Case, Thomas
St. Mary’s clusters. An historical enquiry concerning the pinnacled steeple of the University Church, Oxford, with illustrations.
Oxford, James Parker & Co. 1893.
Full Description
4to. viii + 115 + (1)pp, frontispiece, 20 plates. Publisher’s quarter cloth, printed paper boards, slightly damaged at head of spine. Armorial bookplate of Donald Buttress FSA.
A substantial monograph by the Waynflete Professor of Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford, whose main objective was to demonstrate that a restoration of the tower of the University church carried out in 1848-52 had been architecturally incorrect. A century later it is difficult to feel that this was a topic that really deserved a monograph on this scale, but Professor Case brings all his academic expertise to bear on the problem and prints a previously unpublished report by George Gilbert Scott on the state of the church’s fabric. It seems unlikely that very many copies of the book were printed, and it is certainly scarce today.