Introduction: Rising 168 feet (51 m) from the main crossing tower to a height of 404 feet (123 m) above ground level, the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, the tallest stone spire in England, still encloses the original oaken scaffold that was used to construct it – or at least that has long been the conventional wisdom. Francis Price wrote the timber structure in the spire was “used as a scaffold while the spire was building”. There was apparently nothing to contradict Price’s view in an extensive 1668 survey of the Cathedral by Sir Christopher Wren, which Price repeatedly cites. In a lecture, Robert Willis praised Price for “an accurate account”, affirming Price by failing to disagree. B.C. Parsons, Cecil Hewett, Roy Spring and Tim Tatton-Brown all explicitly state that the spire was built from the existing interior scaffold
Thomas Cocke wrote not only of building the spire from within, but also of an alternative: that thes interior scaffold “was a form of centring inserted after the completion of the spire to aid in its maintenance,” with the implication that external scaffolding was used in building the spire. Cocke’s unattributed alternative may have been proposed by Gavin Simpson, who in 1999 further advocated external scaffolding. In 1999, dendrochronology could not determine hte date of the extant interior scaffold, although it was regarded as medieval. Now the external scaffolding proposal has been revisited by Dan Miles, Robert Howard, and Gavin Simpson in a Centre for Archaeology Report; the renewed dendrochronological effort described in the Report has finally determined accurate dates fora few timbers in the existing interior scaffold by comparing samples taken in 1980 against the voluminous data accumulated in the meantime. To date, the Report contains the most complete argument advocating external scaffolding.
The Salisbury Spire Scaffold Debate
By A. Richard Jones
AVISTA Forum Journal, Vol.15:1 (2005)
Introduction: Rising 168 feet (51 m) from the main crossing tower to a height of 404 feet (123 m) above ground level, the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, the tallest stone spire in England, still encloses the original oaken scaffold that was used to construct it – or at least that has long been the conventional wisdom. Francis Price wrote the timber structure in the spire was “used as a scaffold while the spire was building”. There was apparently nothing to contradict Price’s view in an extensive 1668 survey of the Cathedral by Sir Christopher Wren, which Price repeatedly cites. In a lecture, Robert Willis praised Price for “an accurate account”, affirming Price by failing to disagree. B.C. Parsons, Cecil Hewett, Roy Spring and Tim Tatton-Brown all explicitly state that the spire was built from the existing interior scaffold
Thomas Cocke wrote not only of building the spire from within, but also of an alternative: that thes interior scaffold “was a form of centring inserted after the completion of the spire to aid in its maintenance,” with the implication that external scaffolding was used in building the spire. Cocke’s unattributed alternative may have been proposed by Gavin Simpson, who in 1999 further advocated external scaffolding. In 1999, dendrochronology could not determine hte date of the extant interior scaffold, although it was regarded as medieval. Now the external scaffolding proposal has been revisited by Dan Miles, Robert Howard, and Gavin Simpson in a Centre for Archaeology Report; the renewed dendrochronological effort described in the Report has finally determined accurate dates fora few timbers in the existing interior scaffold by comparing samples taken in 1980 against the voluminous data accumulated in the meantime. To date, the Report contains the most complete argument advocating external scaffolding.
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