Spire

“ It would be difficult to say in what the true proportions of a spire consist, whether in its obvious and practical utility as a penthouse roofing the tower, or in its emblematic aptitude aspiring to and pointing towards heaven. Still, every cultivated eye will remark how much more dignified and imposing is the effect of a spire which is only moderately lofty, as compared with the breadth of its base, than that of one which is extremely slender. We would point out the spire of St Patrick’s Cathedral, for example, or that before us, on a smaller scale, as instances of the former sort. ”

“ The spire, in its steadfast tranquillity and its beauty, so unlike the restless wrangling dissonance below it, grew nevertheless out of the same hearts that make the dissonance, and, typifying what is spiritual and eternal in them, tends by its ideal presence to enlarge and uplift those by whose eyes it is sought. ”

“ The great spire of Ripon rose within the stone parapet of the tower, apparently at first twelve-sided with gables, and the spire itself twenty-four, each pair making a slight reentering angle—a beautiful composition it must have been of light and delicate shadow on the silver white of the old lead. This fair colour is of great importance; several of the old spires which remain to us are as white as if whitewashed. Modern ones, like the grimy thing at Lynn, would be improved by being whitewashed. ”

“ It is always a delight to one’s eyes to gaze upon its glittering spire, always a fairy study of artistic enchantment; but perhaps if it has a moment when it seems clothed with peculiar and almost ethereal, mystic attraction, it is in the early morning light, when the air has been bathed by dewdrops and is of crystal clearness, and when that scorching Eastern sun has only just begun to send forth his burning rays. ”

“ The narrower end I sharpen’d to a spire, Whose point we harden’d with the force of fire, And hid it in the dust that strew’d the cave, Then to my few companions, bold and brave, Proposed, who first the venturous deed should try, In the broad orbit of his monstrous eye To plunge the brand and twirl the pointed wood, When slumber next should tame the man of blood. ”

“ Hill and mountain of every imaginable outline, castle and tower, turret, and out-jutting and overhanging crags, magnificent needle forms shooting to the sky, like the spire of Trinity, crouching lions, and polar bears, trees of ice, and natural bridges, in short, you can scarcely fancy anything odd, that snow and ice can be made to resemble, that had not its type around us. ”

“ The ether-car was fixed to the central spire of the chief cathedral of the city — one of the highest points of our world. About two millions of our Venusians had gathered to behold the spectacle, and now they crowded every vantage point in the city—every spire and tower, every battlement and roof, every square and garden, was thronged with the vast host who had gathered from all lands to behold the sight. ”

“ The pinnacles, too, blossomed into crockets and bud-like finials, and began to gather more thickly about the roots of the spire, and from them often leaped flying-buttresses against it. During this time the spire itself was growing more and more acute, its lines becoming more and more eloquent. After the fourteenth century, the tower began to be crowned with intricate panelled tracery of parapets and battlements, from behind which the spire, an entirely separate structure, shot up into the sky. ”

“ All alone I ascended the highest pinnacle of the minster spire, and sat in what is called the neck, under the nob or crown, for a quarter of an hour, before I would venture to step out again into the open air, where, standing upon a platform scarce an ell square, without any particular holding, one sees the boundless prospect before; while the nearest objects and ornaments conceal the church, and every thing upon and above which one stands. It is exactly as if one saw one's self carried up into the air in a balloon. ”

“ The first object you catch sight of as you approach is the spire tapering into the sky, or the huge towers holding possession of the centre of the landscape—majestically beautiful—imposing by mere size amidst the large forms of Nature herself. ”

“ The construction of the spire is somewhat similar to that of an apparatus purposely contrived to draw the lightning from the clouds, as it runs up towards a point, and ends in a metal vane and cross, the figure of which, as well as the materials that they consist of, seem calculated to admit the lightning with the least resistance. ”

“ Somebody speaks of the ascent of a lofty church spire, as giving such a wonderful glimpse of the unity of a great city; showing its converging movements, its net-work of connection,—its human currents swayed and turned by intelligible drifts of purpose; all which, when one is down among them, seem but whirls of a confusing and distracting medley ”

“ Where'er a spire points up to heaven, ”

“ The spire itself is one hundred and twenty-eight feet high. It is crowned with a globe, five feet in diameter, on which is an angel supporting a cross, twenty-one feet high, though no one would suspect them to be of these dimensions, for they look like toys in the air. The summit of the cross is three hundred and eighty-seven feet from the ground. The spire is covered with copper, and gilded, and twenty-two pounds of pure gold were used upon it. The students gazed with wonder and admiration at the shadowy spire, and listened eagerly to the explanations given by Mr. Mapps. ”

“ I carried straightway to the village the topmost spire, and showed it to stranger jurymen who walked the streets,—for it was court-week,—and to farmers and lumber-dealers and wood-choppers and hunters, and not one had ever seen the like before, but they wondered as at a star dropped down. Tell of ancient architects finishing their works on the tops of columns as perfectly as on the lower and more visible parts! Nature has from the first expanded the minute blossoms of the forest only toward the heavens, above men's heads and unobserved by them. ”

“ The white spire of the meeting-house ascended out of the densest heap of vapor, as if that shadowy base were its only support: or, to give a truer interpretation, the steeple was the emblem of Religion, enveloped in mystery below, yet pointing to a cloudless atmosphere, and catching the brightness of the east on its gilded vane. ”

“ As the tide of fire sweeps along, there is a general level, but the flame is broken up into distinct tongues and waves; and when it meets with some ancient and lofty clump of trees, it rushes up to the topmost point, and this burning spire towers far above the sea of fire beneath. In some places there may be a calm, and the tongues shoot straight up; at other places, the flames are agitated by a fierce tempest, and they are bent at right angles to their original direction. ”

“ The ascent of the spire, which is perforated and open to the light, is not at all dangerous, although it may affect people who are subject to vertigo. Frail stairways wind through the towers and lead you to a balcony, above which there is nothing but the cap of the spire and the statue which crowns the edifice. ”

“ A delicate spire of an ancient building rose up from out of the trees in the middle distance, with a few grey houses clustered about it; while nearer to us, in fact not half a furlong from the water, was a quite modern stone house—a wide quadrangle of one story, the buildings that made it being quite low. ”

“ Now, a tall church spire appeared in view, which presently became a tree, a barn, a shadow on the ground, thrown on it by their own bright lamps. Now, there were horsemen, foot-passengers, carriages, going on before, or meeting them in narrow ways; which, when they were close upon them, turned to shadows too. A wall, a ruin, a sturdy gable end, would rise up in the road; and, when they were plunging headlong at it, would be the road itself. ”

“ The lines of the heights are cut stark and clear against a soft sky, darkening little by little, as though under protest. At the end of the road a spire uplifts its delicate silhouette; in a field are some 75's, which, in contrast with the houses, seem no more dangerous than pretty little playthings. ”

“ A vast pile of bricks and earth, with here and there a spire still rearing itself to the skies, marks the spot where once stood a shrine before which thousands were wont to prostrate themselves in superstitious adoration. ”

“ The delicacy, the finish, the harmonious intricacy, and faery-like lightness, of the whole--even to the summit of the spire;--which latter indeed has the appearance of filigree work, raised by enchantment, and through the interstices of which the bright blue sky appears with a lustre of which you have no conception in England--all this, I say, perfectly delights and overwhelms you. You want words to express your ideas, and the extent of your gratification. You feel convinced that the magnificent edifice before you seems to be the ne plus ultra of human skill in ornamental gothic architecture. ”

“ The spire is the simplest part of the Romanesque or Gothic architecture, and needs least study in order to be felt. It is a bit of sentiment almost pure of practical purpose. It tells the whole of its story at a glance, and its story is the best that architecture had to tell, for it typified the aspirations of man at the moment when man's aspirations were highest. ”

“ And warmly on the roof it looks,
And flickers on the backs of books.
Armies march by tower and spire
Of cities blazing, in the fire;—
Till as I gaze with staring eyes,
The armies fade, the lustre dies. ”

“ An instinctive taste teaches men to build their churches in flat countries with spire-steeples, which, as they cannot be referred to any other object, point, as with silent finger, to the sky and stars, and sometimes, when they reflect the brazen light of a rich though rainy sun-set, appear like a pyramid of flame burning heavenward. ”

“ No meteorological reason, I suppose, can account for this preference; but on carefully considering the two spires, I am struck by the delicate foliage, the slender lacework of the new spire, the elegant and coquettish grace of the whole of that side. The other, on the contrary, has no ornament, no carved tracery; it is simply carved in scallops like scale armour; it is sober, stern, stalwart and strong. It might really almost be thought that one is female and the other of the male sex. ”

“ The English spires bear especial witness to the zeal and aspiration of their builders. They belted them with bands of ornament, cut at first in imitation of tiles, and afterwards beautifully panelled with foliations. Moulded ribs began to run up the angles of the spires, and, when they met at the summit, would exultingly curl themselves together in the most precious cruciforms. Quaint spire-lights began to appear. Sometimes curious dormers would project from alternate sides ”

“ The spire being equilateral, its angles evidently do not correspond with those of the turret, and there is also a small space left upon each of the cardinal sides, uncovered by the spire; this is filled up by what appears to be the base of a pinnacle, the upper part of which has been destroyed. This belfry is also of Early English character, though the chancel-arch, and indeed the whole of the church, leads me to believe that in point of date it belongs to the period in which the Decorated style prevailed. ”

“ A man can shake it so that the movement shall be shown in a vessel of water nearly seventy feet below the summit, and higher up the vibration is like that of an earthquake. I have seen one of those wretched wooden spires with which we very shabbily finish some of our stone churches (thinking that the lidless blue eye of heaven cannot tell the counterfeit we try to pass on it,) swinging like a reed, in a wind, but one would hardly think of such a thing’s happening in a stone spire. ”

“ The most remarkable features are however the open pinnacles at the point where the tower becomes octangular, and the delicate spire-lights which are set on every side of the spire and rise nearly half its height. The spire-lights are remarkable in their arrangement at the top;104 instead of going back horizontally at the ridge they slope down rapidly to the spire so as to produce a very piquant effect. The detail of all the sculpture and mouldings is most carefully executed throughout, and though the scale of the steeple is not large it produces a very great effect of height. ”

“ The upper portion consisted of a lantern of two diminishing stages, with late-Gothic traceried windows and parapets, with pinnacles at the angles, the lower one of the two stages connected with the ground storey by flying buttresses. The whole was crowned by a most gracefully tapered spire, terminating in a weathercock. ”

“ Far above us, we knew, were sunlight, and fresh breezes, and ships going to and fro upon the waters, but around us were only the oppressing waters and the white radiance and the city of globes and its unhuman people. And at last the age-old plans of those people were finished, and the great generators were turned on. We saw them flocking through the streets toward the great spire and the vast pit, saw a gleam of sudden green radiance from the control room at the spire's top, in the distance ”

“ Where there is a bell-tower, the most beautiful covering for it is a spire. The spire, if possible, should be built of stone. If that cannot be afforded, it may be constructed of wood, and covered with lead, slates, or tiles. If a spire of any sort cannot be built, the next best covering is the “broach,” or pent-house roof, of which the spire is a development.
Before passing to the consideration of the characteristics of city and town Churches, permit me to say a few words about what is called “painting or graining.” This is entirely objectionable in Church work. ”