Sir Christopher Wren : scientist, scholar and architect / by Sir Lawrence Weaver.

  • Lawrence Weaver
Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Sir Christopher Wren : scientist, scholar and architect / by Sir Lawrence Weaver. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ship with the Warden. Evidently, however, Wren retained an affection for his old school, because he took much trouble over the design of a new dormi¬ tory which led to a great deal of wrangling, and the work of building was postponed again and again. When, ultimately, the policy of rebuilding was settled in 1721, Wren was ninety, and no longer in practice. His design, therefore, was put aside, and the Earl of Burlington produced what purported to be a new one, but was, in fact. Wren’s, with some slight modifications. The existing building, in fact, which looks out on the quiet Abbey Garden, may be regarded as a work of Wren, though techni¬ cally the amateur Burlington was responsible for it. If we are to believe Elmes, it was not until 1647, when Christopher was in his fifteenth year, that he became acquainted with Sir Charles Scarborough, but it seems more reasonable to ascribe to the Scarborough period, following Wren’s retirement from Westminster, a manuscript letter in Latin verse to his father, dated September 13, 1645, dedicating to him an instrument called Suum Panorganum Astronomicum, and a tract De Ortu Fluminum. On that assumption Christopher left Westminster before he had completed his thirteenth year. There is very little to show that Wren was much interested in the graphic arts, but on the sheet in the heirloom Parentalia which contains the Latin letter is an ink sketch of a woman holding up a dial-shaped object, which is possibly the Panorganum.
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