This unusual design may have been a way of Soane experimenting with an alternative to a tower and/or pediment, whilst preserving a higher clerestory level to allow more light into the interior. The domes would be above the entrance vestibule and the chancel and sit on elaborately sculpted bases. Carr speculated that Byzantine and Romanesque churches, such as St Mark's in Venice may have had some influence, but as Carr admitted: 'if these are Soane's "sources," he has much transformed them.' (Carr, 1976, pp. 351-2).