ST. PAUL'S DANGER.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1832, 19 August 1913, Page 7

ST. PAUL'S DANGER.

CARELESS BUILDING AND A QUICKSAND. ARCHITECT'S WARNING. Tho danger to St. Paul's Cathedral from tho alarming fissures in tho piers in the crypt, tho nave, and other parts of the structure is emphasised by Sir Thomas G. Jackson, R.A., in a letter to Sir Francis Fox, published in tlio London "Times." Sir Thomas was one of a body of leading architects who have examined tho signs of settlement, in the Cathedral and the repairing work which was lately being done.

"Although the proposed tramway near the east end has fortunately been abandoned" he writes, "I think it probable that a drainage ia still going on below the 1 foundations. ... Whether anything can bo done to avert the progress of the loosening of tho subsoil I cannot from what I know form any opinion. To underpin the piers of the dome is,, of course, impracticable, for one would only get into the same bed of ruuniiig sand. . . "What is'now being done by you and Mr. Macartney is to consolidate tho piers by injecting cement grout into all tho cracks with the Greathoad machine. I was surprised to see the very inferior character of -the coro of the piors in tho crypt, which consists of loose rubble of small stones laid in very inferior mortar, quite soft and unfit to carry weight. "To consolidate this by grouting, as you are doing, is obvionsly the first thing to oc done. . . . The grout seems to havo travelled into every fissure, and to havo set like a rock.

"Underpinning being ont of .the question^ ray opinion is-that tho only hope is to bind tho. construction .'go firmly together as to make it a homojaneoua fabric which, if it settles further, may go down without rupture." Canon Alexander, the treasurer to tho Chapter, commenting on Sir Thomas Jackson's reference to the faulty construction of tho piers, said:

"I am afraid tho architects of old were not so particular as (hey are to-day, for when I was at Gloucester Cathedral, which i» a Norman structure, it wag found that rubblo had bean used iu pines of stone. Some of the piors at St. Paul's measure 40 feet by 20 feet; and they contain only tix inches of stono on the iurfaca."