s
would secure the stability of the whole. This was done, as well as the
shoring and strutting to the gables of the two outer arches. The
clearing away of the dirt and rubbish, and the cleaning of the groining,
disclosed greater danger than had been expected, and the architect
recommended the rebuilding of parts of the gables. Before acting on this
advice the Restoration Committee took the opinion of Sir A.W. Blomfield,
and his report not only confirmed the opinion expressed by Mr Pearson,
but said further that much of the superstructure was so disintegrated,
that it was impossible to render substantial and lasting repair as it
stood, "and that the inner parts of the walls were such as would not
permit of the superstructure being preserved or successfully dealt with
by any of the well-known expedients frequently recommended and sometimes
employed with success." When it became generally known that the Dean and
Chapter intended to act upon the advice given in these two reports, the
knowledge created the greatest possible excitement. Other plans were
suggested; the mere removal of a single stone to make it more secure was
declared quite unnecessary; the taking down a gable to rebuild it was
denounced as Vandalism. Much strong language and many hard words were
used which had better be forgotten. It certainly seems difficult to
explain how the objectors to the course that had been decided upon could
write of the west front that it was "superficially, in a fair state of
preservation," or that it was "literally without a patch or blemish."
The present writer was for twenty years a member of the cathedral
foundation, and lived just opposite the west front. He made a special
study of the history and fabric of the cathedral. Hardly a year passed
without something falling down; sometimes a piece of a pinnacle,
sometimes a crocket or other ornament, sometimes a shaft. Old engravings
of the spires show the pinnacles broken. Many of the shafts are wanting.
Some have been replaced in wood. Many wholly new ones were put up by
Dean Monk. And concerning the north arch, which was notoriously the most
dangerous, Dean Patrick has recorded that Bishop Laney gave L100 toward
the repairing one of the great arches of the church porch "which was
faln down in the late times." Dean Monk also, in a memoir of his
predecessor Dean Duport,[19] speaks of the efforts of the cathedral body
to repair the devastation caused by the civil war, and says "in
pa