Sacred architecture of London PDF
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Sacred Architecture of London First published 2012 by Aeon Books London NW3 www.aeonbooks.co.uk © Nigel Pennick All photographs, drawings and prints are by Nigel Pennick, except where noted. All archive engravings are reproduced with permission from The Library of the European Tradition. The moral right of the author has been asserted All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the publisher British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A C.I.P. is available for this book from the British Library ISBN-13: 978-190465-862-7 Sacred Architecture of London Nigel Pennick Aeon Books Contents Introduction 1 1 Legend, Precepts and Principles 5 2 Spiritual Principles: Place, Times and Form 26 3. Number, Measure and Harmony 45 4 The Sacred Art of Geometry in Action 75 5 Practical Geometry Techniques 104 6. Symbols and Emblemata 128 7 Towers and Steeples 168 8 Masterworks of a Superior Order 231 Postscript 277 Bibliography 281 Appendix 1: Glossary of technical terms 301 Appendix 2: A chronology of London classical church building 305 Appendix 3: London multi-stage steeples completion dates 311 St Mary Le Strand silhouetted, looking east. IntroduCtIon In the year 1666, between the second and the sixth of September, the greater part of the city of London was destroyed by an unstoppable conflagration, which soon became known as the Great Fire of London. The Tablet of Memory, published, in London, by J. Bew in 1774 tells us that it “burnt down 113,000 houses, the city-gates, guildhall &c. 86 churches, among which was St. Paul’s cathedral, and 400 streets; the ruins were 436 acres…”. After the catastrophes of the Civil War, the tyranny of Cromwell, the plague of 1665, and the maritime wars against Holland, the fire came as yet another ordeal for the city’s inhabitants. But instead of destroying their will to continue, the reconstruction that followed this major disaster resulted in an unprecedented outburst of creativity. From the period after the fire come the most remarkable sacred build- ings erected in England since the reformation, churches built according to ancient classical principles. The main creative period was around 1670 to 1750, but the tradition continued until 1792. The churches built after the Great Fire of London express a spiritual dimension of religion that goes beyond sectarian belief. They can be seen to be epitomes of all the cosmos, and of divine creation. In parallel with fundamentalist interpretation of any partic- ular religion as exclusively and unquestionably true (depend- ing, of course, on which particular religion and sect the true believer belongs to), there is always another parallel current of understanding that tells of an eternal tradition, manifesting in characteristic form in that religion but not bound to its particu- lar doctrines. This universal current is therefore embodied in any sacred building that is constructed according to true prin- ciples, whatever deity the building is dedicated to. Although it is used by various religions as a means of expressing the infi- nite according to the particular interpretation of each cult, sect 2 Sacred architecture of London or faith, this tradition is transcendent of religious doctrine. For it is based on universal symbols rather than the ever-changing revisions and interpretations of scripture imposed upon func- tional religions by external events and politics. This eternal, universal tradition appears historically in interlinked ways in Pagan, Jewish, Christian and Islamic places of worship and sepulture. As Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) notes of the ancients: “Not only their Altars and Sacrifices were mystical, but the very Forms of their Temples”.1 Hence, in the West, the temple archetype has been used by most sects of the Pagan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim reli- gions as the appropriate form for what are viewed as vessels of the divine light, which is timeless and transcendent, Sir Christopher Wren’s “attribute of Eternal”.2 This does not mean, as is frequently suggested, that there is some kind of secret apostolic succession of the esoteric, hidden in an unbro- ken form from antiquity to the present day, (as manifested in eighteenth century Masonic writings, nineteenth century theosophical texts, and some twentieth century ‘Rosicrucian’ and wiccan ones). Rather, it indicates that universal symbols and ideas, as well as practical knowledge, reappear when the conditions are right. In human perception, the spiritual is the timeless, universal quality of being. Naturally, there has always been continuity between succeeding generations, together with interchange between creative individuals, both through personal contact and distant media, but this has never been art of a rigid system. Rather, it is free and opportunistic. As with all cultural manifestations of the spirit, past and present, the spiritual works of post-Great Fire London were pluralistic, crystallizing in a certain way suited to the era. The many sources and currents that came together then were the 1 Sir Christopher Wren, in Christopher Wren Jr. (ed.): Parentalia, or, Memoirs of the Family of the Wrens, London, 1750, Tract IV. 2 Ibid. 261. introduction 3 result of various parallel developments and cross-influences, a living, growing, changing and developing set of ideas, beliefs, techniques and practices that were not fixed, but open to new insights and creative interpretations. Things made by human hands to embody the universal laws of the cosmos can recon- cile our transient mundane existence with the transcendent. Through the presence of such meaningful elements in mate- rial culture, we can perceive the essential nature of our being. Only an ensouled artefact can embody this spirit in a palpable form. It has the power to reach outside itself towards humans, who can perceive it not only as an embodiment of the culture from which it has emerged, but also as a particular instance of the universal. The complete meaningful body of work of the London churches of this period is not just restricted to those relatively few that still exist in the twenty-first century. The totality of the work is relevant: the architects’ researches, sketches, plans, preliminary or unbuilt projects and written descriptions as well as the constructed buildings. Of those built, not only the extant ones are significant, but also those that have been altered, destroyed or demolished and those that remain as fragments or ruins. Subsequent oral lore, writings and books about them are equally part of their total cultural meaning. They include later maps, measured plans, artwork and photographs; subsequent history, customs and usages, stories, poems, legends, theories, superstitions and fictional writings. The existing buildings are just the physical core of a much greater and generally unrec- ognized reality. These London churches are part of a then emergent Deist current that was instrumental in the formation of Masonic doctrine, with God being viewed non-sectarianly as the Great Architect of the Universe whose principles take material form through number and geometry. This symbolism appears in a poem by George Herbert (1593-1633), The Church Floore, which
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