The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-11 00:00:00

St, Stephen's Crypt,
_ _

It is some years now since the late Sir Charles
Barry began the restoration of this beautiful crypt,
the only relic that remains to tie Ot the once un-
equalled St. Stephen's Chapel, unless Westminster-
hall and the cloisters on the east side are to be
considered parts of the famous Palace, What the
crypt was 600 years ago, now that it has been per.
fectly restored to the splendour of its original
decoration, we can judge for ourselves; but the
glories of the chapel which once rose above it can
only be guessed at from comparison with the crypt,
or dimly admired through the traditions of anti-
quaries. Long before the fire which finally destroyed
it, the gradual, but necessary, process of accommo-
dating its interior to the wants of the House of
Commons, hid totally changed this once superbly
decorated edifice. Mr. Fergusson, in his "Hand
book of Architecrure,'► says of S. Stephen's As
might be expected a priori, the gem of English art
was the chapel in the Royal Palace at Westminster.
On this was lavished all that the metropolis could
then produce most exquisite in the arts of design,
and this not in architecture only, but the best
works of sculpture and the highest class of painting
were put in requisition for its adornments. The
dimensions were not large, being only 90ft. by 33ft.
internally, and its roof was of wood, but so elaborate
were its decorations that it must have cost more
than many edifices three or four times its size.
There can be no doubt that it was designed to sur-
pass everything of the sort in England, and being
erected wholly within the reigns of the three first
Edwards, it embraced the very best period of
English art, answering to the Sainte Chapelle
at Paris, which belongs to the great architec-
tural age of St. Louis." But , as we have
said, very little of this grandeur beyond its
traditiona remained till 1834, when, after having
been partly burnt about a &am times, the
old building finally succumbed to the great confla-
gration known as " the burning of the Houses of
Parliament." In traditions of other kind, however,
St. Stephen's, as the arena in which were fought
out the great battles for England's Constitution was
not inferior in historic interest to any building fire
has yet destroyed. A building in which the Confes-
sor died, which was not new when the first Norman
councils were held in England, and whioh witnessed
and survived every reformation but the reformation
of Parliament, must have possessed such historic
associations as would leave it without an equal in
this respect in Europe. But, endless as are the
traditions about St. Stephen's Chapel, about the
crypt beneath, with which we have now to do,
there is almost none. Some of the early Edwards
gave banquets in it, which must, one would think,
have been genial feasts, for there is a legend that
one of their Queens indulged to such intemperate
extent at a banquet there as to enable her to shuffle
off this mortal coil much earlier than she or her
friends anticipated. After this period it was merely
a crypt--a dull sort of ecclesiastical lumber-room,
about which there are no records save the doubtful
rumours which assign it as a place of meeting for
Cromwell, Pym, Denzil Holles, and others of the
Liberal party when the debates which preceded the
Commonwealth were drawing to a violent close.
From this time forth it seems to have been a lumber-
room, which was left alone in its dusty silence till
used to prepare the coronation banquet of one of the
early Georges—a mode of turning it to account
which seems to have suggested the idea which after-
wards was carried out by many successive Speakers
of giving their Parliamentary banquets in it. After
the fire which destroyed St. Stephen's Chapel above
it, but did not much injure the crypt, the gas meters
used to be kept in it, and in the New Palace the site
of St. Stephen's above the crypt was used in order
to obtain an entrance to the present structure
through Westminster-hall. All who have visited
the New Palace will, we are sure, have a vivid re-
collection of St Stephen's-hall, leading from West-
minsterahall to the great octagon central hall, and
containing the marble effigies of Pitt, Somers,
Hampden, Fox, Eldon, Clarendon, and others of
our greatest and most renowned orators and states-
men. This hall is exactly over the crypt, which
was spared by the fire, and which has now been
completely restored tinder the care of the present
architect to the New Palace—Mr E. M. Barry.
The late Sir Charles Barry, while, in common
with all other architects, he lamented the destruc-
tion of St Stephen's Chapel, always held as his
most cherished idea the restoration of the crypt,
and its re-dedication to religious uses as the pri-
vate chapel of the New Palace at Westminster,
whose inmates are some hundreds, now that the
Speaker, Black Rod, Sergeant-at-Arms, librarian,
and other officials possess regular family residences

within the building, and which, we believe, being
necessarily extra-parochial, give no legal claim for
seats in the neighbouring churches. It is some years
since this restoration was commenced, and it has
fallen to the lot of Sir Charles Barry's son to carry
out his father's views by completely restoring and
decorating the crypt, and nothing now remains to
be added except the fittings to render it a chapel
worthy of the most important Gothic( edifice of
modern times.
In the progress of this restoration the workmen
came upon the embalmed body of an ecclesiastic,
without any coffin, and buried under one of the
window seats. The body lay with its feet towards
the east—an unusual position for an ecclesiastic. It
was wrapped in several folds of waxed cloth, sewn
with twine. Its right hand ores on the breast, and
on the left arta lay the pastoral staff, a crook
of oak, beautifully carved, while on the feet
were sandals, with leathern soles sharply pointed.
The face was perfect in its preservation, with
the hair still on the chin and upper lip. This
was supposed to be the body of William Lyndwood,
Bishop of St David's, the only person, it is bee
lieved, who was buried in the crypt—at all events,
the only one found during the course of the repairs,
which were most extensive. As it appears now,
the crypt is restored to all the pristine splendour
of its early erection. Every tone of its rich gold
and colour decorations have been, wherever they
could be traced, most diligently reproduced, and
the result is a chapel which, in its general richness
of effect, will bear comparison with any in Europe,
with the Sainte Chapelle, with the Chapter-house
of ,alisbury Cathedral itself.
The date of the erection of St. Stephen's Chapel
and crypt is supposed to be from about A.D. 1290
to A.D. 1345, and, though the upper chapel was
roofed with wood, the crypt always possessed a
groyned ceiling of stone, with massive ribs and
bosses, which have been carefully reinstated and
restored. The bosses are in most cases original, as
their fragments have been collected and put together
again with great care. Some of the largest bosses
are really medallion groups of historical sculpture,
and contain representations of the martyrdoms of
St. Stephen, St. John, St. Catherine, St. Lawrence,
and also a representation of St. George and the
Dragon. Some of these bosses are most quaint, es-
pecially the chief one, which represents the martyr-
dom of St. Stephen, who is clad in gorgeous robes,
and being stoned by Hebrews dressed in the curious
costume and long pointed shoes of the time of
Chaucer, who, by the way, was himself clerk of the
works during the erection of part of the crypt and
chapel. Another boss, which represents the mar-
tyrdom of St. Catherine, is equally grotesque in
its manner of telling the tale of suffering. Weird
and monstrous, too, are the Gothic dragons which
peer from the roof and vary these bosses, and give
such appearance of originality to the whole ceiling.

The crypt is of nearly the same dimensiOns as the
original chapel above it—namely 90ft. long by 28ft.
wide, and 20ft. high. It contains five elaborate
groins, all richly decorated in gold and colours.
Attached to each of the side walls aro groups of
clustered columns which support the grJine. Each
cluster contains five columns, which, with their
capitals and bases, are all of Purbeck marble
polished. The side and end walls, as well as the
private entrance from the Palace, are all painted
and ornamented in a manner to correspond with,the
decoration of the groins, and as from the situation
of the cryp' there is necessarily a deficiency of
light, Mr Barry has thought-it necessary to make a
liberal use of gold grounds, as a field on which the
various decorations have been executed. The floor
is paved with Minton'a tilt's, with en admixture of
marble, the designs increasing in richness and ela-
boration towards the east end. The windows are all