DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6886#0179
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 147
. I find that, after the conquest, all our artists were fetched from Normanchy-,
and they loved to work their own Caen stone, which is more beautiful than dur-
able. This was too expensive to bring hither; so they emp^ed the Ryegate stone,
in Surry, the nearest like their own, being a stone that would saw and work like
wood; but it is not durable, as is manifest: and they used this for the ashler of
the whole fabric, which is now disfigured in the highest degree. This stone takes
in water, which, being frozen, scales off; whereas good stone gathers a crust and
defends itself, as many of our English stones do. We have also the best oak tim-
ber in the world; yet these senseless artificers would work, as in Westminster
Hall and other places, their own chesnuts from Normandy, for that timber is not
natural to England: it works finely, but soon decays. The roof in the abbey is
oak, but mixed with chesnut, and wrought after a bad Norman manner, that
does not secure it from stretching and damaging the walls, while the water in the
gutters is ill carried off.
All this is said the better to represent to your lordship what hath been done,
and is wanting still to be carried on, as time and money are allowed to make a
substantial and durable repair.
First, in the repair of the stone work, what is done shews itself, beginning
from the east window. We have cut out all the ragged ashlers, and invested it
with a better stone out of Oxfordshire, down the river, from the quarries about
Burford. We have amended and secured the buttresses in the cloister garden,
as to the greatest part, and we proceed to finish that side. The chapels on the
south side we have completed; and, as being at hand, is easier done than the
upper part of the work, most of the arch-buttresses all along as we have pro-
ceeded. We have not ye'; done much on the north side, for these reasons : the
houses on the north side are so close, that there is no room left for raising of scaf-
folds and ladders, nor for passage for bringing materials: besides, the tenants
U 2
. I find that, after the conquest, all our artists were fetched from Normanchy-,
and they loved to work their own Caen stone, which is more beautiful than dur-
able. This was too expensive to bring hither; so they emp^ed the Ryegate stone,
in Surry, the nearest like their own, being a stone that would saw and work like
wood; but it is not durable, as is manifest: and they used this for the ashler of
the whole fabric, which is now disfigured in the highest degree. This stone takes
in water, which, being frozen, scales off; whereas good stone gathers a crust and
defends itself, as many of our English stones do. We have also the best oak tim-
ber in the world; yet these senseless artificers would work, as in Westminster
Hall and other places, their own chesnuts from Normandy, for that timber is not
natural to England: it works finely, but soon decays. The roof in the abbey is
oak, but mixed with chesnut, and wrought after a bad Norman manner, that
does not secure it from stretching and damaging the walls, while the water in the
gutters is ill carried off.
All this is said the better to represent to your lordship what hath been done,
and is wanting still to be carried on, as time and money are allowed to make a
substantial and durable repair.
First, in the repair of the stone work, what is done shews itself, beginning
from the east window. We have cut out all the ragged ashlers, and invested it
with a better stone out of Oxfordshire, down the river, from the quarries about
Burford. We have amended and secured the buttresses in the cloister garden,
as to the greatest part, and we proceed to finish that side. The chapels on the
south side we have completed; and, as being at hand, is easier done than the
upper part of the work, most of the arch-buttresses all along as we have pro-
ceeded. We have not ye'; done much on the north side, for these reasons : the
houses on the north side are so close, that there is no room left for raising of scaf-
folds and ladders, nor for passage for bringing materials: besides, the tenants
U 2