Welsh Journals

St Davids, however, to paint the woodwork. Jones and Freeman are exceedingly dismissive of his work: 'this boarding (at the back of the stalls) is painted, like the rest of the woodwork, a dirty brown, and shaded with the most perverse ingenuity, to represent a series of niches with semi-circular heads decorated with winged cherubs He also primed and painted the altar, for which, and for other work, he received the sum of £ 8.13s.6d in 1710. He may well have been responsible for the painting of the panels of the roofs of the presbytery and tower. A watercolour of a mosaic trompe de I'oueil pattern, probably by Lord, is to be seen in the manuscript of Yardley's Menevia Sacra. 2 The late eighteenth century saw one major loss as far as the fabric was concerned in that the stone vaulted roof of the Lady chapel, long denuded of its lead, and repairable in 1719, finally collapsed in 1775. 3 This period, however, saw the cathedral author- ities faced with another potential collapse which they did their best to stem and repair. By the 1780s it was abundantly clear that the attentions paid to the nave in the sixteenth century had not finally solved the problems caused by the siting of the cathedral on a sloping site in a marshy bottom. In 1789 Bishop Horsley commenced a subscription for the repair of the west front. The amount collected was £ 1,931. 12s. 6d, £ 839 of which came from people who were not members of the chapter. 4 John Nash was commissioned to draw up plans for the rebuilding and these plans were submitted to the Society of Antiquaries for approval. That something needed to be done quickly is apparent from drawings made by Nash's draughtsman, Pugin (the elder), and others,5 one of which shows the west front heavily propped up and the other various plants and other vegetable life growing out of various parts of it. The source of the trouble was the original one of the choice of site; in 1 Jones and Freeman, St Davids Cathedral, p 87. 2 NLW, Church in Wales MS SD/Ch/29 (unpaginated). 3 Jones and Freeman, St Davids Cathedral, p 174 (note d). 4 Ibid, p 175. 5 Worsley and Evans, Eglwys Gadeiriol Tyddewi, p 42.