric fund was instituted out
of the Abbey revenues, a very inadequate sum, as it proved, for the {14}
expenses. With this money, however, Dolben was able to repair the
roof and vaulting, then in danger of falling; and later, in the seventeenth
century, the fund was augmented by a Parliamentary grant.
At that time, with the approval of Dean Atterbury, the decaying tracery
of the north rose window was completely destroyed and remodelled.
The south had already been tampered with, and Wren anathematises the
little Doric passage, which in Atterbury's time was patched on before
the northern window, and the "cropping of the pyramids." In the first
years of the eighteenth century Wren was himself Surveyor of the
fabric, and, while he saved much of the stone-work from irretrievable
ruin, fresh havoc called by the name of restoration was wrought under

his directions and after his time by his successors. The decaying stone
all round the nave and both transepts was in urgent need of repair, if not
actually in ruins, and, probably in order to save trouble and expense,
the small