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Oxoniana: or anecdotes relative to the university and city of Oxford
Oxoniana or anecdotes relative to the university and city of Oxford Author:John Walker Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: disgusted and retired to Oxford. He died in 1707. In the common room at Wad- ham College there is a very excellent head of an old woman painted by Sunman. Two... more » original and very curious portraits have been lately presented to the University. One of Queen Elizabeth, by the Rev. John Price, Head Librarian. The other of Mary Queen of Scots, by Mr. Alderman Fletcher. IV. SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN's ADVICE CONCERNING THE DIVINITY SCHOOL, OXON. DATED 5TH OF MARCH, 1699- 1700. He has no suspicion of the ruine of that fabrick, and he thinks that notwithstanding all that I told him, of the walls giving from the stalls of the library ; the crack in the roof of the Divinity School from one end to the other; some of the mouldings in that roof falling; and the plains of the buttresseson the south side leaning over in an angle of near one degree, or about two inches in ten feet, by following the directions hereafter set down, it may continue beautiful as well as firm for many years. These curious papers arc taken from the Originals in the Bodleian Library. 1. First Sir Christopher advises that the foundation of all the buttresses and wall on the south side be discovered and laid open, one buttress after another, beginning at the east end; and that digging to the sound gravell, the buttress and wall betwixt that and the next buttress (but especially the o utward heel of the buttress) be under propped with good stone and well primed wi th oyster shells, andc. The under propping of the buttress may be a little farther outward than the buttress itself. 2. After this there must be a convenient and clear sayer made, into which the water from the roof, and all that falls thereabout may be readily conveyed, and by it easily carryed off, that no water may stagnate there, or soak into tho...« less