On The Outside Of The Dome, About Twenty Feet Above The Outer Roof
Of The Church, Is A Range Of Thirty-Two Columns, With Niches Of The
Same Altitude, And Directly Counter To Those Aforesaid Within The
Cupola.
To these columns there is entablament, and above that a
gallery with acroteria, where are placed very spacious and
ornamental vases all round the cupola.
At twelve feet above the
tops of these vases (which space is adorned with pilasters and
entablament, and the intercolumns are windows) the diameter is taken
in (as appears outwardly) five feet, and two feet higher it
decreases five feet, and a foot above that it is still five feet
less, where the dome outwardly begins to arch, which arches meet
about fifty-two feet higher in perpendicular altitude, on the vertex
of which dome is a neat balcony, and above this a large and
beautiful lantern, adorned with columns of the Corinthian order,
with a ball and cross at the top.
Christ's Hospital is situated between Newgate Street and St.
Bartholomew's Hospital in Smithfield. Here, as has been observed
already, was anciently a monastery of grey friars, founded about the
year 1325, which, upon the dissolution of monasteries, was
surrendered to King Henry VIII., anno 1538, who, in the last year of
his reign, transferred it to the City of London for the use of the
poor. King Edward VI. endowed this hospital - together with those of
Bridewell and St. Thomas's Hospital in Southwark - with large
revenues, of which the City were made trustees, and incorporated by
the name of the mayor, commonalty, and citizens of the City of
London, governors of the possessions, revenues, and goods of the
hospitals of Christ, Bridewell, and St. Thomas the Apostle, to whom
the king granted 3,266 pounds 13s. 4d. per annum.
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