ST. PAUL'S
ABOUT the serious—if not critical—condition of St. Paul's all " the experts " seem agreed. As to what precisely should be done about it there is as yet no agreement at all, there being indeed almost as many different opinions as -there' are experts, which makes the whole matter exceedingly perplexing to the layman. All that he at present knows for certain is that England's most renowned piece of architecture is in some kind of danger, that it stands in more or less urgent need of large maintenance works, that these works, whatever their nature, will cost a great sum of money, and that he is invited to subscribe.
That he will do so generously is certain ; but there are two things that are needful if all excuse for non- participation is to be removed—a quite definite state- ment as to exactly what is going to be done and how, and an adequate lead by the great Livery Companies of the City of London in the matter of gifts. The bankers and merchants have already begun sending in their thou- sands, as bankers and merchants should. One would, indeed, imagine that if any place could afford to maintain its monuments at its own expense, that place would be the City of London. Such, however, is the prestige of Wren's great masterpiece—religious, architectural, historical and sentimental—and such the generosity of the British people that all and sundry will wish to share in this pious work of conservation. And it is about this conservation that we really need to be informed and assured, for we shall for ever regret our subscriptions if we find they are being used to replace the authentic work of our greatest architect where necessity is not proved.
The Commission that finally reported a week or two ago has been considering the question since 1921. It is composed of architects and engineers of experience and repute, " fully qualified experts," as the phrase goes, with regard to the' matter in debate and, seeing that their deliberations have been leisurely, we must believe that their findings -and recommendations are authoritative and final.
- But there is -heresy and schism abroad and in high , and official places ; the Lord Mayor, indeed, being some- -what embarrassingly divided against himself, having in .effect, as head of the Corporation, served a Dangerous Structure Notice upon himself as a trustee of the Cathedral, in which, latter capacity, however, he appears , not to share the alarmist views that prompted bite serving .of the Notice. Presumably, he agrees with the Commis- sion that the injection of fluid cement into the loose ,rubble cores of the eight columns that support the drum sand the' dome above will solidify and strengthen them sufficiently to make them and their superstructure safe, not only for our time, but for posterity.
The Dangerous Structures Surveyor, however, thinks otherwise, and he has had the boldness to dismiss the proposals of the more cheerful commissioners as inade- quate and futile. His own simple prescription is, shortly, this : " Remove dome, rebuild piers, replace dome," and Sir Reginald Blomfield appears to agree with him. How many hundreds of thousands of pounds this might cost or how many years it would take to do or where the dome would be stored in the meantime or how much of 'Wren's work would be left when all was done, is not stated.
Then there is the eminent engineer who attributes ,all the cathedral's .present troubles to the mischievous action of the tides—which must at all costs be checked on the strata 'below -the foundations, while Sir Francis Fox maintains that this is nonsense. Sir Francis, however, who is a great constructional expert and who reported on the condition of the fabric so long ago as 1912, also thinks the Commissioners' injections will _certainly be useless and probably dangerous unless the loosely-packed and rubbishy filling of the outwardly solid piers is first thoroughly scoured through with water. The Commissioners, on the contrary, hold that the free lime believed to be present in considerable quantities amongst the rubbish (largely brickbats from the ruins of the old cathedral) would make such water-scouring disastrous. These, then, are some of the leading schools of thought, though .there are also other sects each with its own " expert " for a prophet. That the danger exists no one denies, and the.. experts on the Commission are presumably unanimous as to the degree of the danger and the way in which it should be met and removed, but here they do not agree with anyone else.
The cost of the work has been variously estimated at £140,000 and upwards of a million, the latter figure presumably allowing for carrying out the recommendations of all the experts (where they did not cancel each other) .including the undoming. Even the weight of the dome as given by different " authorities " varies from 40,000 tons to 60,000 tons, indicating a possible error of as , much as 50 per cent. Truly, it is difficult for the public to discover just what its subscriptions are needed for and how they will be applied. It can only. pray that those -actually directing the operations may be well inspired 'and that the requisite skill shall be as little lacking as the .money. Everyone who sends a cheque to the Times . fund pays a debt of honour to the past and makes a gift .to the future. We can but trust the responsible authori- ties to see that the gifts are well and rightly used.
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