Sizes of Great Buildings. 333 bably went frequently to visit his own mausoleum while it remained open. As for the ascending passages, all the hypotheses assume equally that the same angle would probably be used for both sets of passages, as there was no reason for varying it. But Mr. Wackerbarth would be puzzled to work out his mechanical idea of managing a system of balance cars united by ropes from one passage to another,' seeing that they meet at the lowest point and not the highest. I have only further to mention that the casing stones are said by Herodotus to have had a surface of 30 [square] feet, and the present steps of the building show that there were about 210 courses, of which the lower were about 40 in. high and the upper ones something less. SIZES OF GREAT BUILDINGS. I NOw proceed to give a more complete catalogue than has ever been before published of the internal dimensions of most of the great buildings in the world. A good deal of it has appeared in the Builder and the Times in former years, and a few additions to my list were made by Mr. S. Saunders, which are incorporated in this. A few of the dimensions of the old monastic churches are taken from the Rev. Mackenzie Walcot's little book on them. It is necessary to say however, that perfect accuracy is more unattainable in such matters than anybody would suppose until he tries to get it in some cases from the difficulty of measuring heights without more trouble and expense than it is worth, unless they happen to have been taken before: in others because people have different ideas of the points or surfaces from which they ought to measure, besides the carelessness and incapacity for accuracy 334 Sizes of great Buildings. which seems incurable with some persons. Others write books containing important architectural details about buildings, and even plans of them, without ever taking the trouble to get the principal dimensions at all accurately. Again there is a general tendency to magnify people's own buildings, even down to rooms in private houses, so much so that I always distrust mere parole evidence about them. Some will measure the length of their church from the west door to the glass of the east window, and adopt other contrivances to gain a few feet of apparent size. Then in calculating areas persons will take different views as to what should be included, and in buildings of rather irregular form there are sure to be different results. The most fruitful of all sources of error is the confusion of external and internal dimensions, and an ambiguous use of the word area, even in best books. In many cases the measures had to be taken from published plans on a small scale, and nobody who has not tried it has any idea of the frequent inaccuracies of the engraved scales of small plans, and very likely of the plans themselves, which are sometimes inconsistent with the printed or engraved measures. Nobody ought to print plans intended to show dimensions accurately without figuring at least the principal dimensions on them and that not so small as to be illegible, which the engravers always aim at: just as some architects and their clerks think it looks peculiarly knowing and medieval to write the inscriptions on their drawings in some affected style as illegibly as possible. Even where plates are accurately engraved the scale may become distorted by the damping and drying of the paper. I remember some of the largest railway bills ever passed being nearly lost in Parliament on an alle Difficulty of getting accurate ones. 335 gation of an error of level in the plans, until the copper plates were brought in to show that it only arose from the alteration of the paper. Some of the measures which I give only profess to be approximate, being got by stepping, or from some not very certain information. In those cases I attach the mark ~. I have been obliged to omit altogether some large foreign churches and halls for want of information, such as the rebuilt St. Paul's at Rome and St. John Lateran, which I believe come next after St. Peter's; and the famous Cloth Hall of Ypres, which Mr. Fergusson says has a frontage of 440 feet, and apparently 50 two-light windows, and all the interior on the ground floor open, though of course with pillars; but he does not give the width. I shall be thankful to any one who will send me (to 33 Queen Anne Street W.), any further information of this kind, which may be added in any future edition. Nevertheless I have no doubt that the table gives a very fair comparison of the dimensions of nearly all the great buildings of Europe, and a few others, and I believe it includes every English church of inside area above 9000 feet, and probably omits few as large as 8000. Some smaller ones are inserted because I have them, and the churches are worth notice. No order of arrangement can do complete justice, and on the whole I am satisfied that measuring by the area enclosed is the best rule to follow, though it sometimes gives undue precedence to a building by virtue of some low aisle or other appendage which adds nothing to its architectural importance. Chapter houses are excluded from the dimensions, because they are not part of the church like vestries, and in some cases quite outside it. The largest now remaining is at Canterbury, 90′ x 37', and that at 336 Chapter Houses. Durham was as wide, and 80' long, till half of it was destroyed by Wyatt and Bishop Barrington, who carried their devastations there from Salisbury, though Wyatt alone was the Lichfield destroyer. The largest of them all are York and Westminster, each 63' in diameter, or 58 on the square of the octagon, containing 2788 sq. ft. But York is incomparably the finest, both in its architecture and in having no central pillar, which all the other large polygonal ones have, except Southwell, viz., Lincoln, Salisbury, Wells, all 60' in diameter, and Worcester, which is rather smaller and round inside, and Lichfield, which is oval. The rest are smaller parallelograms. The York Chapterhouse well deserves its inscription 'Ut rosa flos florum sic est domus ista domorum.' Lady chapels must clearly be included, where they are fairly part of the church, and visibly increase its length or width; and for that reason Henry VII.'s chapel must be included in the length and area of Westminister. The Lady Chapel or Trinity Church of Ely is not fairly part of the church, being only connected by a passage very like that to several of the chapter houses. And adding its area of 100 × 45 ft. would not alter Ely's place in the table. The Galilee of Durham adds sensibly to the length, and I think may fairly be included in the length and area, subject to a remark to be made hereafter on the question of length. That of Ely is little more than a western porch with an external door; but it adds 45 feet to the visible internal length and as all our measures are internal, it may be fairly reckoned in, subject to explanation. But porches are excluded, and with them the Galilee, which is a mere porch to the south Width of some Churches. 337 transept of Lincoln. Vestries are included in the area, but not in the length where they are mere appendages beyond the proper east wall of the chancel, as at Lavenham and Wakefield. The length always means the length of the middle of the whole church and not, of any side aisle which may happen to extend further. 'Nave' means up to the central tower, inside of the square, where there is one: at Ely it is reckoned to the octagon. Some persons would class buildings according to the ground they cover. It is sufficient to answer that it is impossible to do so with any accuracy, without an amount of measuring of thickness of walls and buttresses and turrets, and all sorts of recesses and projections, which would be a mere waste of time, even if I had the materials for doing it. It has been done for a few great buildings, and the results are sometimes noticed by Mr. Fergusson and others, but that is a very different thing from making a complete list of a great number such as this. I put the foreign churches by themselves, as the difference of their characteristics from ours will be better seen thereby. The leading difference is that they are much wider for their length, and generally much higher too, though I have not accurate enough information about many of the heights to insert them in the table. The great width is generally due to their having two aisles on each side of the nave, or what is called five aisles altogether, which is very rare here. Chichester and Manchester are our only cathedrals with five aisles. It is singular that two of our widest churches, Boston and Yarmouth, have only single aisles, but very wide ones; Kendal and a few others have five and four aisles. Nevertheless it must be observed that York Minster contains the largest area of any Ꮓ |