WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2586, 21 August 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

WESTMINSTER ABBEY.

CAN IT BE SAVED FROM DECAY.

Sir W. B. Riehmond,.R.A., stated at a meeting in London, recently, that “Westminster Abbey had suffered more from rapid decay in the last hundred years than any that had occurred in tile whole of its. previous history. Repairs executed only from twenty to thirty years ago were more or less, and those of the south transept and parapet, badly decayed. Work executed only fourteen years ago was in a bad state, and that 'done in 1701 showed signs of being reduced to a friable mass to a considerable depth below the surface. That this decay was the result of acids deposited by smoke and otherwise there could be no doubt whatever. The chief cause of the destruction of the stone had been shown to be the presence in the air of sulphuric acids; the stone was converted into sulphate of lime; and in the process of its formation this disintegrated the stone by expansion. The ponnection between smoke _ and stone decay appeared to be invisible gases emitted from the smoke particles. It was now known that soot particles, although not in themselves injurious, acted as absorbents for the sulphurous acid produced from the eulpher from the burning coal. The soot, therefore, was a vehicle for destruction, although not in itself a destroyer. Another connecting link between stone decay and smoke was fog, in which tho solid matter of the smoke played an important part. The rapidity of tho decay seemed to have increased very much during late years, probably owing to the enormous growth in the consumption of coal. The Abbey had decayed all over. Most oi the outer stone used in the old structure had had to lie replaced. It was only bv continual renewals that the structure was kept standing.”