Old St Paul's Cathedral in length including the portico, and across the transepts, and Winchester Cathedral, the longest remaining medieval church, is long and across the transepts. The cathedral had one of Europe's tallest church spires, the height of which is traditionally given as , surpassing all but Lincoln Cathedral. The King's Surveyor, Christopher Wren (1632–1723), judged that an overestimate and gave . William Benham noted that the cathedral probably "resembled in general outline that of Salisbury, but it was a hundred feet longer, and the spire was sixty or eighty feet higher. The tower was open internally as far as the base of
Spire no bounds. With advances in technology, steel production, and building techniques the spire enjoyed an unprecedented surge through architecture, Cologne Cathedral's famous spires, designed centuries earlier, were finally completed in this era. Spires have never really fallen out of fashion. In the twentieth century reinforced concrete offered new possibilities for openwork spires. Spire A spire is a tapering conical or pyramidal structure on the top of a building, often a skyscraper or a church tower, similar to a steep tented roof. Etymologically, the word is derived from the Old English word "spir", meaning a sprout, shoot, or stalk of grass.