Page:EB1911 - Volume 28.djvu/569

 king of the East Saxons, having taken part in the foundation of St Paul’s Cathedral, restored or refounded the church at Thorney “to the honour of God and St Peter, on the west side of the City of London” (Stow). A splendid legend relates the coming of St Peter in person to hallow his new church. The sons of Sebert relapsed into idolatry and left the church to the mercy of the Danes. A charter of Offa, king of Mercia (785), deals with the conveyance of certain land to the monastery of St Peter; and King Edgar restored the church, clearly defining by a charter dated 951 (not certainly genuine) the boundary of Westminster, which may be indicated in modern terms as extending from the Marble Arch south to the Thames and east to the City boundary, the former river Fleet. Westminster was a Benedictine foundation. In 1050 Edward the Confessor took up the erection of a magnificent new church, cruciform, with a central and two western towers. Its building continued after his death, but it was consecrated on Childermas Day, 28th December 1065; and on the following “twelfth mass eve” the king died, being buried next day in the church. In 1245 Henry III. set about the rebuilding of the church east of the nave, and at this point it becomes necessary to describe the building as it now appears.

Westminster Abbey is a cruciform structure consisting of nave with aisles, transepts with aisles (but in the south transept the place of the western aisle is occupied by the eastern cloister walk), and choir of polygonal apsidal form, with six chapels (four polygonal) opening north and south of it, and an eastern Lady Chapel, known as Henry

VII.’s chapel. There are two western towers, but in the centre a low square tower hardly rises above the pitch of the roof. The main entrance in common use is that in the north transept. The chapter-house, cloisters and other conventual buildings and remains lie to the south. The total length of the church (exterior) is 531 ft. and of the transepts 203 ft. in all. The breadth of the nave without the aisles is 38 ft. 7 in. and its height close upon 102 ft. These dimensions are very slightly lessened in the choir. Without, viewed from the open Parliament Square to the north, the beautiful proportions of the building arc readily realized, but it is somewhat dwarfed by the absence of a central tower and by the vast adjacent pile of the Houses of Parliament. From this point (considered as a building merely) it appears only as a secondary unit in a magnificent group. Seen from the west, however, it is the dominant unit, but here it is impossible to overlook the imperfect conception of the “Gothic humour” (as he himself termed it) manifested by Wren, from whose designs the western towers were completed in 1740. The north front, called Solomon’s Porch from a former porch over the main entrance, is from the designs of Sir G. G. Scott, considerably altered by J. L. Pearson.

Westminster School.—St Peter’s College, commonly called Westminster School, is one of the most ancient and eminent public schools in England, and the only school of such standing still occupying its original site in London. A school was maintained by the monks from very early times. Henry VIII. took steps to raise it in importance, but the school owes its present eminence to Queen Elizabeth, who is commemorated as the foundress at a Latin commemoration service held periodically in the Abbey, where, moreover, the daily school service is held. The school buildings lie east of the conventual buildings, surrounding Little Dean’s Yard, which, like the cloisters, communicates with Dean’s Yard, in which are the picturesque houses of the headmaster, canons of the Abbey, and others. The buildings are modern or large modernized. The Great Schoolroom