Guildhall,
City of London
15th century
Click on the smaller photos to enlarge
Notes in italics are from London 1: The City of
London by Simon Bradley and Nikolaus Pevsner
(1997)
Yale University Press, New Haven and London |
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The centre of the civic
complex is still the great C15 Guildhall, with George Dance the Younger's
Hindoo-Gothic porch in front ... Second World War bombing raids burnt out
the Hall ...
Built by the master mason John Croxton or Croxtone from 1411 to c.1429 ...
It is known to have been at least the third Guildhall on the site ... In
spite of all that has happened to it in the Great Fire (1666)
and the Blitz and all it has undergone in the hands of restorers and
re-doers, the size and pride of the C15 work can still be appreciated.
Perp, eight bays long, lying E-W with tall transomed two-light windows
high up in the S and (concealed) N walls. ... Massive octagonal corner
turrets with buttresses, which continue along the sides. Everything to
window-head level is to Croxton's design, though renewed ...
Above the windows the restorers take over. To Sir Horace Jones's
medievalizing in 1864-8 are due the raised turrets and their pinnacles,
the crocketed buttress-gables and the plain parapets ( Croxton's hall was
crenellated, with pinnacled buttresses). Jones also added a big single
fleche with a spirelet ... Sir Giles Gilbert Scott followed Jones in this
when he reroofed the shell in handsome green Collyweston slates, 1953-4.
The crenellated clerestory behind the parapet is also Scott's, where Jones
had dormers ... |
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Competing for attention with
the medieval and neo-medieval work is the deep Portland stone porch of
1788-9 by Dance the Younger, surprisingly daredevil in its mixing of
Gothic, classical and Oriental motifs. Croxton's two-storey porch of
c.1425-30 survived the Great Fire ... Dance incorporated the C15 lower
storey into his new work, repeating the forms of the entrance in the
shallow projecting doorway. Nine bays in all, divided into three by fluted
buttresses continued up as big square pinnacles sporting hexagonal finials
and Greek bits and pieces. Eccentric cresting on the parapet and doorcase.
Bands of quatrefoil lozenges between the storeys. These lozenges and the
cusped-headed pointed windows derive from William Hodges's Select Views of
Architecture (1786): the earliest example of Indian influence in English
architecture, entirely characteristic of Dance's 'unshackled' eclecticism.
... The E part of the porch, truncated by Jones c.1865, was rebuilt
1909-10 by Perks, and the whole wing reconstructed in 1966-9 by
Richard Gilbert Scott, accommodating the cloister of the W extension (see
top picture). |
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First picture looks east, the
others west. Only inside does the Hall's grand scale become fully
apparent. It was the second largest structure in the medieval city after
St Paul's, and at 151 ft (46 metres) by 48 ft (14.5 metres) the largest
civic hall in England, inferior only to the royal Westminster Hall (240
ft, 73 metres, by 67 ft, 20.5 metres) as a single-span chamber. Interior
details are much pulled about, but the original treatment of the walls is
preserved. Splayed windows in two tiers, each with a single flanking
panel. ... Between the windows
substantial wall-shafts, of the typical C15 form of triple shaft and
hollow moulding, with foliage capitals and octagonal caps. ...
In each end wall a splendid nine-light window, divided 2-5-2 ... Tracery
of the central group with two-light sub-arches, flanking a panel-traceried
central light. Similar two-light sub-arches to either side, with
panelling, mouchettes and a quatrefoil above. The proportion from base to
apex is that of an equilateral triangle. ...
The present roof by Scott is of 1953-4, with pointed stone arches and a
clerestory on concealed steel trusses. What Croxton's roof was like has
been much debated ...
Furnishings. All post-war
apart from the restored monuments. Chandeliers, panelling and wooden
galleries in C15 Gothic style ... are to Scott's design. ... On the big W
gallery (altered 1972) loom the sculpted giants Gog and Magog, by David
Evans, 1954. ... |
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Monuments. Five spectacular
groups of statuary, with some C20 additions,
conceal much of the lower walls. ...
The younger Pitt by Bubb, 1806-13, a stilted group with Apollo, Mercury
and Britannia on a sea-horse.
Lord Mayor Beckford, 1770-2 by J.F. Moore, stiff and uninspired. Beckford
poses in mid-speech between reclining allegories of the City and Trade in
mourning.
The elder Pitt by Bacon Sen., 1782, the liveliest and most satisfying
group. Pitt is in Roman dress, attended by Commerce, the City, and
Britannia reclining on a lion to receive bounty from a cornucopia held by
cherubs. |
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Nelson by James Smith,
1806-10, with Neptune, Britannia (with Nelson's portrait) and the City.
Relief of Trafalgar on the plinth ...
Wellington by John Bell, 1856, high on a pedestal between Peace and War
...
Royal Fusiliers' memorial, 1907, with bronze figures by Pomeroy, inserted
in the panelling of the walls.
Finally in 1955 the Valhalla or Pantheon of statues was increased by a
seated bronze figure of Sir Winston Churchill, by Oscar Nemon. |
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Historic
trials in the Guildhall |
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On the
eastern side of Guildhall Yard, the Guildhall
Art Gallery by Richard Gilbert Scott, completed 1999. |
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View into
Guildhall Yard from Gresham Street.
Wren's St Lawrence Jewry on the left (more
here) |
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Map |
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The
Guildhall Website |
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Wikipedia
entry for the Guildhall |
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More
London Buildings |
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