PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL.
[To ran Enxroxt, or THE " Serzrerozr-".1
Sin,—Before the work of restoration at Peterborough comes ultimately to an end, is it not possible to put in one plea for the restitution of the high turrets, in the Norman style (though added only by Dean Kipling in 1798), which gave such a char- acter to the central tower ? Anything more totally unemphatic than that tower now is, it is impossible to conceive ; it rises low and square, unrelieved by any deep recessing or any play of light and shade, from a building which (excepting the west front) presents the same defects of plainness and uniformity of outline, as a Norman. building is sure to do.
The removal of these turrets is justified on the ground of returning to an original design ; but if this was carried out at all faithfully, it would warrant the removal of the Eastern Chapel, as being a later accretion. Half the interest of our cathedrals lies in the illustration that they afford of the variations of taste and style ; to sacrifice any details—unless notoriously and obviously offensive to taste—is a capricious breach in continuity : and at the same time, while the central tower is to lose its salient feature in order to satisfy the supposed exigencies of an original design, the western tower is to remain (at present, at any rate) uncompleted, which is a real blot upon a west front which, but for this irregularity, is one of the finest in the Kingdom-.
PeterboroughwaS formerly, with its forest of towers, turrets, and pinnacles, a conspicuous object from the fen-lands: I saw it yesterday from Crowland, and it resembled a plain parish church contiguous to a clump of poplars.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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