The Exterior of St. Paul's consists throughout of two orders, the lower Corinthian, the upper Composite. On the north and south sides the upper order is merely a curtain-wall, not corresponding with the height of the aisles and concealing the flying buttresses that support the clerestory of the nave. The balustrade along the top was added against the wishes of Wren, who cynically remarked of it that 'ladies think nothing well without an edging.' The West Front, flanked by towers, has a lower colonnade of twelve columns and an upper one of eight columns. The pediment sculpture (Conversion of St. Paul), the statues of SS. Paul (in the centre), Peter, and James, above, and the figures of the Evangelists on the towers are by Francis Bird (died 1731). In the north-west tower is a peal of bells, and in the south-west tower are the clock and 'Great Paul,' a bell weighing nearly 17 tons (hung in 1882), which is rung daily for 5 minutes at 1 p.m. The hour-bell of the clock is tolled also at the deaths of any of the royal family, the Bishop of London, the Dean of St. Paul's, or the Lord Mayor. In the pediment of the South Front is a Phoenix (by C. G. Cibber), typifying the rise of new St. Paul's from the ashes of the old, and recalling also the incident that when Wren sought a stone from the ruins to mark the centre of the new dome-space a fragment of an old tombstone was brought to him bearing the word 'Resurgam' ('I shall rise again'). The statues of Apostles above the north and south pediments are by Bird (those on the south modern replicas). But the most conspicuous feature of the exterior is, of course, the famous Dome, which lifts its Cross 365 feet above the City below. The outer dome is of wood covered with lead, and does not bear the weight of the elegant lantern on the top, which rests upon a cone of brick rising between an inner brick dome (the cupola seen from within the church) and the outer dome. To resist the thrust of the brick cone the dome is girt with a massive chain sunk in a channel at the level of the Stone Gallery. The present Ball and Cross date from 1721.
