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 NEW YORK. 
 
1 
 
 ■•■A.pir's 
 
 THE GOTHIC REVIVAL 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 NCSU Libraries 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/historyofgothicrOOeast 
 
*® e #aria: gratia dilecta: Homimis 
 tectnmbenedicta tu inter mulieres: 
 
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 ct^ocabis nomen ejus lefum: 
 
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 p ainting by flj enry holiday in tbe 
 
 Cbanccl of ail g aintg ' Cbnrc b: {lotting 
 IFjill . feilliam ttSbite ; f S a ; architect: 
 
A HISTORY 
 
 OF / /? l £^fs 
 
 THE GOTHIC REVIVAI 
 
 AN ATTEMPT TO SHOW HOW 
 
 THE TASTE FOR MEDIAEVAL ARCHITECTURE 
 
 WHICH LINGERED IN ENGLAND DURING THE TWO LAST CENTURIES 
 
 HAS SINCE BEEN ENCOURAGED AND DEVELOPED 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES L. EASTLAKE 
 
 F.R.I.B.A., ARCHITECT 
 AUTHOR OF ' HINTS ON HOUSEHOLD TASTE ' 
 
 ' Sic volvenda cstas commuted tempora rerum, 
 Quod fuit in pretio, fit nulla denique honore : 
 Porro aliud succedit, et e contemtibus exit, 
 Inque dies magis appetitur, floretque repcrtum 
 Laudibus, ct miro est mortaleis inter honore ' 
 
 Lucretius 
 
 LONDON 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 SCRIBNER, WELFORD, AND CO. 
 
 1872 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 --ooXKc 
 
 If any preface to this book be needed, it should perhaps 
 take the form of an ample apology for the time which has 
 elapsed between its original announcement and its publica- 
 tion. During that interval, and in such leisure as more 
 urgent duties left at my disposal, I gradually realised the 
 difficulties of the task which I had undertaken. 
 
 It has been said of contemporary history that its events 
 are less easy to ascertain with accuracy than those of past 
 time. For my own part, and in reference to this work, I can 
 testify to the fact that much information which I imagined 
 might be obtained for the asking has cost me more trouble 
 to procure than that which required literary research. 
 
 As it is, I fear that the following pages will be found 
 deficient in many details, the omission of which I regret, 
 not because it affects in any material degree the thread 
 of my narrative, but because in describing works of equal 
 merit or importance I had hoped to bestow an equal atten- 
 tion on each, and this, in the absence of necessary particulars 
 respecting some of them, has not always been possible. 
 
vi Preface. 
 
 If I have not ventured to dwell at any length on the 
 present prospects of the Revival, or attempted to enter 
 into details respecting the application of Mediaeval design 
 to the specific requirements of domestic and ecclesiastical 
 architecture, it is from a conviction that I could add little 
 or nothing to what has. been already said on these points. 
 Mr. G. G. Scott's ' Remarks on Secular and Domestic Archi- 
 tecture,' and Mr. Bcresford-Hope's ' English Cathedral of 
 the Nineteenth Century,' are works so exhaustive in their 
 nature, and so practical in their aim, that they leave scarcely 
 a plea to urge or a suggestion to advance in the interest of 
 modern Gothic. 
 
 My own object, as will be seen, is of a different kind. 
 
 For some years past it has seemed to me that the causes 
 which brought about, and the events which attended, one of 
 the most remarkable revolutions in national art that this 
 country has seen were worthy of some record, if only to serve 
 as a link between the past and future history of English 
 Architecture. In attempting to supply this record, it was 
 my intention from the first to chronicle facts rather than 
 offer criticisms, and where I have departed from this rule 
 it has been for the most part in the case of works which 
 illustrate some marked change in the progress of the Revival. 
 
 I felt, as my book advanced, that technical descriptions 
 
Preface. vii 
 
 of even noteworthy buildings would, if frequently repeated, 
 become tedious to the unprofessional reader. For this reason 
 I have in the majority of instances confined such descriptions 
 to the Tabulated List appended to this volume, in which will 
 be found a selection from the most remarkable structures of a 
 Mediaeval character erected by various architects during the 
 last fifty years, chronologically arranged. 
 
 In the choice of these examples I have been guided by 
 various considerations ; the date of a building, its local influ- 
 ence on public taste, or the novel character of its design 
 frequently rendering it, in relation to my purpose, an object 
 of greater interest than many others of more intrinsic import- 
 ance. This explanation will, 1 trust, be sufficient to account 
 for the absence of many works of acknowledged excellence 
 from my List, which, as it is, has reached a length far beyond 
 what I had anticipated when I began to compile it. 
 
 Little or no mention has been made of ' Restorations ' — 
 partly because it would have been difficult to draw a definite 
 line between those w T hich have been a simple repair of old 
 buildings, and others which have required archaeological skill 
 in execution, but chiefly because in either case such works 
 cannot be said to represent, except indirectly, the genuine 
 progress of modern architecture. 
 
 The large proportion of engravings which illustrate build- 
 
\ 111 
 
 Preface. 
 
 ings erected between i860 and 1870 as compared with those 
 of former \ ears has prevented their even distribution over the 
 volume. This is hardly satisfactory, but it will probably be 
 considered a less evil than the only possible alternative, viz. 
 theif separation from the text to which they relate. I may 
 lure observe that the size of these woodcuts does not permit 
 them, though very fairly executed, to convey more than a 
 general idea of the designs represented, and that, like photo- 
 graphic portraits, they never flatter the original. If my readers 
 w ill kindly remember this, I make no doubt that the architects 
 concerned will be equally indulgent. 
 
 To the Editor of the ' Building News ' I am indebted for 
 permission to incorporate with this volume a small portion of 
 its contents, which originally appeared in that journal. To 
 many friends, who have kindly helped me with information 
 and suggestions, my best acknowledgments are due for their 
 issistance and advice. 
 
 Charles L. Eastlake. 
 
 6 Upper BtRKULtv Street Wlst, 
 Hyde Park, W. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Ancient and Modern Art — Effect of Civilisation — Decline of Mediaeval Art — Elizabethan 
 Architecture — Dodsworth and Dugdale — The ' Monasticon Anglicanum' — Hollar and 
 King — Illustrations of the 'Monasticon' — Inigo Jones — Archbishop Laud — Durham 
 Churches — Sir Henry Wotton — Antiquaries of the Seventeenth Century — Dugdale's 
 'History of St. Paul's' — Old St. Paul's Italianised — Royal Commission on the Cathe- 
 dral — The Fire of London ...... pages i-io. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Anthony a Wood — The ' Athena? Oxonienses ' — Transition of Style — Sir Christopher 
 Wren — His Report on Salisbury Cathedral — Seventeenth Century Gothic — Works 
 at Oxford — Thomas Holt — Seventeenth Century Buildings at Oxford — University 
 College — Tom Tower, Christchurch — Brasenose College — Charles Church, Plymouth 
 — Old and New St. Paul's — Wren's Work at Westminster — St. Mary Aldermary — 
 St. Dunstan's-in-the-East — St. Michael's, Cornhill— Death of Wren . 20-41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Horace Walpole — His Taste for Gothic — Strawberry Hill — Description of the Building — 
 Character of Walpole's Gothic — Pedantry of the Renaissance — Batty Langley — 
 Gothic Architecture ' improved ' — The Five Orders Gothicised — Batty Langley's 
 Designs ......... 42-54 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 The Georgian Era — Additions to Hampton Court — Eighteenth Century Gothic — Costessy 
 Hall, Norfolk — The Revival in Scotland — William Beckford — Fonthill Abbey — 
 Literature of the Revival — Grose's ' Antiquities of England and Wales ' — Carter's 
 Works — Hearne's • Antiquities of Great Britain ' — Gough's 'Sepulchral Monuments' 
 Bentham and Willis — Their 'History of Gothic and Saxon Architecture' . 55-71 
 
x Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Difficulties of Classification — The Works of Nash and James Wyatt — Country Mansions 
 — Belvoir Castle — Elvaston Hall — Donnington Hall — Hawarden Castle — Ditton 
 Park — Eaton Hall — Seldon House — Eastnor Castle — Sir Robert Smirke — John 
 Britton — His early Life and Literary Career — The 'Beauties of Wiltshire,' 'Antiqui- 
 ties of Great Britain,' and 'Cathedral Antiquities' — Britton's 'Autobiography' — 
 Pugin and Willson — Their 'Specimens of Gothic Architecture' — The Age of 
 Plagiarism ....... pages 72-90 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A Retrospect — James Essex — Wyatt's Professional Practice — His ' Improvements 'and Re- 
 storations — Old and Modern Sculpture — Restoration of Henry VII. 's Chapel — 
 Public Confidence in Wyatt — New College Chapel, Oxford — John Carter — His 
 Antiquarian Tastes — His Letters in the ' Gentleman's Magazine ' — Effect of Carter's 
 Remonstrance — William Atkinson — Cottingham's Works — J. C. Buckler — His Addi- 
 tions to Costcssy Hall — His Description of Magdalen College . . 91-m 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Sir Walter Scott — The Waverley Novels — Their Effect on the Revival — Progress of 
 Mediaeval Sentiment — Domestic Architecture — The Church of ' the Period '—Dr. 
 Milncr — The ' Antiquities of Winchester ' — Milner's Literary Works — His Attack on 
 Wyatt — Thomas Rickman — St. George's Church, Birmingham — Rickman's Literary 
 Works — John Shaw — Christ's Hospital — A. Poynter — St. Kathcrine's Hospital — 
 Salvin's Works — Scotney Castle — Dr. Whcwell — Foreign Gothic . 11 2-1 31 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Pointed Arch Question — Theories as to the Origin of Gothic — Modern Gothic 
 Sculpture — Classification of Styles — Ecclesiological Studies — Proprieties of Design — 
 Edward Blore— His Early Life and Studies — His ' Monumental Remains' — His Pro- 
 fessional Works— James Savage— St. Luke's Church, Chelsea— Characteristics of the 
 Building ........ 132-144 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 A. N. Wei by Pugin— His early Life— His Theatrical Tastes— St. Marie's Grange— Scaris- 
 brick Hall— Pugin's Literary Works— His Tour in Italy— Character of Pugin's Designs 
 —His Facility of Invention— St. Giles's Church, Cheadle— St. George's Cathedral, 
 
 Westminster— St. Chad's Church, Birmingham — Stained Glass in St. Chad's 
 
 Character of Ancient Glass— Church of St. Wilfrid, Manchester- -St. Marie's Church, 
 Liverpool— Pugin's House at Ramsgatc— St. Augustine's Church . 145-165 
 
Contents. xi 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Sir Charles Barry — His Early Works — His Views on Church Architecture — The Houses 
 of Parliament Competition — Barry's Design selected — The unsuccessful Designs — 
 St. Stephen's Chapel — Westminster Hall — Ingenuity of Barry's Plan — Opposition to 
 Barry's Scheme — Mr. Hamilton's Protest and Arguments — A nti- Mediaeval Prejudices 
 — Pseudo-moral Objections — Colonel Jackson's Reply — Commencement of the Work 
 — Character of Barry's Design — Its Effects on the Revival, and Influence on Art- 
 Manufacture ....... pages 166-186 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Revival of Ecclesiastical Architecture — The 'Incorporated Society for Promoting the 
 Building of Churches ' — ' Commissioners' Churches ' — Evangelical Scruples — Utili- 
 tarian Objections — Ecclesiastical Economy — Secular Apathy — Condition of Church 
 Service — The Cambridge Camden Society — Publication of the ' Ecclesiologist ' — 
 Neale's ' Hints to Churchwardens ' — Opposition to the Cambridge Camden Society — 
 Its Change of Name — Restoration of the Temple Church — Dr. Chandler — The 
 Oxford Society — Their Effect on the Revival — Mr. Beresford-Hope — Kilndown 
 Church ........ 187-208 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 a.d. 1 840-1 850 — Architects of the Revival — Lincoln's Inn Hall — Character of the Design 
 — Mr. Drake's Lectures — Bartholomew's Essay on the Decline of Excellence in the 
 Structure of English Buildings — Exhibition of Mediaeval Art — Wilton Church and 
 Cheltenham College — Publication of ' The Builder ' — The Works of Scott and 
 Ferrey — Church of St. Giles's, Camberwell — R. C. Carpenter — His Churches at 
 Birmingham and elsewhere — Mr. Butterfield — St. Augustine's College, Canter- 
 bury ........ 209—228 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 The Rev. J. L. Petit — Mr. E. A. Freeman — Ecclesiological Symbolism — Translation of 
 Durandus published — Nomenclature of Styles — Mr. E. Sharpe — His ' Architectural 
 Parallels ' — His Professional Works — Paley's ' Gothic Mouldings ' — Bowman and 
 Crowther — Nash's ' Mansions of England ' — Mr. R. W. Billings — His * Baronial 
 Antiquities of Scotland ' — Brandon's 'Analysis of Gothic Architecture' — Messrs. 
 Hadfield andWeightman — Their Works at Manchester, Sheffield, &c. — Mr. J.J.Scoles 
 — Church of St. Francis Xavier at Liverpool — A new Reformation . 229-245 
 
xii Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 New Churches in London — St. Andrew's, Wells Street — St. Stephen's, Westminster — St. 
 Barnabas', Pimlico— St. Mary Magdalene, Munstcr Square — Proposed Erection of a 
 Model Church — All Saints' Church, Margaret Street — Its Internal Decoration — Criti- 
 cism of the work — Ycalmpton Church — Abbey Mere, Plymouth— St. Alban's 
 Church, Holborn — Description of its Details — Decorative Sculpture and Painting — 
 Chapel of Balliol College, Oxford— Keble College— Characteristics of Mr. Butter- 
 field's Work ....... pages 246-263 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 'Ruskinism' — Condition of Modern Architecture — 'The Seven Lamps' — Claims of 
 Italian Gothic — Mr. Ruskin as an Art Reformer — Use of Iron in visible Construction 
 — Development of Window Tracery — ' The Lamp of Beauty ' — Mr. Ruskin's 
 Critics — The Morality of Art — Proposed Limits of National Style — Character of Mr. 
 Ruskin's Views — ' The Stones of Venice' — Divisions and Subdivisions — Mr. Ruskin as 
 a Critic — Early Converts to Ruskinism — Introduction of Venetian Gothic 264-280 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 The Great Exhibition of 1 85 1 — Its Effect on the Revival — Messrs. Deane and Woodward 
 — The Oxford Museum — Decorative Treatment of the Building — Christ Church and 
 Merton Colleges — Domestic and Ecclesiastical Gothic — Church Architects a.d. 
 1850-60 — St. Peter's Church, Bournemouth — All Saints' Church, Notting Hill — 
 Character of Mr. White's Designs — Lyndhurst Church, Hampshire — Exeter College 
 Chapel and Library — Progress of the Revival — The Battle of the Styles . 281-297 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 Deficiency of Public Interest — The Architectural Exhibition — The Architectural Museum 
 — Mr. F. Wyatt's Works— Orchardleigh Park and Capel Manor— Mr. J. L. Pearson's 
 Works — Trcberfydd House and Quar Wood— Mr. J. Prichard — Eatington Park — 
 Adaptability of Italian Gothic — New Houses at Westminster — Mr. Scott on the 
 Revival — The New Foreign Office Competition — Lord Palmcrston's Dislike to Gothic 
 — The Manchester Assize Courts Competition — Mr. Waterhouse's Design — The 
 Building as executed — Ancient Art and Modern Requirements . . 298-315 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 Influence of Individual Taste — The Study of French Gothic — The Lille Cathedral Com- 
 petition — M. Viollct-le-Duc — The 'Dictionnairede l'Architecture Francaise' — Sketches 
 published by Shaw and Nesfield — Church of St. Francis of Assisi, Notting Hill — 
 Church of St. James the Less, Westminster — Character of Mr. Street's designs — 
 
Contents. xiii 
 
 Church of SS. Philip and James, Oxford — St. Peter's Church, Vauxhall— Internal 
 Decoration of St. Peter's — Mr. H. Woodyer — St. Raphael's College, Bristol — Church 
 of the Holy Innocents at Highnam — St. Paul's Church, Wokingham — Surrey County 
 Schools— Eastbourne Convalescent Hospital — The House of Mercy at Bovey 
 Tracey ....... pages 316-332 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 A Truce to the Battle of the Styles —The Medievalists divided — The Eclectic and the 
 Parish Schools — Mr. T. Hudson Turner — Parker's ' Domestic Architecture of the 
 Middle Ages ' — Unpopularity of Early Art — A Reaction in favour of Late Pointed 
 Work — Mr. R. Norman Shaw— Leyes Wood and Glen Andred — Mr.W. E. Nesfield 
 — Cloverley Hall — House at Farnham Royal — The Church of Rome and the 
 Revival — Obstacles to Roman Catholic Encouragement of Gothic — Mr. G. Goldie — 
 Abbey of St. Scholastica, Teignmouth — Roman Catholic Church of St. Mary, 
 Kensington — Mr. Hadfield's Works — The Revival independent of Religious 
 Creed ........ 333-35 1 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 a.d. i 860-1 870 — The Works of Mr. W. Burges — Cathedral Church of St. Finbar, Cork 
 — New Tower at Cardiff Castle — ' Knightshayes,' Devon — The Dangers of Liberty in 
 Design — Mr. E. W. Godwin's Works— Town Halls at Northampton and Congleton 
 — Three Schools of Modern Gothic — The University College of Wales — Balliol 
 College, Oxford — ' Humewood,' Wicklow — Mr. James Brooks — St. Chad's Church, 
 Haggerston — St. Columba, Kingsland Road — Church of the Annunciation, Christ- 
 church — French and English types — St. Stephen's Church, Hampstead — Mr. G. F. 
 Bodley — Church of St. John the Baptist, Liverpool — Its Internal Decoration — 
 Future Prospects of the Revival — Conclusion . . . . 352-372 
 
Errata. 
 
 Page 102, line 22, for mezzo-relievo read mezzo-rilievo. 
 
 ,, 191, „ 26, for had read had been. 
 
 „ 243, „ 4, for latter read former. 
 
 ,, 270, „ 7, for has read have. 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The Annunciation : part of a mural painting in the chancel of All Saints' 
 Church, Notting Hill ...... 
 
 Church of St. Andrew, Plaistow, Essex 
 
 Old House on Pride Hill, Shrewsbury 
 
 The Tom Tower, Christ Church, Oxford 
 
 Eaton Hall, Cheshire. The seat of the Marquis of Westminster 
 
 Scotney Castle, Sussex. The residence of Edward Hussey, Esq. 
 
 Church of St. Augustine, Ramsgate . 
 
 Church of S. Mary, Chetwynde, Shropshire . 
 
 College at Lancing, Sussex 
 
 St. John's (R. C.) Cathedral, Salford, Manchester 
 
 Church of S. Stephen, Westminster 
 
 Belfry of S. Alban's Church, London 
 
 Balliol College Chapel, Oxford 
 
 The University Museum, Oxford 
 
 Lyndhurst Parish Church 
 
 South Porch of Exeter College Chapel, Oxford 
 
 Orchardleigh Park, Somersetshire. The seat of W. Duckworth, Esq. 
 
 Quar Wood, Gloucestershire. The residence of the Rev. R. W. Hippisley 
 
 Eatington Park, Warwickshire. The seat of E. P. Shirley, Esq. 
 
 Entrance to the Assize Courts, Manchester .... 
 
 Entrance to the Digby Mortuary Chapel, Sherborne . 
 
 Baptistery of St. Francis' Church, Notting Hill 
 
 Church of S. Philip and S. James, Oxford 
 
 PAGE 
 
 frontispiece 
 to face i 
 
 5 
 30 
 
 11 
 130 
 163 
 220 
 224 
 243 
 247 
 
 2 57 
 261 
 283 
 292 
 295 
 301 
 304 
 307 
 312 
 319 
 321 
 323 
 
XVI 
 
 Illustrations. 
 
 Chancel of St. John's Church, Torquay .... 
 
 Chancel of S. Peter's Church, Vauxhall .... 
 
 All Saints' Hospital, Eastbourne ..... 
 Cloverley Hall, Whitchurch, Shropshire. The seat of J. P. Hey wood, Esq 
 Leyes Wood, Sussex. The seat of James W. Temple, Esq. . 
 Abbey of St. Scholastica, Teignmouth .... 
 
 Western Doorway of St. Mary's (R. C. pro-Cathedral) Church 
 Knightshayes, near Tiverton, Devon. The seat of J. H. Amory, Esq., M.P 
 Part of New Buildings at Balliol College, Oxford 
 
 Hume wood, Wicklow. The seat of W. W. Fitzwilliam Dick, Esq., M.P. 
 Church of St. Chad, Haggerston ..... 
 Church of St. Columba, Haggerston ..... 
 Church of St. Stephen, Hampstead ..... 
 
 PAGE 
 
 to face 325 
 
 3*7 
 
 331 
 
 340 
 
 343 
 348 
 
 350 
 
 35 6 
 360 
 
 362 
 
 3 6 4 
 366 
 368 
 
 Portion of Nave Arcade, All Saints' Church 
 
 Capital of Nave Pier, St. Alban's Church 
 
 Ironwork of Chancel Railing, St. Alban's Church 
 
 Spandrils and Arch-mouldings of Windows, Oxford Museum 
 
 Ironwork Capital, Oxford Museum .... 
 
 Carved Capital, Oxford Museum .... 
 
 Decorative Sculpture of Reredos, St. Peter's Church, Bournemouth 
 
 Carved Capitals, Lyndhurst Church .... 
 
 Corbel, Exeter College Chapel, Oxford .... 
 
 Dormer Window, Eatington Park, Warwickshire 
 
 Chimneys, Eatington Park ..... 
 
 Fireplace in House at Farnham Royal, Windsor 
 
 254 
 258 
 259 
 284 
 285 
 286 
 290 
 294 
 295 
 
 3°5 
 306 
 
 342 
 
,rn> rzi 
 
 Church of St. Andrezv, P /a is tow, Essex. 
 James Brooks, Architect, 1867. 
 
H ISTORY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE GOTHIC REVIVAL. 
 
 a 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 HE RENEWAL, in this country, of a taste for Mediaeval 
 architecture, and the reapplication of those principles which 
 regulate its design, represent one of the most interesting and 
 remarkable phases in the history of art. Unlike the Italian Renaissance, 
 which was intimately associated with, and in a great measure dependent 
 on, the study of ancient literature, our modern English Revival fails to 
 exhibit, even in its earliest development, many of those external causes 
 to which we are accustomed to attribute a revolution in public taste. 
 
 To the various influences which raised this school of art from the 
 crumbling ruins of the Roman empire to its glory in Western Europe, 
 and then permitted it to lapse into degradation in the sixteenth century, 
 history points with an unerring hand. But for the stranger influence 
 which slowly though surely has rescued it from that degradation, which 
 has enlisted such universal sympathy in its behalf, and which bids fair, 
 in spite of ignorant and idle prejudice, to adapt it, after two hundred 
 years of neglect and contumely, to the requirements of a mercantile 
 people and a practical age — for this influence, indeed, if we search at 
 all, we must search in more than one direction. 
 
 B 
 
Ancient and Modern Art. 
 
 At first it may seem strange that a style of design which is intimately 
 associated with the romance of the world's history should now-a-days 
 find favour in a country distinguished above all others for the plain 
 business-like tenour of its daily life. But this presents a paradox more 
 obvious in a moral than in an historical sense. 
 
 It is not because England has been stigmatised as a nation of shop- 
 keepers that she is necessarily indifferent to the progress of architecture. 
 The fairest palaces of Venice were raised at a time when her commercial 
 prosperity stood at its zenith, but her art and her commerce had grown 
 up together, and if the latter was genuine and healthy, the former was 
 unsophisticated and pure. They had had a common origin in the 
 welfare of the State. With the decay of the State they declined. Art 
 in the thirteenth century was no mere hobby of the educated, nor a 
 taste which depended on antiquarian research for its perfection. It 
 belonged to the habits, to the necessities, one might almost say to the 
 instincts, of civilised life. Men did not then theorise on the fitness of 
 style, or the propriety of this or that mode of decoration. There was 
 but one style at one time — adopted, no doubt, with more or less success, 
 according to the ability of the designer, but adopted with perfect con- 
 fidence and uniformity of purpose — untrammelled by the consideration 
 of dates or mouldings, or any of the fussiness of archaeology, and 
 maintaining its integrity, not by the authority of private judgment, but 
 by the free will and common acceptation of a people. 
 
 The difference of condition between ancient and modern art has a 
 direct analogy with that which exists between ancient and modern poetry, 
 and which has been ably illustrated by one of the greatest of our modern 
 writers. f In a rude state of society,' says Macaulay, ' men are children 
 with a greater variety of ideas. It is, therefore, in such a state of 
 society that we may expect to find the poetical temperament in its 
 highest perfection. In an enlightened age there will be much intelligence, 
 much science, much philosophy, abundance of just classification and 
 subtle analysis, al undance of wit and eloquence, abundance of verses, 
 
Effect of Civilisation. 
 
 and even of good ones; but little poetry. Men will judge and com- 
 pare ; but they will not create.' 
 
 If this reasoning be just in regard to the poetry of language, it is 
 equally so with respect to the poetry of art. As a nation, we have 
 grown too sophisticated to enjoy either intuitively. But there is 
 another kind of admiration which we, in common with all modern 
 Europe, may hope to feel for both, and which is derived from and 
 dependent on the cultivation of the human intellect. The graceful 
 action of a child at play is mainly due to its utter artlessness. It may 
 skip and jump and roll upon the greensward in a manner which defies 
 our artificial sense of decorum. Yet every movement associated with 
 that age of innocence has a charm for us. It may be free and uncon- 
 ventional, but never clumsy. It may be quaint or even boisterous, but 
 never vulgar. Such is the comeliness of nature, which by-and-by is 
 handed over to the mercies of the dancing-master, who, with fiddle in 
 hand and toes turned outwards, proceeds to teach our little ones deport- 
 ment. From that moment ensues a dreary interval of primness and 
 awkwardness. Who has not noticed the semi-prudish gaucherie of 
 little ladies from the age of (say) twelve to sixteen ? As a rule they 
 stand, sit, walk, and converse with a painful air of restraint, in which 
 all natural grace is lost in an overwhelming sense of propriety, nor 
 is it until they ripen into womanhood that they acquire that easy 
 confidence of manner which is at once characteristic of the most perfect 
 breeding and the purest heart. 
 
 It is precisely such an interval as this — an interval between youthful 
 grace and mature beauty — which must fall to the fate of every art 
 during the progress of civilisation. But, instead of years, we need 
 centuries of teaching to re-establish principles which were once inde- 
 pendent of education, but which have lapsed away before the sophistry 
 of theoretic science, or have been obliterated by the influence of a false 
 economy. It has now come to be an universally accepted fact that the 
 arts of design attain their greatest perfection under two conditions. We 
 
 B 2 
 
Decline of Mcdiccval Art. 
 
 must either have theories of the most refined and cultivated order, or 
 we must have no theories at all. In the present age, when theory is 
 everything — when volume after volume issues from the press replete 
 with the most subtle analysis of principles which are to guide us in our 
 estimate of the beautiful, it is hopeless to expect that men will work by 
 the light of nature alone, and forego the influence of precedent. If the 
 1 Dark A^es' had continued dark in the ordinary sense of the epithet, 
 what might we not have expected from the beauties of the Pointed style ? 
 Even if literature had kept pace with art, they might have gradually 
 emerged together with the dawn of Western civilisation. But the 
 change, though gradual, was too thorough for such a result, and when 
 at length the dazzling light of the Renaissance burst in upon our 
 monasteries and cathedrals, the spirit of their magnificence faded away 
 before the unexpected meteor. The tree of knowledge had been tasted, 
 and it was vain to expect sustenance from the tree of life. Thence- 
 forth, the art whose seed had been sown in the earliest period of 
 European history — which had developed with the prosperity of nations, 
 and borne good fruit in abundance after its kind — was doomed to wither 
 away, neglected, into a sapless trunk — to be hedged round, indeed, by 
 careful antiquaries, and pointed at as a curiosity, but never, as it once 
 seemed, likely to flourish again on English soil. 
 
 And here, if it were not time to drop the metaphor, one might 
 extend its significance yet further. For there are two theories respect- 
 ing the revival of Gothic architecture in this country. One is, that it 
 appears among us as a new exotic plant, requiring different culture 
 from its ancient prototype, which is supposed to have become utterly 
 extinct. But there are those who love to think that the old parent 
 stem never altogether lost its vitality, and that the Mediaeval tendencies 
 which crop up among us now in this latter half of the nineteenth 
 century may be compared to the fresh green sprouts which owe 
 their existence to the life still lingering in some venerable forest oak. 
 The supporters of this latter theory have a great deal to urge on 
 
H-*i- 
 
 ( V<j House on Pride Hill, Shrewsbury 
 From a Sketch by ('. /. Eastlake. 
 
Elizabethan A re hi 'tee fare. 
 
 their side of the question. In the first place the Renaissance school, 
 from which we are accustomed to date the extinction of Gothic art, 
 although it appeared in Italy with Brunelleschi at its head during the 
 early part of the fifteenth century, was scarcely recognised in England 
 until a hundred years later, and long after that period, even when the 
 works of Lomazzo and Philibert de l'Orme had been translated into 
 English, and John Shute, an architect of Queen Elizabeth's time, had 
 returned from Italy (whither he had been sent by his patron Dudley, 
 Duke of Northumberland), no doubt full of conceits for, and admira- 
 tion of, the new style, there was little to be seen of that style, save the 
 incongruous details with which it became the fashion to decorate the 
 palatial houses of the aristocracy. But though Italian stringcourses and 
 kevstones, quoins, and cornices, were introduced abundantly in the bay- 
 windows and porticoes of the day, the main outline of the buildings to 
 which those features belonged remained in accordance with the ancient 
 type. This was especially the case in rural districts. The counties 
 of Shropshire, Chester, and Stafford, bear evidence to this day, in 
 many an old timber house which dates from the Elizabethan period, 
 of the tenacity with which the old style held its own in regard to 
 general arrangement, long after it had been grafted with the details of 
 a foreign school. Even down to the reign of James I., the domestic 
 architecture of England, as exemplified in the country houses of the 
 nobility, was Gothic in spirit, and frequently contained more real 
 elements of a Mediaeval character than many which have been built in 
 modern times by the light of archaeological orthodoxy. Inigo Jones 
 himself required a second visit to Italy before he could thoroughly 
 abandon the use of the Pointed arch. But its days were now numbered, 
 and when in 1633 the first stone w : as laid for a Roman portico to one 
 of the finest cathedrals of the Middle Ages, the tide of national taste 
 may be said to have completely turned, and Gothic architecture, as a 
 practicable art, received what was then no doubt supposed to be its 
 death-blow. 
 
Dodsworth and Dugdalc. 
 
 By a strange and fortunate coincidence of events, however, it 
 happened that at this very time, when architects of the period had 
 learned to despise the buildings of their ancestors, a spirit of veneration 
 for the past was springing up among a class of men who may be said 
 to have founded our modern school of antiquaries. Sometimes, indeed, 
 their researches were not those of a character from which much 
 advantage was to be expected. James I. spent a great deal of his own 
 and his architect's time in speculating on the origin of Stonehenge, and 
 no doubt many ingenious theorists were content to follow the royal 
 example. But luckily for posterity, the attention of others was drawn 
 in a more serviceable direction. Up to this time no work of any import- 
 ance had been published on the Architectural Antiquities of England. 
 A period had arrived when it was thought necessary, if only on historical 
 grounds, that some record of ecclesiastical establishments should be 
 compiled. The promoters of the scheme were probably little influenced 
 by the love of Gothic as a style. But an old building was necessarily 
 a Gothic building, and thus it happened that, in spite of the prejudices 
 of the age, and probably their own aesthetic predilections, the anti- 
 quarians of the day became the means of keeping alive some interest in 
 a school of architecture which had ceased to be practically employed. 
 
 Early in the reign of Charles I., Mr. Roger Dodsworth, who appears 
 to have belonged to a good family in Yorkshire, inspired by that love 
 of archaeology which distinguished many gentlemen of the time, began 
 to collect materials for a history of his native county. In the course 
 of his research, he necessarily acquired much interesting information 
 concerning the origin and endowments of those religious houses of the 
 North which had been established previous to the Reformation. While 
 Dodsworth — a man somewhat advanced in years — was engaged in this 
 pursuit, a younger antiquarian than himself, Mr. William Dugdale, of 
 Blythe, was similarly occupied in compiling a history of Warwickshire. 
 Sir Henry Spelman, who knew both, and appreciated the value of their 
 labours, perceived that, by uniting the labours of these gentlemen, a 
 
The ' Monasticon Anglicanum' 
 
 valuable result might be obtained. He therefore did his best to bring 
 them together, and we have reason to be thankful that he succeeded in 
 doing so, for a literary partnership ensued, and the produce of their 
 joint authorship was the c Monasticon Anglicanum.' 
 
 Opinions are much divided concerning Dugdale's share in the earlier 
 portions of this work. Mr. Gough, in his ' British Topography, 
 contends that the two first volumes were compiled entirely by Dods- 
 worth. This opinion has since been refuted, with what success need 
 not here be discussed. It suffices to state that Dodsworth, who was 
 indubitably the original projector of the undertaking, died a year before 
 the publication of the first volume, which occurred in 1655. This 
 volume appeared without dedication, and, indeed, it would have been 
 difficult to find, in those stormy times, and among the Puritan leaders 
 of the Commonwealth, a patron who was sufficiently interested in the 
 object of the work to lend his name to the title-page. Nor were the 
 interests of literature likely to be better supported by the Royalists 
 themselves, who had just been iniquitously deprived of one-tenth of 
 their estates under the military despotism which then obtained in 
 England. The book, in short, met with a miserable sale, so much so 
 that it was not until seven years later, after the Restoration, that the 
 second volume appeared — this time accompanied by a dedication to his 
 gracious Majesty King Charles II., who no doubt was much edified by 
 its perusal. The third volume came out in 1673 — the memorable 
 year of the Test Act — and, by an entry in Dugdale's diary, it seems 
 that he received fifty pounds for it. In this concluding portion of his 
 labour he had been assisted by Sir Thomas Herbert and Mr. Anthony 
 a Wood. 
 
 In 1682 a new and improved edition of the first volume was published 
 (Editio secunda auctior et emendatior ; cum altera ac elucidiori indice), 
 and of this edition many copies exist. It has a double title page, the 
 first containing a sort of genealogical tree, on the branches of which are 
 represented, in a kneeling attitude, little groups of figures emblematical 
 
8 Hollar and King. 
 
 of various religious and monastic orders. At the foot of the tree stand 
 St. Benedict, St. Dunstan, St. Gregory, St. Augustine, and St. Cuth- 
 bert. The engraving opposite this is remarkable for two facts connected 
 with it. Although the work to which it introduces the reader treats of 
 none but Mediaeval buildings, the design of this page is essentially Italian 
 in character, and in fact represents a kind of Roman triumphal arch, so 
 indifferent were its authors to the interests of Gothic art. But their 
 sympathy with the fate of many an ecclesiastical institution which had 
 perished under the rule of Henry VIII. is indicated by two vignettes 
 which appear at the bottom of the plate. In one of these a king is seen 
 kneeling before an altar and dedicating some grant c Deo et ecclesitf' in 
 behalf of an abbey which appears delineated in the distance. In the 
 second compartment the abbey is in ruins, and c blufF King Hal,' 
 straddling in the foreground, and apart from his Royal -predecessors, 
 points with his stick to the dismantled walls, exclaiming c Sic volo.' 
 
 It is impossible to mistake the spirit which found vent in these 
 symbols. The engravings which were published with the original 
 editions of the f Monasticon ' were executed by Hollar and King, two 
 artists, of whose names one would certainly not otherwise have reached 
 posterity. Those by Hollar are the best, and are chiefly illustrative 
 of the various costumes worn by ancient religious orders in England. 
 King undertook the architectural views, which are for the most part 
 of a rude and unsatisfactory description. They are frequently out of 
 perspective, and are neither faithful in matters of detail nor drawn 
 with any artistic spirit. They are, however, not uninteresting to the 
 modern student, as they include many records of buildings, or portions 
 of buildings, which have long since perished under the hand of time. 
 Among Hollar's may be mentioned a view of Lincoln Cathedral, show- 
 ing the spire previous to its destruction in 1547, and the views of 
 Salisbury with its detached belfry (on the north side), since removed. 
 
 The descriptive text is written in Latin, after a fashion common with 
 such works of that date. From an allusion in his diary in 1658, 
 
Illustrations of the ' Monasticon! 
 
 Dugdale seems to have feared that c Mr. King' (probably a clerk in 
 his employ) was about to publish a translation of the f Monasticon.' 
 That such a work was prepared to the extent of the first volume is 
 evident from the fact that Dugdale himself alludes to its being 
 'erroneously Englished' in many places. The abridged translation, 
 however, which was subsequently published, did not appear until 1692, 
 six years after Sir William Dugdale's death, and being signed ' J. W.' 
 was ascribed to Mr. James Wright, a barrister of the Middle Temple, 
 who, in 1684, published the 'History and Antiquities of the County of 
 Rutland.' Other abridgments and extracts from the original work fol- 
 lowed, many of which were inaccurate. 
 
 The modern edition is well known. It was the result of the joint 
 labours of three gentlemen eminently qualified for the task which they 
 undertook : — The Rev. Bulkeley Bandinell, D.D., keeper of the 
 Bodleian Library ; Mr. John Caley, keeper of the Records of the 
 Augmentation Office (who, at a later period, held a similar post at 
 Westminster) ; and Mr. (afterwards Sir Henry) Ellis, keeper of the 
 MSS. in the British Museum. It is needless to say that the amount 
 of erudition thus brought to bear upon the subject materially increased 
 the historical value of the work. Hundreds of Religious Houses of 
 which Dugdale knew little or nothing were added to the list. Most of 
 Hollar's prints were re-engraved. Those by King were rejected as 
 worthless. But, in order to supply their place, the authors availed 
 themselves of an artist's assistance, whose work, though it may appear 
 indifferent when judged by a more recent standard of merit, is by no 
 means deficient in artistic quality, and was no doubt among the best of 
 his time. The engravings from Mr. John Coney's drawings will 
 scarcely satisfy those who look for minute attention to the detail of 
 Gothic ornament. But in breadth of effect, and in treatment of 
 chiaroscuro, they will bear comparison with Piranesi. It is to be 
 regretted that the initial letters and a few other characteristics of the 
 early text were not reproduced. But taken as a whole, and considering 
 
io Inigo yones. 
 
 the period at which it was brought out, the modern edition of the 
 f Monasticon ' is a work which does credit to its authors and the spirit 
 which induced its publication. 
 
 In examining the condition of what is commonly known as Pointed 
 architecture during the seventeenth century, the student will be not a 
 little puzzled who attempts to ascribe, with anything like chronological 
 accuracy, its various characteristics to such a sequence of events as 
 influenced it before, or have prevailed upon it since, that period. In 
 the present day, when a few hours' journey enables us to pass from one 
 end of England to another, and even into the heart of the Continent — 
 when the increased facilities and cheapness of publication have rendered 
 the public familiar with all sorts and conditions of ancient and modern 
 art, it is difficult to estimate the importance which once attached to the 
 merit and capabilities of individual example. Every builder's clerk 
 who can now get away for a month's holiday may spend his time 
 profitably among the churches of Normandy, or fill his portfolio with 
 sketches in Rhineland. But, two hundred years ago a travelled archi- 
 tect was a great man, entitled to an amount of respect which quickly 
 secured for him the highest patronage, and enabled him to form a 
 school of which he became the acknowledged leader. The development 
 of such a school, however, was often necessarily limited to that portion 
 of the country where he found a field for the display of his talents. 
 Meantime, many a rural practitioner was content to imitate the work of 
 his forefathers ; and thus, while the influence of the new Italian school 
 was brought to bear upon public and important works, a large propor- 
 tion of minor and domestic buildings still continued to be designed in 
 that style which, though debased in character, may be fairly described 
 as Mediaeval. 
 
 It is well known that the earliest works of Inigo Jones himself were 
 Gothic ; and even after his return from Italy, where he had studied the 
 works of Palladio, he could not entirely forsake the groove in which 
 his youthful efforts had been exercised. The north and south sides of 
 
ArchbisJiop Laud. 1 1 
 
 the quadrangle at St. John's College, Oxford, still bear witness of his 
 genius in a design which, though it has with justice been described 
 as bastard in its details, is nevertheless an eminently picturesque com- 
 position, and shows, moreover, how fondly the elder university still 
 adhered to those ancient traditions of art which had shed a glory on her 
 most venerable foundations. That work was undertaken at the cost of 
 Archbishop Laud, whose tastes, so far as we can now infer, had but 
 little in common with the then rising school of architecture. Indeed, 
 it is not difficult to imagine that a prelate so zealous for the constitution 
 and privileges of his order, so conservative in his notions of matters 
 ecclesiastic, so attached to ceremonial and that form of worship which 
 had most sympathy with Rome and least with Geneva, must have looked 
 with some jealousy on a style of art which England owed to the Revival 
 of Literature and to the Reformation. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that, during Laud's episcopate, and some 
 years after the new art-doctrines had been promulgated, more than one 
 Gothic church was consecrated by him and probably reared at his expense. 
 Among these may be mentioned St. Catharine Cree, in Leadenhall 
 Street, and the parish church at Hammersmith, of which the first stone 
 was laid in 1629. Bishop Cosin, another patron and connoisseur of 
 architecture, who was raised to the See of Durham in the reign of 
 Charles I., unbeneficed during the Commonwealth, and who returned to 
 his diocese after the Restoration, also sustained by his aid the now 
 waning influence of Mediaeval design. He partly rebuilt the palace 
 and chapel of Bishop's Auckland, with far more reverence for ancient 
 precedent than could be found in many a work of his contemporaries. 
 The windows of the chapel are (at least in general conception) by 
 no means bad imitations of geometrical tracery. The stalls, the pulpit 
 and reading-desk, the reredos and roofs, though belonging to a class of 
 art which we should not like to see reproduced in our own day, have 
 nevertheless a certain dignity about their form which is worthy of a 
 better age. 
 
12 TJie Durham Churches. 
 
 The design of the stalls and font-cover of Durham Cathedral may 
 be referred to the same date, and probably to the same influence. The 
 chancel of Brancepeth Church, near Durham, is supposed to have been 
 fitted up after the Reformation, and is on that account remarkable for 
 its chancel-screen. There is another of similar design at Ledgefield, 
 and indeed the retention of this feature, until a late period, in the parish 
 churches of Durham is a peculiar characteristic of that county. The 
 general proportions of the Brancepeth screen are excellent : the stalls are 
 evidently copied from earlier work, and the whole of the woodwork, 
 though naturally deficient in purity of detail, is thoroughly Gothic in 
 motive. 
 
 Such examples become the more interesting when we remember that 
 they were probably executed long after the dilettanti of the day had 
 been imbued with a taste for Italian art. So early as 1624, Sir Henry 
 Wotton, one of the most accomplished authorities of the day, had 
 published his c Elements of Architecture ' a lengthy essay, which if we 
 except the work of John Shute,* is perhaps the most important that 
 had then appeared on the subject. In the introduction he says, c I shall 
 not neede (like the most part of Writers) to celebrate the subject which 
 I deliver. In that point I am at ease. For Architecture can want no 
 commendation where there are Noble Men or Noble Mindes ; I will 
 therefore spend this Preface rather about those from whom I have 
 gathered my knowledge ; For I am but a gatherer and disposer of other 
 men's Stuffe at my best value.' He then goes on to describe Vitruvius 
 as c our principall Master,' and alludes to the works of Leon-Battista 
 Alberti, whom he reputes ' the first learned architect beyond the Alpes.' 
 The metaphysical character of his theories, as well as the analogies 
 
 * The title of Shute's book (probably the earliest work of the kind published in 
 England) was, « The first and chiefe Grounds of Architecture used in all the ancient and 
 famous Monymcnts, with a farther and more ample Discourse uppon the same than has 
 hitherto been set forthe by any other.' By John Shute, payntcr and architecte. Printed 
 by John Marshe, fol., 1563. There is no copy of it cither in the British Museum or in 
 Sir John Soanc's Library. 
 
Sir Hairy IVotton. 13 
 
 which he draws between Nature and Art, remind us of modern writers, 
 
 and especially of one who has so ably espoused a very different cause 
 
 Mr. Ruskin. 
 
 Wotton begins his dissertation by stating that ( building hath three 
 conditions ; Commoditie, Firmenes, and Delight.' It is curious to 
 compare this division of qualities with the c Seven Lamps of Architec- 
 ture/ by which the present generation has been illumined, and to note 
 how the old author puts in a plea for circular plans on the ground that 
 1 birds doe build their nests spherically.' This is precisely the sort of 
 argument which Mr. Ruskin uses when he recommends the pointed 
 arch because it is the shape of leaves which are shaken in the summer 
 breeze. The admirer of Mediaeval art will probably consider that 
 in the main object of their teaching, Mr. Ruskin is perfectly right, 
 and Sir Henry Wotton was perfectly wrong, but when they base their 
 opinions on such facts as these, they might change places without much 
 damage to either cause. 
 
 Sir Henry quotes largely from Vitruvius, and enters upon those 
 wonderful comparisons between the Orders and the human race which 
 have been so often reproduced in Handbooks of Architecture, and have 
 been the delight of Pecksniffs from time immemorial. 
 
 But what after all is the real value of such fanciful derivations of 
 style ? What artistic principle do they illustrate ? What information 
 do they convey ? Is there any rational critic who actually believes 
 that he can detect the slightest resemblance between the Tuscan pillar 
 and a c sturdy well-limbed labourer,' between the fluting of an Ionic 
 column and the folds of a woman's dress, or discover in a capital of 
 acanthus leaves any of that meretricious abandon which is supposed to 
 have characterised the ladies of Corinth ? These are fables which may 
 have pleased the pedants of King James's day, but it is time to forget 
 them now. 
 
 The subject of Gothic architecture Wotton passes over in this essay 
 with silence, and it is only in discussing the shape of arches that 
 
14 Antiquaries of the Seventeenth Century. 
 
 he is betrayed into expressing his contempt for what we now call the 
 
 c Tudor style.' 
 
 As semicircular arches (says he) or Hemisphericall vaults being raised upon the 
 totall diameter, bee of all other the roundest and consequently the securest 
 . . . . so those are the gracefullest which, keeping precisely the same 
 height, shall yet bee distended one fourteenth part longer than the sayd entire 
 diameter, which addition of distent will conferre much to their Beauty, and 
 detract but little from their Strength .... As for those arches which 
 our artizans call of the third and fourth point ; and the Tuscan writers di terzo 
 and di quarto acuto^ because they alwayes concurre in an acute Angle and doe 
 springe from division of the Diameter into three, foure, or more parts at pleasure ; 
 I say such as these, both for the natural imbecility of the sharpe angle it selfe, 
 and likewise for their very Vncomelinesse, ought to bee exiled from judicious 
 eyes, and left to their first inventors, the Gothes or Lumbards, amongst other 
 Reliques of that barbarous Age. 
 
 In spite of the contumely thus heaped upon Gothic, and the neglect 
 with which it was treated by the followers of Palladio, it met with 
 respect in some quarters and especially among the antiquaries. We 
 have already seen that an interval of seven years elapsed between the 
 publication of the first and second volumes of the ' Monasticon.' But 
 in that interval a work was produced by the same author which could 
 not fail to draw attention to the beauties of what was once one of the 
 finest cathedrals in the world, and the memory of which has been thus 
 happily transmitted to our own time in the form of a well written and 
 well illustrated record. Dugdale's * History of St. Paul's Cathedral ' 
 has passed through several editions. It has been enlarged by Maynard, 
 continued and further amplified by Sir Henry Ellis, and decorated with 
 new engravings by Finden and Heath. But to the antiquary no copy 
 of it possesses half the interest of that dear old time-stained volume, 
 ' printed,' as the title-page sets forth in red and black type, in London 
 1 by Tho. Warren in the year of our Lord God MDCLVIII.' 
 
 It was a memorable epoch in the annals of English history. The 
 man who had sacrificed his king to the interests of his country, who 
 
Dugdale s 'History of St. Paul's.' 15 
 
 had redeemed the honour of the British flag where it had Jong been 
 insulted, who had begun life as an earnest enthusiast for civil and 
 religious liberty, and ended it as a tyrant — Cromwell, the greatest 
 prince of his age and the most miserable regicide, covered with military 
 glory only to be filled by-and-by with abject remorse, the hero of 
 Marston Moor and Naseby, who could not sleep for fear of assassination, 
 died of fever on September 3, in the same year which saw the publica- 
 tion of Dugdale's book. Discontent had long been gathering in the 
 country, and a time had now arrived when the rising influence of the 
 Royalist party no doubt encouraged the efforts of many a man who, 
 like Dugdale, was a staunch supporter of the Church. It may be 
 doubted whether the volume appeared before or after Cromwell's death, 
 but it is certain that it must have been published within a few months 
 of that event, and therefore to this original edition, printed as it was 
 before the plague and fire of London, and perhaps conned over in turn 
 by Roundhead and Cavalier, something more than ordinary interest is 
 attached. 
 
 The etchings which accompany this valuable work are by Hollar, and 
 in many respects superior to those which appear with the c Monasticon.' 
 Facing the title-page there is a portrait of Dugdale himself at the age 
 of fifty, wearing the broad-brimmed hat, buttoned coat, and Geneva 
 bands with which we are accustomed to associate Master Izaak Walton 
 and many other worthies of his time. The dedicatory epistle is to the 
 Right Honourable Christopher Lord Hatton, Comptroller of the 
 Household to the late King Charles, and one of his Majesty's most 
 Honourable Privy Council. In it the writer cautiously but plainly 
 deplores the late aspect of affairs, and quotes the almost prophetic 
 words of Sir Walter Raleigh, who forty years before, ' discerning even 
 then the increase and growth of sectaries in the realm,' observed, 
 ' that all cost and care bestowed and had of the Church wherein God is 
 to be served and worshipped was accounted by those people a kinde of 
 Popery ; so that time would soon bring it to passe, if it were not 
 
1 6 Dugdates 'History of St. Paul's.' 
 
 resisted, that God would be turned out of Churches into Barnes, and from 
 thence again into the Feilds and Mountains and under Hedges ; and the 
 office of the Ministry (robbed of all dignity and respect) be as con- 
 temptible as those places ; all order, discipline, and Church-government 
 left to newness of opinion and men's fancies ; yea, and soone after, 
 as many kindes of religion spring up as there are parish churches 
 within England ; every contentious and ignorant person cloathing his 
 fancie with the Spirit of God and his imagination with the gift of 
 
 Revelation,' &c. 
 
 This letter is dated from the author's residence in Blythe Hall, 
 Warwickshire, July 7, 1657, from which we may, perhaps, infer that 
 the volume issued from the press early in the following year, and 
 before that event occurred which brought about a very different state 
 
 of things. 
 
 An interesting account of the foundation and various endowments 
 of the old cathedral then follows, assigning dates to the completion of 
 different portions of the structure. After this is a description of the 
 monumental epitaphs accompanied by illustrations (many of which are 
 executed with great care) of the tombs and brasses, &c. Most of 
 them are Italian, and though of a most objectionable design, are inte- 
 resting in the evidence which they afford of early Renaissance conceits. 
 
 A series of general views is then added. A perspective of the 
 cloisters from the south shows the chapter-house then standing in the 
 quadrangle which they enclosed. Another perspective of the south 
 front of the cathedral includes a view of the spire after its f restoration ' 
 in 1553, and previous to its final destruction by lightning in 1561. 
 On this last occasion the fire spread over the roof of the nave and aisles, 
 burning the rafters and all that was combustible within the space of 
 four hours ; f Whereupon the Queen (Elizabeth) out of a deep appre- 
 hension of this lamentable accident, forthwith directed her Letters to the 
 Lord Mayor of London, requiring him to take seme speedy order 
 for its repair ; and, to further the work, gave out of her own purse a 
 
Old St. Paul's Italianised. 17 
 
 thousand marks in gold, as also warrant for a thousand loads of timber, 
 to be taken in her woods or elsewhere.' 
 
 The work of repair was prosecuted c with such dilligence ' (!) that 
 before April, 1566, all the roofs were finished and covered with lead. 
 The larger trusses had been framed in Yorkshire, and brought to town 
 by sea. Various models were made for restoring the steeple, but 
 neither in Queen Elizabeth's reign, nor subsequently, were any of these 
 plans carried out. 
 
 In the eighteenth year of the reign of King James I., that monarch 
 having been repeatedly solicited by one Master Henry Farley, a gentle- 
 man who appears to have taken great interest in the cathedral, at 
 length turned his attention to its dilapidated condition, and Dugdale 
 records that ( his princely heart was moved with Such Compassion to 
 this decayed fabrick that, for prevention of its neer approaching ruine 
 (by the corroding quality of the coale smoake, especially in moist 
 weather, whereunto it had long been subject), considering with himself 
 how vast the charge would be ; as, also, that without very great and 
 publick helps it could not be born ; to beget the more venerable regard 
 towards so worthy an enterprize, and more effectually to put it forwards, 
 he came in great state thither on Horseback upon Sunday, 26th of 
 March 1620/ 
 
 An appropriate sermon was preached on this occasion by the Bishop 
 of London (Dr. King), to whom his Majesty had himself supplied 
 the text (Psalm 102, v. 13 and 14). After which the royal party 
 adjourned to the bishop's palace, where, it appears, the hospitable 
 prelate entertained them with f severall set Banquets.' 
 
 The result of this visit became manifest in a Royal Commission, which 
 was appointed in November of the same year. It included many 
 eminent noblemen and ecclesiastics, but of all the names on the list the 
 one which bears most on our present subject is that of Inigo Jones, 
 1 Esquire,' then surveyor to his Majesty's works. The Commission 
 
 c 
 
1 3 Royal Commissions on St. Pauls. 
 
 bore, in some respects, a resemblance to many such Commissions of our 
 own day. It wasted a great deal of time in talking. Months and 
 years slipped away. The Bishop of London, who had subscribed 
 liberally to the undertaking, died. His royal master did not long 
 survive him. Still nothing important in the way of restoration had 
 been begun. Meantime the taste for classic art was rapidly gaining 
 ground. In the fourth year of King Charles's reign (1628) another 
 Royal Commission was appointed, but it was not until 1633 that the 
 first stone of the work was laid. Inigo Jones had been formally 
 appointed to superintend it. The then Bishop of London was his old 
 patron Laud, at whose cost the eastern wing of St. John's College, 
 Oxford, had just been erected. In that instance some respect had been 
 felt for the original style of the building, and the new wing was at 
 least Gothic in its general outline. 
 
 It would not have been surprising if similar deference had been 
 paid to the original design of so grand a specimen of Mediaeval archi- 
 tecture as old St. Paul's. It might have been hoped, too, that the 
 bishop would have recommended an adherence to ancient precedent, 
 if only on the score of congruity. But Jones had not travelled to 
 Italy for nothing. Here was an opportunity of displaying his skill in a 
 field which seemed not only magnificent in itself, but had all the addi- 
 tional attraction of novelty. He went to work without the slightest 
 scruple. The walls of the nave were remodelled. Round-headed 
 lights, with cherubim for key-stones, supplanted the delicate tracery of 
 the old windows. Buttresses were replaced by pilasters, and battle- 
 ments by balustrading. The facades were scored all over with ugly 
 lines of exhibited masonry, obelisks stood in the place of pinnacles, 
 and heavy cornices were introduced where formerly a modest drip-stone 
 or string-course had done good and all-sufficient service. Finally, at 
 the west end was placed a Corinthian portico, which, however magni- 
 ficent a feature in itself, must have been a hideous deformity where it 
 
The Fire of Loudon. 19 
 
 stood. It was not fated to stand there long. A quarter of a century 
 had scarcely elapsed before the whole fabric was in ruins. It has been 
 said that the present building — confessedly a noble work in its way — 
 rose like a Phoenix from the ashes of the Great Fire. But, if we are 
 to indulge at all in such a poetical conception, let us rather say that the 
 good genius of old St. Paul's survived the catastrophe, in a less sub- 
 stantial form, indeed, but invested with a more congenial spirit — 
 that spirit which has induced us to reverence and imitate elsewhere, 
 after centuries of time, the elements of design which constituted its 
 ancient glory. 
 
 c 2 
 
2o Anthony a J Food. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 E have seen that a considerable interest in the ancient archi- 
 tecture of Britain was sustained during the seventeenth 
 century by antiquarian research. Among men of the day to 
 whom posterity is most deeply indebted for labours in that direction 
 was one who has been already mentioned in connection with the third 
 volume of the ' Monasticon ' (which he had assisted Dugdale to 
 prepare), but whose name is better known as the sole author of an 
 equally important work, the c Athenae Oxonienses.' 
 
 Anthony, son of Thomas Awood, or, as it is usually written, a 
 JVood, Bachelor of Arts and of Civil Law, was born in the year 1631, 
 opposite Merton College, Oxford, where in due time he matriculated 
 and took his M.A. degree. He appears to have been inclined from 
 early youth to the study of English history and archaeological lore. 
 Oxford was a field which naturally presented every attraction for the 
 exercise of his tastes as an antiquarian. It was his native town. It 
 was his place of education. It supplied him at once with a rich mine 
 of historical interest, and with the means of working it. While he was 
 still a young man he wrote a treatise on the antiquities of Oxford, 
 which was esteemed so highly by the heads of the various colleges that 
 they ordered a Latin translation of it, which appeared in 1674, under 
 the title of ( Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis y duobus 
 vol/, comprehenstf,' fol. It was prepared with immense pains, and the 
 author intended to have added to the English copy some account of the 
 city as well as of the colleges. But he was hindered by his labours for 
 another work, the famous c Athenas,' or c An exact History of all the 
 
The 'A thence Oxouieuscs! 21 
 
 Writers and Bishops who have had their education in the most ancient 
 and famous University of Oxford, from the fifteenth year of King 
 Henrv VII. Dom. 1500, to the end of the year 1690. To which are 
 added the Fasti, or Annals of the University for the same time.' On 
 this book, as the dates in the title show, he was engaged during the 
 greater part of his life, and it is impossible to overrate the extraordinary 
 patience and research involved in its production. Public and private 
 libraries were ransacked, wills at the Prerogative Office examined, 
 church windows inspected, and parish registers consulted, to attain his 
 object. It might with reason be supposed that such untiring industry, 
 coupled with so excellent a result, would have gained him favour and 
 credit at Oxford. But in those days a mere scholar had little to hope 
 for in the way of patronage. Wood's manners were not of that 
 polished kind which will always command a certain order of popularity. 
 His habits were simple. He was careless in his dress. It was 
 rumoured that he had joined the Romish faith. It is certain that he 
 received more support from Roman Catholics than from members of 
 the Established Church. Among all the Dons of the University it 
 seems that Mr. Andrew Allam, Vice- Principal of St. Edmund's Hall, 
 was the only one who aided his exertions. Unfortunately, in the 
 'Athena?,' he had alluded to Lord Clarendon in somewhat uncom- 
 plimentary terms. This was at the time sufficient to bring the work 
 into ill- odour, and Wood had the mortification of finding it expelled 
 from the University. He was now advanced in years, and his health 
 succumbed to the trials which he had undergone. He died in his 
 sixty-fifth year. In the east corner of the north side of St. John's 
 Church, adjoining Merton College, is a small tablet to his memory : — 
 
 H. S. E. 
 
 ANTONIUS WOOD : Antiquarius. 
 
 Ob. 28 Nov. A°. 1695. ^Et. 64. 
 
 A century had nearly elapsed when John Gutch, chaplain of All Souls' 
 
22 Transition of Style. 
 
 and Corpus Christi Colleges, republished the ' History and Antiquities 
 of Oxford,' in the popular edition which bears his name. 
 
 The origin of the Gothic Revival presents so many complicated 
 features, and so difficult is it to distinguish the latest efforts of the old 
 school from the earliest attempts towards its resuscitation, that it would 
 be almost impossible to draw any line which should definitely divide 
 the two periods. The date of the Great Fire of London presents, no 
 doubt, an important boundary between the one and the other. Yet 
 neither to Wren nor to Inigo Jones can be ascribed the first intro- 
 duction of Italian art. So early as the reign of Henry VIII., Hans 
 Holbein had designed the porch of Lord Pembroke's house at Wilton, 
 and some portions of Windsor Castle, in a style which testified the 
 influence of a foreign school. John Thynne, who built old Somerset 
 House in 1567; Robert Adams, superintendent of royal buildings to 
 (^ueen Elizabeth ; Theodore Havens, who erected Caius College in 
 the same reign ; and one Stickles, who practised in England about 1596, 
 had all adopted this mongrel species of architecture, which it would be 
 incorrect to describe as Gothic. On the other hand, Wren, who had 
 reached a point of excellence in classic design which we have not 
 since seen surpassed, himself not only restored Mediaeval buildings, but 
 raised new ones in imitation of them. 
 
 This extraordinary man was born on October 20, 1632 (one year 
 after the birth of Anthony a Wood). He was the son of a clergyman, 
 and the nephew of Dr. Matthew Wren, whose name is prominent in the 
 ecclesiastical history of his times.* He received an excellent education, 
 and no one was better fitted to profit by it. It is recorded that at the 
 age of thirteen he had invented an astronomical machine, and a few 
 
 * Dr Matthew Wren was impeached by order of the House of Commons in 1641, and 
 altogether suffered imprisonment for twenty years. Sir Christopher, as a young man, 
 became intimate with Claypole, who had married Cromwell's daughter, and there is an 
 interesting anecdote that 'Mr. Wicn ' once met the Protector at the house of his son-in- 
 law, and received in m his own lips the remission of Dr. Wren's punishment, which he 
 immediately conveyed to his uncle. 
 
Sir Christopher IVren. 23 
 
 years later made discoveries in astronomy and gnomonics. It is certain 
 that, at twenty-five, he was made Astronomical Professor at Gresham 
 College, which office he resigned in 1660, for the Savilian professorship 
 at Oxford. His life was a long one, but most actively employed, and 
 it is wonderful to think how, in the midst of his professional labours, 
 and while he was in the height of his practice, he could find leisure for 
 the scientific pursuits which then constituted his chief amusement. At 
 one time, we find him lecturing before the Royal Society (of which he 
 became president) on the nature of ice and the polarity of sapphires, 
 at another discussing the properties of phosphorus : now his opinion 
 is asked regarding the horns of a moose-deer found in some Irish 
 quarry ; then he turns his attention to the art of mezzotint engraving ; 
 presently he reappears engaged in experiments relating to artificial 
 incubation, or writes a report on some phenomenon of medical science. 
 In short, he was a man of most versatile talents, and the various details 
 of his useful life afford material for a digression which might be 
 interesting but which would be redundant in these pagec. With the 
 Gothic Revival, indeed, Wren's career may seem at first sight to have 
 little in common. Yet it would be a pity to omit any link which joins 
 them, and there is more than one point of contact with that subject, 
 both in his writings and his practice. 
 
 Up to the age of thirty-one, he had received no public commissions 
 as an architect. In 1663, he was employed by Charles II. to prepare 
 designs for a royal palace at Greenwich, and about the same time the 
 erection of the Sheldonian theatre at Oxford was begun under his 
 superintendence. But an event was at hand which soon afforded more 
 ample scope for his abilities. The Great Fire of London, whose ruins 
 covered no less than 436 acres ; which extended from the Tower to 
 the Temple Church, and from the north-east gate to Holborn-bridge ; 
 which destroyed in the space of four days eighty-nine churches (in- 
 cluding St. Paul's), the City gates, the Royal Exchange, the Custom 
 House, Guildhall, Sion College, and many other public buildings, besides 
 
 * c 4 
 
24 IVrcn on Salisbury Cathedral. 
 
 13,200 houses, and laid waste 400 streets, opened a field for practice 
 which no Government architect had ever found before, or will probably 
 ever find again. 
 
 Within a few days after the fire, Wren began his plan for rebuilding 
 the City, to which Mr. Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society, 
 alludes in a letter to the Hon. Robert Boyle, dated September 18, 
 1666. ' Dr. Wren has, since my last, drawn a model for a new city, 
 and presented it to the king, who produced it before his council, and 
 manifested much approbation of it. I was yesterday morning with the 
 Doctor, and saw the model, which, methinks, does so well provide for 
 security, convenience, and beauty.' 
 
 It would appear from this fact that Wren was at that time acting as 
 the Government architect, and, indeed, the Parentalia fix his appoint- 
 ment as surveyor- general before that period ; but, according to Mr. 
 Elmes (whose life of Wren was published in 1823), that event did 
 not occur till 1669, when he succeeded to the office in place of Sir 
 John Denham, who had previously held it. 
 
 In 1668 he was employed to survey Salisbury Cathedral. In his 
 report thereon he speaks of the whole pile as magnificent, and f one of 
 the best patterns of architecture in the age wherein it was built.' He 
 finds fault, however, With the foundations and c poise ' of the building, 
 and his remarks on that subject are curious and interesting : — 
 
 Almost all the cathedrals of the Gothic form (he writes) are weak and de- 
 Lai ve in the poise of the vault of the aisles ; as for the vaults of the nave they 
 are on both sides equally supported and propped up from spreading by the bows 
 of flying buttresses, which rise from the outward walls of the aisles ; but for the 
 vaults of the aisles they are, indeed, supported on the outside by buttresses, but 
 inwardly they have no other stay but the pillars themselves, which, as they are 
 usually proportioned, if they stood alone without the weight above, could not 
 resist the spreading of the aisles one minute; true, indeed, the great load above of 
 the walls and vaults of the navis should seem to confirm the pillars in their per- 
 pendicular station., that there should be no need of buttresses inward. But 
 experience hath shown the contrary; and there is scarce any Gothic cathedral 
 
Seventeenth Century Gothic. 25 
 
 that I have seen, at home or abroad, wherein I have not observed the pillar to 
 yield and bend inwards from the weight of the vault of the aisle ; but this defect 
 is most conspicuous upon the angular pillars of the cross, for there not only the 
 vault wants butment, but also the angular arches that rest upon that pillar ; and, 
 therefore, both conspire to thrust it inward towards the centre of the cross, and 
 this is very apparent in the fabric we treat of. For this reason, this form of 
 churches has been rejected by modern architects abroad, who use the better and 
 Roman art of architecture. 
 
 In 1673 Wren was made a member of the Royal Commission for the 
 rebuilding of St. Paul's, and at the same period received his appoint- 
 ment as architect to the new structure. From that date up to within 
 a few years before his death his time was actively employed in works 
 of great importance, but which, being of a definitely Italian character 
 need not here be enumerated. His attempts at Mediaeval design in 
 London were among the later works of his life, and will be presently 
 described. His earlier efforts in that direction appear in a field itself 
 remarkable for the continuity of examples which it affords in illus- 
 tration of Gothic architecture, from the Middle Ages down to the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 A tendency to conservatism, a respect for ancient traditions, a 
 jealousy of changes which it has had no share in originating, are cha- 
 racteristics which have long been associated with the University of 
 Oxford. That this feeling extended to questions beyond those of doc- 
 trine or politics — that it exercised an influence in retaining the old 
 Tudor style of building for colleges at Oxford long after the followers 
 of Palladio had introduced a new fashion of art, no one can reason- 
 ably doubt. Nor is it strange that the members of such an ancient 
 and splendid institution should have been unwilling to reject that 
 venerable type of architecture which already existed in so many local 
 examples, and which prevailed at a period whence its wealth and 
 magnificence were derived. 
 
 An early specimen of seventeenth century Gothic at Oxford is that 
 of Wadham College, built on the site of the monastery of Austin Friars 
 
26 Works at Oxford. 
 
 during the years 1610-13, the first stone having been laid on July 31 
 in the former year, and the first warden, Dr. Wright, admitted on 
 April 20, 16 13. The entrance gateway, groined with fan tracery, is a 
 curious and interesting example of the respect shown for local traditions 
 of design, even when national taste in architecture had undergone a 
 complete change. 
 
 So excellent in character are the style and construction of the chapel 
 windows that they have been referred to an earlier period, but the 
 college books contain an account of the expenses incurred during their 
 erection, and thus leave little doubt on the subject.* The interior of 
 the hall contains a good timber roof and oak screen, Gothic in general 
 form, but with Italianised detail. The great south and oriel windows 
 are very fine and remarkable examples of this period. 
 
 The eastern wing of the Bodleian Library was also completed in 
 1 6 13, and is a very creditable work, in keeping with the older building 
 to which it was then added. Three years later Sir John Acland built 
 the hall at Exeter College, one of the best specimens of a refectory in 
 Oxford. It was restored and refitted in the early part of this century 
 by Nash. But the general design is still what it was, and it may be 
 questioned whether the former details were not superior to those which 
 replaced them. The Lite chapel of the same college was erected in 1624. 
 Its interior was divided into two aisles. The windows were considered 
 very good for their date.f It is supposed that no part of the quadrangle 
 is older than the time of James I. 
 
 Another instance of Jacobean Gothic may be recognised in the hall of 
 Trinity College, which, although it has undergone some alteration since, 
 was originally erected, with the apartments above it, about 16 19. 
 
 The buildings of Oriel College come under the same class. The 
 
 * The late Mr. O. Jevvitt, in a careful and ably written essay, read before the Archaeo- 
 logical Institute at Oxford in 1850, described with great accuracy the tracery of the 
 windows in the chapel and ante-chapel, which, though differing considerably in motive of 
 design and apparently in date, appear to have been executed at one and the same time. 
 
 f This building was removed some years ago. The present chapel, which will be 
 described in due course, was erected in 1857-58, from a design by Mr. G. G. Scott, R.A. 
 
Th '0)ii a is Holt. 27 
 
 south and west sides of the outer quadrangle were rebuilt about 1620; 
 the northern side, together with the hall and chapel, finished in 1637. 
 They are unpretentious in character, but picturesque in their way, and 
 exceedingly interesting as links in the chain of our present history. 
 
 Immediately opposite the front of Exeter is that of Jesus College, 
 originally founded by Oueen Elizabeth, but a great portion of the 
 present structure is due to the munificence of Sir Eubule Thelwall, 
 Knt., who held the office of principal in 162T. He built the prin- 
 cipal's lodgings at his own expense, as well as the kitchen, buttery, with 
 chambers over them, and one half of the south side of the first quad- 
 rangle. The chapel, which stands on the north side, was consecrated 
 on May 28, 1621. The east window, by no means a bad specimen 
 of its kind, was added in 1636. The hall was completed by Sir 
 Eubule Thelwall, of whom it is recorded that he f left nothing undone 
 which might conduce to the good of the college.' It contains an 
 elaborately carved screen (Jacobean in its details), and is lighted by a 
 large bay window which forms a conspicuous feature in the quadrangle. 
 The roof, though now hidden by a plaster ceiling, was originally of 
 solid oak, and ornamented with pendents.* 
 
 In [624 died Thomas Holt, an architect of York, to whose design 
 many of the University buildings of this period are attributed, and who 
 certainly seems to have respected the ancient traditions of his art in 
 resisting the influence of a foreign taste. According to Parker's 'Hand- 
 book ' the groined vault of the passage under the eastern wing of the 
 Bodleian Library (usually called the f Pig market ') is a specimen of 
 his skill, as well as many college gateways of the same date and cha- 
 racter. He also designed the c Schools ' which had been founded by 
 Sir Thomas Bodley, but who unfortunately did not live to see them 
 
 * The buildings facing the Turl and Market Street were refronted in 1856 under the 
 superintendence of Messrs. Buckler. The chapel was restored and refitted by Mr. G. 
 E. Street in 1S64, when the old oak wainscoting which formerlv lined its walls was 
 removed. 
 
28 University College, Oxford. 
 
 begun. Holt was buried at Oxford in Holywell churchyard. His 
 name is little known to posterity ; but admirers of that architecture 
 which he strove to sustain against the tide of popular caprice will cherish 
 his memory with a feeling akin to gratitude. 
 
 Among the buildings at Oxford erected during Holt's lifetime, if not 
 designed by himself, is the chapel of Lincoln College, which was built at 
 the expense of Lord Keeper Williams (successively Bishop of Lincoln 
 and Archbishop of York), and consecrated on September 15, 1 63 1 . 
 The interior is sixty-two feet long by twenty-six feet in width, and is 
 handsomely furnished with a screen and wainscoting of cedar. It 
 contains some rich and brilliantly coloured glass, some of which is said 
 to have been brought from Italy in 1629.* The south quadrangle of 
 the same college is earlier, having been begun about the year 16 12, 
 when Sir Thomas Rotheram, formerly a fellow, gave 300/. towards 
 the expense of its erection. 
 
 Another specimen of the same school — more important in point of 
 size, but hardly equal to it in merit — is University College. Although 
 this is one of the oldest foundations in Oxford, and claims King Alfred 
 for its earliest patron, no portion of the present structure existed before 
 the time of Charles I. In 1634 the first stone of the west side was 
 laid, and in the following year the hall and chapel front, as well as the 
 High Street front, were begun. The east side is much later, and was 
 not finished until 1674. One Mr. Greenwood, a fellow of the college, 
 is said to have suggested the design, and to have contributed 1,500/. 
 towards the work. 
 
 The quadrangle is one hundred feet square, and is entered by a 
 vault, groined over with fan tracery, and supporting a superstructure 
 which rises a storey higher than the adjacent buildings. The following 
 particulars are added from Parker's ' Handbook to Oxford ' : — 
 
 The glass of the east window, which bears the date 1631, is very curious as indi- 
 cating a well-defined transition of style from ancient to modern art. The figures are small 
 and represent incidents in the Old and New Testaments, Medieval in general design, but 
 evidently influenced by the growing taste for realistic treatment. 
 
Charles Church, Plymouth. 29 
 
 Over the gate on the north side is a statue of Queen Anne, whilst the niche 
 in the interior is filled with one of James II., given to the college by Obadiah 
 Walker, master, in 1687, who afterwards lost his headship for his adherence to 
 the Church of Rome. The lesser quadrangle measures about 80 ft. square, and 
 is open to the south. The north and east sides, the latter of which is occupied 
 by the master's lodgings, were built about the year 1 7 19. . . . The interior 
 of the chapel — notwithstanding, as Dr. Ingram remarks, the incongruity of Co- 
 rinthian ornaments in a Gothic room — is admired for the elegance of its general 
 appearance, which is much assisted by the groined ceiling and the carving in the 
 style of Gibbons in the oak screen and cedar wainscot which encloses the altar. 
 
 The present hall was completed about 1657, but the inferior entirely 
 refitted in 1766 at the expense of members of the college whose armo- 
 rial bearings are represented on the wainscot panels. The fireplace 
 bears some resemblance to the canopy of an altar tomb in the Deco- 
 rated period. It was the gift of Sir Roger Newdigate, founder of the 
 well-known university prize for English verse which bears his name. 
 The hall is paved with slabs of Swedish and Danish marble. A library, 
 built over the kitchen and at right angles with the hall,, was added in 
 
 1669. 
 
 In 1640 Dr. Saunders, principal of St. Mary Hall, erected, on the 
 site of an older edifice, the hall and refectory of that foundation, with 
 the chapel above. The windows of the latter building are enclosed by 
 flat- pointed — almost semicircular — arches ; the mullions do not run 
 up straight to the arch head, but branch off in tracery, which intersects 
 at reo-ular intervals and terminates without mitre at the intrados — a 
 form frequently adopted in work of this period. There is a church at 
 Plymouth, commonly called Charles' Church — probably because it was 
 erected in the time of the Stuarts — which has tracery of this description, 
 and is a very curious example of seventeenth century Gothic* 
 
 * ' A petition was ordered to be prepared from the Corporation, settii.g forth the state 
 of the parish, and praying the king to grant permission for the building of a new church 
 " upon a piece or parcel of land called or known by the name of the Coney Yard, now 
 Giver's Yard, lately given us by John Hele, of Wembury, Esquire, to that use." The 
 
30 The Tom Tower, Christchurch. 
 
 o 
 
 Coeval with St. Mary Hall is the staircase entrance to the hall of 
 Christchurch. It is vaulted over with fan tracery of a very chaste 
 and beautiful description. The stairs were altered to their present 
 form by Wyatt, but the groining and central pillar date from 1640, or 
 even earlier. The celebrated Tom Tower, of the same college, was 
 designed by Wren, and, from the prominent position which it occupies, 
 presents one of the most remarkable features in the university. It rises 
 from the great entrance, commonly called the Tom Gate, which formed 
 part of Wolsey's splendid scheme. It is octagonal in form, and intro- 
 duced to the square substructure by that species of huge chamfer or 
 splay which may be observed in other designs by this master, and an 
 intervening panelled storey, on one face of which the clock is placed. 
 On this the upper portion of the tower is raised, its eight sides being 
 pierced to full two-thirds of its height by pointed windows, canopied bv 
 an ogival hood-moulding. These windows are divided into two lights, 
 the space above the springing being filled in with tracery, the style of 
 which is copied from late Perpendicular work. Between the windows, 
 and at each angle of the octagon, buttresses occur, terminating below the 
 panelled storey in a corbel and upwards in a crocketted pinnacle. The 
 whole is surmounted by a dome-shaped roof similar in character to 
 those which crown the turrets on either side of the entrance. It was 
 completed in 1682. 
 
 Act for dividing the parishes passed in 1640, and the church appears to have been com- 
 menced forthwith ; but troublous times were in store for Plymouth ; the civil war broke 
 out ; the town sided with the Parliament, and during its three years' siege had little time or 
 inclination to proceed with the church to be dedicated to the king In 1646, active steps 
 were taken for completing the building, but it was a long and tiresome job for architect, 
 builder, and employers; and not until 1658 was the church finished, and then minus the 
 spire, which appears not to have been built before 1707. Shortly after the Restoration, 
 the church was consecrated, and ever after went by the name of Charles' Church. 
 
 'For its time, Charles' Church — which consists of a nave with aisles, and a chancel not 
 very deeply recessed — is a remarkably good building. . . The outline of the tower and spire 
 is almost perfect. The east window of the chancel is a fine specimen of geometric tracery. 
 Elsewhere, however, there is a contradiction of styles, and a jumble of Perpendicular, 
 Elizabethan, and classic details.'— Extract from Mr. J. Hinc's published paper on 'The 
 Ancient Building ofPlymouth.' 
 
The Tom Tower, Christ Chun';, Oxford. 
 
 Sir Christopher Wren, Architect, 16S2. 
 
Brasenose College, Oxford. 31 
 
 This example is cited as one of the most important of Wren's Gothic 
 designs at Oxford. He had, however, made other essays there in the 
 same direction at a much earlier period. The library and chapel of 
 Brasenose College, which were finished in 1663, are ascribed to him. 
 They consist in a curious mixture of the two styles, composite pilasters 
 between two pointed windows, and Mediaeval pinnacles surmounting an 
 Italian cornice. The east window is, however, a very fair imitation of 
 Mediaeval art, and the roof, adorned with fan tracery, shows at least 
 that the example of earlier times was not without influence upon the 
 designer. 
 
 In addition to those already mentioned, there are several instances in 
 and near Oxford of buildings which illustrate an attempted revival of 
 Gothic architecture after the accession of Charles II. Among these 
 may be named Islip Church, where the chancel was rebuilt by Dr. 
 Robert South on an ancient model and with tolerable success in 1680.* 
 
 We must now, however, revert to Wren's work in London, of 
 which there are one or two examples which bear directly on our subject. 
 The first of these in chronological order was his so-called restoration 
 of the north side of Westminster Abbey and the erection of its towers. 
 Previous to this, however, he had drawn up a report on the state of the 
 building. It was addressed to the Bishop of Rochester, and contains 
 some remarkable observations, not only on the abbey itself but upon 
 Gothic architecture in general. Wren had no doubt a greater con- 
 structive genius than Inigo Jones, and his comments on the structural 
 mistakes committed by Mediaeval builders are often to the point. But 
 it must be remembered that the conditions of the art in which he proved 
 himself so efficient a master, were, and ever will be, utterly dissimilar 
 from those which directed the aim of Mediaeval builders. With an 
 abundant supply of material we may always raise a strong edifice ; but 
 when the external appearance of that edifice is not required to convey 
 
 * This church has since been much altered, and under the plea of restoration the 
 c.:rious and historically interesting chancel raised by Dr. South has been destroyed. 
 
32 Old and New St. PauFs. 
 
 an accurate notion of the size or shape of its interior there is absolutely 
 no limit to the stability which it may assume. Supposing, for instance, 
 St. Paul's had been hewn out of the solid rock, the proportions would 
 have remained unaltered; but there would have been no human science 
 in its strength. This is, of course, a reductio ad absurdum> but it may 
 serve to illustrate a principle. If the superficial area of old St. Paul's 
 be contrasted with that of Wren's building ; if the cubical contents of 
 the one be measured with those of the other ; if the proportion of solid 
 masonry employed in each structure be compared with the available 
 space which it contains ; it may be questioned whether the science 
 displayed in the original building was not of a higher order than that 
 which distinguishes the present edifice. For the former cathedral was 
 in practical reality what it seemed to be, and as it possessed no one con- 
 structive feature which did not serve a purpose, so also no portion of 
 its external appearance belied its internal capacity. Wren's dome, on 
 the contrary, with its elaborate complication of conical walls, penden- 
 tives, iron chains, paraboloid and hyperboloid curves, may be a 
 triumph of mathematical and engineering skill, but, as architecture, is 
 nothing more than a grand and magnificent sham ; and few of those 
 who admire the graceful contour of its outline, towering high above the 
 smoke and dust of busy London, recollect, or were ever aware, that it 
 is a simply ornamental feature, which not only has little connection with 
 the dome they have admired while standing in the choir or nave of 
 St. Paul's, but which, if really executed as it seems to be, would look 
 ugly and disproportionate from within. 
 
 But Sir Christopher, who did not hesitate to expend thousands of 
 pounds on a gigantic artifice, and who, for the mere sake of effect, 
 reared this grand but useless portion of his building hundreds of feet 
 into the air, could not forgive the employment of those features of 
 Gothic architecture which he blindly deemed unserviceable in regard 
 both to its construction and embellishment. c Pinnacles,' says he, in 
 his report on Westminster Abbey, c are of no use and little ornament. 
 
Wrens Report on Westminster Abbey. 33 
 
 The pride of a very high roof raised above reasonable pitch is not of 
 duration, for the lead is apt to slip, but we are tied to this indiscreet 
 form, and must be content with original faults in the first design.' He 
 then goes on to lament, with some reason, that oak was not more used 
 instead of chestnut in Westminster Hall and other places, and proceeds 
 to describe the steps he had taken towards the c restoration ' : 
 
 First, in repair of the stone work, what is done shows itself. Beginning from 
 the east window, we have cut out all the ragged ashlar, and invested it with 
 better stone out of Oxfordshire, down the river from the quarries about Burford 
 . . . . We have amended and secured the buttresses in the cloister garden, 
 as to the greatest part, and we proceed to finish that side. The chapels on the 
 south are done, and most of the arch buttresses all along as we proceeded. We 
 have not done much on the north side, for these reasons : the houses on the 
 north side * are so close that there is not room left for the raising of scaffolds and 
 ladders, nor for passage for bringing materials ; besides the tenants taking every 
 inch, to the very walls of the church, to be in their leases, this ground, already 
 too narrow, is divided, as the backsides to houses, with wash-houses, chimnies, 
 privies, cellars, the vaults of which if indiscreetly dug against the foot of a but- 
 tress may inevitably ruin the vaults of the chapels (and, indeed, I perceive such 
 mischief is already done by the opening of the vaults of the octagonal chapel on 
 that side), and unless effectual means will be taken to prevent all nuisances of 
 this sort, the works cannot proceed ; and if finished may soon be destroyed . 
 
 The angles of pyramids (!) in the Gothic architecture were usually en- 
 riched with the flower the botanists call calceolus, which is a proper form to help 
 workmen to ascend on the outside to amend any defects, without raising large 
 scaffolds upon every slight occasion. 
 
 He then alludes to the state in which he found the old western 
 towers. c It is evident,' he writes, c that they (the towers) were left 
 
 * The appearance of Westminster Abbey in those days must have been very similar to 
 that presented by many Continental cathedrals in our own time. It seems to have been 
 crowded and built round with tenements of a humble description. Happily these have 
 been long since cleared away ; but so little respect was paid to the building, even down to 
 the beginning of this century, that a thoroughfare was permitted right through the nave, 
 and porters lounged there with their loads. 
 
 D 
 
34 Wren's Work at Westminster, 
 
 imperfect, and have continued so since the dissolution of the monastery, 
 one being much higher than the other, though still too low for bells, 
 which are stifled by the height of the roof above them ; they ought cer- 
 tainly to be carried to an equal height, one storey above the ridge of 
 the roof, still continuing the Gothic manner in the stone-work and 
 tracery.' He fully recognises the use of the steeple in giving superin- 
 cumbent weight, and therefore stability to the piers below, and attributes 
 to the absence of that feature over the crux a deviation from the per- 
 pendicular, noticeable in the shafts which occur at the intersection of 
 nave and transepts. He proposes that the central tower should be 
 carried up as much above the roof as it is wide, and adds, that if a spire 
 were added to it, it would give a grace to the whole fabric, and the west 
 end of the city, c which seems to want it.' c I have made a design,' he 
 adds, with reference to th:s scheme, c which will not be very expensive, 
 but light, and still in the Gothic form, and of a style with the rest of 
 the structure, which I would strictly adhere to throughout the whole 
 intention. To deviate from the whole form would be to run into a dis- 
 agreeable mixture, which no person of a good taste could relish.' 
 
 How far Sir Christopher maintained this resolution — or rather, let us 
 say, how far he understood the characteristics of that noble building 
 which he thus undertook to restore and even to improve upon — those 
 who examine his work at Westminster with a critical eye will soon 
 determine. The best that can be urged in his favour is that he worked 
 according to the light which was in him, and that the stone which he 
 employed in his repairs was of more durable kind than that of which 
 most of the original masonry was composed. But there are few, 
 perhaps, among us who would not have preferred even the crumbling 
 relics of the ancient building to the cold and uninteresting patchwork 
 which now defaces the north transept. We find heavy circular discs 
 replacing boss-work of the most delicate description, and huge acorn- 
 shaped lumps of stone where formerly many a chastely profiled corbel 
 was in service. '1 he old arch mouldings are, indeed, copied with 
 
Westminster Abbey Towers. 35 
 
 tolerable accuracy here and there, but the rich and crisp leafage of the 
 Early English capitals is feebly imitated in that lifeless carving which 
 forms its present substitute. As for the western towers, they are too 
 well known to need much comment here. But when we examine their 
 heavy horizontal lines of cornice and string-course, their circular panels 
 crowned by hideous pediments (which, to use Wren's own words, can 
 be c of no use and little ornament ') ; when we raise our eyes to the 
 ugly, uncusped tracery of their upper windows, and that bungling 
 ogival hood-mould which surrounds them, or still higher to the 
 clumsy truss-work which supports the topmost pinnacles — we can 
 but lament that a man whose fame has been transmitted to nos- 
 terity as the greatest architect whom England has produced should 
 have been thus associated with the degradation of one of her fairest 
 monuments. 
 
 Crude and unsatisfactory as Wren's attempts at design in Pointed 
 architecture undoubtedly were, it is impossible not to regard them with 
 interest when we remember that they formed exceptions not only to the 
 popular taste of their day, but to the unparalleled successes of their 
 author himself. That Sir Christopher ever adopted a style in which he 
 saw few merits, and such merits as certainly are not pre-eminently cha- 
 racteristic of that style, must always appear strange. It is difficult to 
 imagine that a mind which could conceive such an edifice as St. Paul's 
 could have much sympathy with the spirit of Mediaeval buildings. 
 But it is stranger still, if he admired them at all — and Wren certainly pro- 
 fessed to do so — that he should have been so utterly incapable of recog- 
 nising or imitating the most essential elements of their grace. Yet it 
 was better that such churches as St. Marv Aldermary and St. Dunstan's- 
 in-the-East should be erected than that the use of the Pointed arch 
 should be clean forgotten in our metropolis. They are, indeed, melan- 
 choly examples of Gothic art, but any examples which date from such 
 a period become valuable links in the history of its revival. 
 
 The year in which St. Mary Aldermary was completed is quoted by 
 
 u 2 
 
36 St. Mary Aldcrmary. 
 
 Elmes as 171 1. His authority is doubtless from the ' Parentalia, or 
 Memoirs of the Wren Family,' published by Sir Christopher's grandson, 
 in 1750. But the c Parentalia,' as Elmes himself points out, contain 
 many chronological errors, and probably this is one of them. According 
 to a tablet on its walls, St. Mary Aldermary was opened for public 
 service in 1682.* The original church had been burnt down in the 
 Great Fire. It was rebuilt at the cost of one Henry Rogers, on the 
 same plan as the old building, which will to some extent account for the 
 style, and for the fact that the east wall of the chancel is not at right 
 angles with the nave, an accident which we may be sure Wren's love of 
 eurythmia would not have permitted had he not been compelled to ad- 
 here to the ancient boundary by some stringent conditions. It consists 
 of a nave and two aisles, each roofed over inside by plaster groining. 
 That over the nave (which is lighted by clerestory windows) is divided 
 into circular panels decorated with cusping and filled in the centre with 
 floral enrichment. The panels which occur over the aisles are oval in 
 plan, and some are pierced as skylights. f They are surrounded at 
 their outer edge by leaf ornament. These panels are met and inter- 
 sected by groining, which springs from slender attached shafts, over 
 each pier in the nave, and from small corbels in the aisles. Below the 
 base line of these shafts, and in the spandrels of the nave arches, is 
 introduced stonework carved with shields, scrolls, and cherubim. The 
 latter are no doubt intended to be grotesque, for they wear grimaces 
 seldom seen in this ordinary type of plethoric celestiality. They 
 are, however, very far removed from that school of conventional art 
 which Ruskin has called ' noble grotesque,' and, indeed, the whole 
 
 * The inscription runs thus : — 'This church was pav'd and wainscoted at ye charge of 
 both parishes, namely, St. Mary Aldcrmary and St. Tho. ye Apostle, and also opened in 
 ye year of our Lord God, 1682. Ralph Smith, &c. Churchwardens.' 
 
 t The north aisle wall is decorated internally by blank windows, in imitation of those 
 on the opposite side. They never were constructed to admit light: in fact, when the 
 cliurch was rebuilt, this wall abutted on some adjoining buildings (now removed). Hence 
 the necessity of skylights. 
 
Sf. Alary Aldermary. 37 
 
 of the carving, though clever in its way, is anything but Gothic in 
 character. 
 
 The east window consists of five lights, divided by a heavy transom 
 of peculiar section. Each light has a cinquefoil head. The chancel is 
 roofed by a segmental vault, of which the central compartment is oval 
 and the rest is divided into little oblong panels, with ogival trefoiled 
 heads, such as are common in late Perpendicular work. By this ar- 
 rangement, the obliquity of the east gable-wall, which has been alreadv 
 mentioned, is made less apparent. This ceiling is also executed in 
 plaster. The arches of the nave are flat-pointed, and appear to have 
 been struck from four centres, though the contour of their intrados is 
 such as almost to justify the belief that it is elliptical in parts. A 
 string-course, which runs down the nave, just above the apex of each 
 arch divides them from the clerestory windows. The piers are similar 
 in plan to those of many Tudor churches in the west of England, and 
 consist of three-quarter shafts stopping against a plain face, and sepa- 
 rated by a hollow, which is carried round the arch. The bases occur 
 about four feet from the ground, the rest of the pier being boxed in by 
 wainscoting. The base moulding is very peculiar, and unlike anv 
 example of even late genuine Gothic. In section it resembles the profile 
 of an Early English cap inverted. Three-light windows occur in the 
 clerestory and south aisle. 
 
 Neither the font, pulpit, nor altarpiece can be said to have any pre- 
 tensions to a Gothic form. The first bears date 1682. The last is a 
 composite design, not inelegant of its kind, and distinguished by some 
 good carving which has been attributed to Grinlin Gibbons. An 
 incised slab in the pavement describes it as the gift of Dame Jane 
 Smith, relict of a worthy knight of that name. The old tower, which 
 escaped destruction during the Fire, is still standing, and bears evidence 
 of Wren's repair in its upper windows and other portions of the detail. 
 The organ and organ gallery are later in date, and belong to that 
 class of design which is ignominiously known as f carpenter's Gothic' 
 
-^8 St. Duns fan 's-in-t he-East. 
 
 j 
 
 In the year 1699 Wren finished the spire of St. Dunstan's-in-the- 
 East. The body of the church had only been repaired by him. This 
 latter portion of the structure was taken down early in the present 
 century and rebuilt by Mr. Laing, then architect to the Custom House,* 
 so that the tower is all that remains there of Wren's work, and therefore 
 all that it is now necessary to describe. 
 
 Including the spire, which occupies about one-third of its height, it 
 stands 167 ft. from the ground. The tower itself is divided into three 
 storeys, of which the lower are strengthened by buttresses placed 
 anglewise at each corner. Above the second storey these become octa- 
 gonal turrets, surmounted by pinnacles above the parapet. From the 
 base of these pinnacles spring flying buttresses in an elliptical curve, 
 and the latter meeting together form the base of a spire, pierced with 
 lights at its lower end, but terminating in solid masonry above. The 
 union of the buttresses with the spire is ingeniously managed by 
 carrying up the stonework in stepped courses over the last voussoir of 
 each arch, and thus forming a firm foundation for the superstructure. 
 It is remarkable that these steps are not f weathered ' after the manner 
 of ordinary buttresses, yet so excellent is the quality of the stone em- 
 ployed that it does not seem to have suffered the slightest decay, and 
 indeed the whole of the masonry of this portion appears as sound as 
 if it had been just executed. 
 
 The spire itself is octagonal in plan and crowned at the top by a 
 flat-headed finial, gilt ball, and weathercock. Small pinnacles occur in 
 the centre of the parapet on each side of the tower, after a fashion very 
 prevalent in Somersetshire churches. The base of the tower, which is 
 at the west end of the building, forms a porch roofed over inside with 
 a spherical vault panelled a la Renaissance. The south and west door- 
 ways are spanned by a pointed arch, of which the tympanum is of 
 panelled stonework pierced for light in the centre, and supported by a 
 
 With the assistance of Mr. (now Sir William) Tite, who supplied the design and 
 superintended its execution. 
 
Tower of St. D u list a lis. 39 
 
 lower segmental arch which forms the door-head. The central storey 
 of the tower contains on the east and west sides a circular window, 
 foiled with eight cusps, and enclosed by a square moulded panel. A 
 similar space on the north and south sides is allotted to a clock, which 
 is marked with the date 1681. These circular windows, and the tracery 
 of those in the upper storey, are among the best features of the tower. 
 The spire itself, though lamentably deficient in purity of detail, has a 
 certain picturesque character of its own, which the sound and straight- 
 forward principles on which it was built could not fail to impart. Mr. 
 Elmes, in his ' Life of Wren,' alludes to it in terms of unmeasured 
 praise. f Of this masterpiece of construction,' says he, c it is not too 
 much to say that it stands unrivalled for elegance, beauty, and science. 
 When Sir Christopher designed this steeple, the noblest monument of geo- 
 metrical and constructive skill in existence (!), and unequalled also for 
 lightness and elegance, he had doubtless those of St. Nicholas, at New- 
 castle- on-Tyne, and of the High Church, Edinburgh, in his mind, but 
 he has surpassed them in every essential quality.' 
 
 There is an anecdote, unauthenticated by any data, concerning this 
 tower, that Wren, though convinced of the accuracy of his calculations 
 for its stability, and of the theories which had guided him in its design, 
 felt some apprehension as the time drew near for the practical test of his 
 skill. He is said to have watched the removal of the framework which 
 had supported the spire during its construction, through a telescope from 
 London Bridge, and to have felt great relief when a rocket announced 
 that all was safe. Failure at such a moment might, indeed, have 
 damaged his professional reputation, great as it then was, to say 
 nothing of the terrible consequences which must have attended an 
 accident; but we may question whether a man of such profound 
 mathematical attainments, and of so vast a practical experience as Sir 
 Christopher, could have so far underrated his capabilities as to doubt on 
 such a point at all. Indeed, it is well known that on one occasion when 
 he was informed that there had been a hurricane on the previous night 
 
4o St. Michael's, Corn hill. 
 
 which had damaged all the steeples in London, he replied at once, * Not 
 St. Dunstan's, I am sure.' 
 
 St. Alban's, Wood Street, may be mentioned as another of Wren's 
 attempts at Gothic, but it is hardly worth description. It was finished 
 in 1685. 
 
 St. Michael's, in Cornhill, was a more important work. The tower 
 appears to have been completed from Wren's design in 1722. It bears 
 some resemblance to that of Magdalen College, and is divided into four 
 storeys, of which the second and third are lighted by semicircular headed 
 windows, exhibiting a huge hollow jamb in their external reveal. They 
 are divided by mullions into two lights. The upper windows are much 
 longer and narrower than the others, and are separated by a buttress 
 which stops upon a string-course below. The lights are labelled with 
 the same ugly type of ogival drip-stone, which may be recognised in 
 most of Wren's Gothic designs. Octagonal turrets, round which the 
 horizontal string-courses break, and which are decorated with corbel 
 heads, occur at each angle of the tower, and are carried up to some 
 height above its main walls, terminating in four heavy-looking ogival 
 finials. The intermediate buttress is also carried up, and finishes with 
 a pinnacle above the parapet, which is battlemented in two awkward- 
 looking courses, evidently parodied from the Magdalen tower.* 
 
 It was almost the last work which Wren lived to see carried out. 
 He had now reached a great age, and it is sad to think that his last 
 days had been embittered by the disgraceful cabals of ungenerous 
 rivalry. The commissioners for conducting the rebuilding of St. Paul's 
 intrigued against him. Wren petitioned the Oueen that he might be 
 freed from their interference. Had her Majesty lived, it is probable 
 that he might have defied his enemies to the last. But Anne died in 
 17 14, and when the Elector succeeded to the throne he was surrounded 
 by his countrymen, with whom Benson, an architect of mean pretensions 
 
 * The modern restorations of this church were executed from the designs of Mr. G. G. 
 Scott, R.A. 
 
Death of Wren. 41 
 
 and unscrupulous effrontery, managed to become a favourite. The old 
 Commission at length expired, and in 17 15 a new one was issued. 
 The king was prevailed on to supersede Wren's patent as surveyor- 
 general. His consent must have mortified Wren, but it certainly dis- 
 graced himself. In his eighty-sixth year, this good and faithful servant 
 of the crown was dismissed from an office which he had held during four 
 reigns, and for a period of nearly half a century. Benson was installed 
 in his place, only to lose it on the first occasion, when his gross inca- 
 pacity became manifest. Wren retired to his residence at Hampton 
 Court, coming up to town, however, from time to time for the purpose 
 of inspecting the repairs of Westminster Abbey, and other works which 
 were being still carried out under his superintendence. In one of these 
 excursions he caught a cold, which possibly may have hastened his end. 
 But he died at last peacefully, after falling asleep in his arm-chair, on 
 the 25th of February, 1723. 
 
42 Horace Walpole. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 F in the history of British art there is one period more distin- 
 guished than another for its neglect of Gothic, it was 
 certainly the middle of the eighteenth century. In a pre- 
 vious age architects had not been wanting who endeavoured to per- 
 petuate the style whenever occasion offered, and when the taste of 
 their clients raised no obstacle. Wren had himself condescended to 
 imitate in practice those principles of design which he despised in 
 theory. But these were exceptional cases, and, as time advanced, and 
 the new doctrine spread more widely, they became still rarer. Nor 
 did the lovers of archaeology much help the waning cause. The old 
 antiquarians were dead, or had ceased from their labours. Their suc- 
 cessors had not yet begun to write. An interval occurred between the 
 works of Dugdale and Dodsworth, of Herbert and Wood, on the one 
 side, and those of Grose, Bentham, Hearn, and Gough, on the other — 
 between the men who recorded the history of Mediaeval buildings in 
 England, and the men who attempted to illustrate them. In this 
 interval an author appeared who did neither, but to whose writings 
 and to whose influence as an admirer of Gothic art we believe may 
 be ascribed one of the chief causes which induced its present revival. 
 
 Horace Walpole, third son of the Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, first 
 Earl of Orford, was born in 1718. At the age of twenty his fortune 
 was secured by some valuable sinecures, and he thus found himself enabled 
 at an early period of his life to indulge in those tastes and pursuits 
 which to him seemed of much more importance than his Parliamentary 
 duties, and which have combined to render his name so famous. 
 
 It is impossible to peruse either the letters or the romances of this 
 
// \iIpo!cs Taste for Gothic. 43 
 
 remarkable man without being struck by the unmistakable evidence 
 which they contain of his Mediaeval predilections. His c Castle of 
 Otranto ' was perhaps the first modern work of fiction which depended 
 for its interest on the incidents of a chivalrous age, and it thus became 
 the prototype of that class of novel which was afterwards imitated by 
 Mrs. RatclirTe and perfected by Sir Walter Scott. The feudal tyrant, 
 the venerable ecclesiastic, the forlorn but virtuous damsel, the castle 
 itself, with its moats and drawbridge, its gloomy dungeons and solemn 
 corridors, are all derived from a mine of interest which has since been 
 worked more efficiently and to better profit. But to Walpole must be 
 awarded the credit of its discovery and first employment. 
 
 The position which he occupies with regard to art resembles in many 
 respects that in which he stands as a man of letters. His kbours were 
 not profound in either field. But their result was presented to the 
 public in a form which gained him rapid popularity both as an author 
 and a dilettante. As a collector of curiosities he was probably in- 
 fluenced more by a love of old world associations than by any sound 
 appreciation of artistic design. In this spirit he haunted the auction 
 rooms, and picked up a vast quantity of objects that were destined by- 
 and-by to crowd his villa at Twickenham. Nothing to which the 
 faintest semblance of a legend attached was too insignificant for his 
 notice. Oueen Mary's comb, King William's spur, the pipe which 
 Van Tromp smoked in his last naval engagement, or the scarlet hat of 
 Cardinal Wolsey, possessed for him an extraordinary interest. But 
 among these relics he acquired much that was really valuable in the 
 way of old china and stained glass, and thus formed the nucleus of 
 what at one time promised to become an important Mediaeval museum. 
 The acquisition of these treasures could not but influence his taste, 
 which has been ably defined by an eminent writer of our own day. 
 1 He had,' says Lord Macaulay, f a strange ingenuity peculiarly his 
 own, an ingenuity which appeared in all that he did, in his building, in 
 his gardening, in his upholstery, in the matter and in the manner of 
 
44 Strawberry Hill. 
 
 his writings. If we were to adopt the classification — not a very accu- 
 rate classification — which Akenside has given of the pleasures of the 
 imagination, we should say that with the Sublime and the Beautiful 
 Walpole had nothing to do, but that the third province, the Odd, was 
 his peculiar domain.' It was probably this eccentricity of taste, com- 
 bined with his fondness of Mediaeval lore, which induced him to imitate, 
 in the design of his own dwelling, a style of architecture which by this 
 time had fallen into almost universal contempt. 
 
 On the grounds now known as Strawberry Hill, there existed, 
 towards the middle of the last century, a small cottage, built by a 
 person who had been coachman to the Earl of Bradford. It was ori- 
 ginally intended for a lodging house, but the Fates had decreed for it a 
 more honourable use. Even before the occupancy of the owner with 
 whose name it will be for ever associated, it had become the residence 
 of some notable people. The famous Colley Cibber once lived there. 
 Dr. Talbot, then Bishop of Durham, and the Marquis of Caernarvon 
 (afterwards Duke of Chandos), had been its tenants. It was afterwards 
 hired by Mrs. Chenevix, a dealer in toys, at that time well known in 
 London. It does not appear that there was anything of a Gothic 
 character in the original structure, but it struck Walpole's fancy. He 
 first purchased the lease of Mrs. Chenevix, and the following year 
 bought the fee simple of the estate. In a letter to Mr. (afterwards 
 Marshal) Conway, dated June 8th, 1747, Walpole announced that he 
 had taken possession. c You perceive by my date,' he writes, i that I 
 am o-ot into a new camp, and have left my tub at Windsor. It is a 
 little plaything house that I got out of Mrs. Chenevix's shop, and is 
 the prettiest bauble you ever saw.' 
 
 This small and whimsical abode Walpole enlarged at various times 
 between the years 1753 and 1776. He did not take down the old 
 work, but altered it to suit his taste, and added to it bit by bit, so that 
 the whole at length became a straggling but not unpicturesque mass of 
 buildings. c It was,' says an old writer, c the amusement of his leisure; 
 
Strawberry Hill. 45 
 
 and, circumscribed in its dimensions as it is now seen, it enabled him to 
 perform with sufficient success his original intention, which was that of 
 adapting the more beautiful portions of English or Gothic castellated 
 and ecclesiastical architecture to the purposes of a modern villa. A 
 wide and somewhat novel field was here opened for the exercise of taste. 
 The task was precisely suited to the talent of the designer ; and this 
 choice specimen of the picturesque effect which may be produced by a 
 combination of the graces of ancient English style, even when those 
 beauties are unaided by the ivyed mellowness of time, has greatly 
 assisted in introducing a passion for the Gothic' 
 
 Just as the little cottage of Mrs. Chenevix grew into a villa under 
 Walpole's care 3 so the villa which Walpole designed has since deve- 
 loped into a mansion. Within the last few years a new wing has been 
 added by its present owner, the Countess Waldegrave, and the old work 
 has been so completely renovated that it is not at first easy to trace the 
 original form of old Strawberry Hill amid the various embellishments 
 which surround it. The principal entrance was formerly by the road- 
 side — an arrangement which may have answered very well in Walpole's 
 time, but in these days of busy traffic would hardly have ensured 
 sufficient privacy to the inmates. A piece of ground, therefore, which 
 now forms a portion of the garden, was reclaimed from the highway, 
 and a new road formed round it in exchange. The old entrance was 
 by a low pointed arch from which a narrow corridor led on the left 
 hand to an inner door. This passage is decorated with mural arcuation, 
 consisting of slender attached shafts, and tracery in low relief, the bays 
 being separated by canopied niches, enriched internally with carved 
 work in imitation of groining. The crockets employed in this work 
 are of that feeble type which characterised the latest and most debased 
 Jacobean Gothic, and the little corbels are executed in the acorn 
 pattern which Wren so extensively used. 
 
 The main walls are of brick or rubble masonry, rough cast with 
 plaster. Many of the doors and windows on the north side are spanned 
 
46 Strawberry Hill. 
 
 by a pointed arch. On the first floor are several oriel and bay windows, 
 constructed of wood, of which the upper portions are filled with stained 
 glass. They are surmounted by a light cornice crested with wooden 
 tracery. The west wing, in which Walpole set up his printing-press, 
 is a battlemented building two storeys in height. It is lighted by 
 square windows, divided by what seem to be modern casement frames 
 into two and three compartments, and labelled above with an imitation 
 of a Tudor drip-stone. The portion of the building nearest the Thames 
 is evidently the oldest part, and is said to have been the actual cottage 
 purchased of Mrs. Chenevix. It presents two fronts, one facing the 
 west and the other the south. A semi-octagonal porch projects from 
 each side. The pointed windows of this wing are remarkable as bearing 
 more resemblance to Venetian Gothic than to anv English example. 
 Their arches are cusped once on either side and terminate in that abrupt 
 ogival curve, of which so many examples may be seen from the Grand 
 Canal. The likeness is the more striking because the plaster is carried 
 up to the edge of the intrados, and thus leaves the arch with no appa- 
 rent voussoir. There are two storeys of these windows, the upper floor 
 being lighted by simple quatrefoil openings about three feet across. A 
 battlemented parapet crowns the whole. The latter feature is probably 
 executed in lath and plaster. It is certain that the coping of both 
 merlons and embrasures is of wood, and that wooden pinnacles occur at 
 the angles and at regular intervals along the front. The porches on the 
 south and east sides (also battlemented) are carried up two storeys in 
 height. Over the east porch a stepped gable rises, lighted by an oriel 
 window and ornamented at its upper end by a wooden cross let in flush 
 with the plaster. At the apex of the roof is another (Maltese) cross by 
 way of finial. The east corner of the south front is occupied by an 
 apartment now used as a study, but which was formerly the dining-room, 
 or, as Walpole would .have it, the '■refectory.' It is lighted by a bay 
 v.- in do w rectangular in plan and surmounted by a wooden cresting. In 
 the storey immediately above this is the library window, divided into three 
 
Strawberry Hill. 4-7 
 
 Jights by slender wooden columns. The arch over this window differs 
 from the rest in having a flat double cusp on either side, but terminates 
 like the others in an ogival curve. It is filled with rich stained glass. 
 On either side above it, and lighting the same chamber, are two quatrefoil 
 openings similar to those we have described. A chimney shaft projects 
 on the east side and is carried up straight to about three- fourths of its 
 height, where it is splayed back in the usual manner. The window 
 heads of the south porch are flatter than the rest, but preserve the same 
 general outline. 
 
 The picture gallery runs from east to west, connecting the original 
 tenement with the round central tower and attached staircase-turret, 
 which Walpole built, and which have been lately carried up an addi- 
 tional storey in height. The west front of the gallery (standing about 
 thirty feet from the ground) is divided into bays by buttresses, and 
 contains two storeys, whereof the lower is occupied by servants' offices. 
 The windows of each floor are spanned by four-centred Tudor arches. 
 The voussoirs and quoins appear to be of stone — at all events in some 
 portions of the work ; but the whole has been so plastered over in 
 successive renovations that it is difficult to distinguish the solid masonry 
 from rubble-work. The upper windows are labelled with late drip-stone 
 mouldings. The round central tower, which forms an important 
 feature in the group, has a battlemented parapet running round the 
 wall over a corbelled string-course. 
 
 The interior, or rather that portion of it which Walpole designed, 
 is just what one might expect from a man who possessed a vague 
 admiration for Gothic without the knowledge necessary for a proper 
 adaptation of its features. Ceilings, screens, niches, &c, are all copied, 
 or rather parodied, from existing examples, but with utter disregard for 
 the original purpose of the design. To Lord Orford, Gothic was 
 Gothic, and that sufficed. He would have turned an altar-slab into a 
 hall table, or made a cupboard of a piscina, with the greatest com- 
 placency if it only served his purpose. Thus we find that in the north 
 
48 Strawberry Hill. 
 
 bed-chamber, when he wanted a model for his chimney-piece, he thought 
 he could not do better than adopt the form of Bishop Dudley's tomb 
 in Westminster Abbey. He found a pattern for the piers of his garden- 
 gate in the choir of Ely Cathedral. It is to be feared that his lordship's 
 enthusiasm not only led him to copy such portions of ancient work, but 
 sometimes to appropriate fragments of an original structure. Unfor- 
 tunately his example has been imitated by collectors even in our own 
 time. 
 
 The picture gallery was supposed to be Walpole's chef-it ceuvre. It 
 is fifty-six feet long, seventeen feet high, and thirteen feet wide. The 
 design of the ceiling was borrowed from an aisle in Henry the Seventh's 
 chapel, and is rich in pendants and panelled work. The principal 
 entrance to this apartment is copied from the north door of St. Alban's, 
 and the two smaller doors are parts of the same design. The most 
 richly decorated side of the room is to some extent in imitation of 
 Archbishop Bouchier's tomb at Canterbury. It has five canopied 
 recesses, and is elaborately enriched throughout.* 
 
 There is a small building in the garden still called the c chapel,' 
 though whether that name should be retained for a room which 
 a congregation of six people would inconveniently crowd may be 
 doubted. Its greatest length, including the porch, is not more than 
 fifteen feet. Internally it is about eight feet wide. The inner portion 
 is on a sort of quatrefoil plan, of which three sides are roofed with 
 
 * The completion of Walpole's villa caused a great deal of sensation at the time, and its 
 merits were freely discussed by the press. Some doggerel rhymes concerning it appeared 
 in a paper called the 'Craftsman.' The first stanza is as follows: — 
 
 ' Some cry up Gunncrsbury, 
 
 For Sion some declare : 
 And some say that with Chiswick House 
 
 No villa can compare : 
 But ask the beaux of Middlesex 
 
 Who know the country well, 
 If Strawb'ry Hill— if Strawb'ry Hill 
 
 Don't bear away the bell r ' 
 
JValpolcs Gothic. 49 
 
 plaster groining, and the fourth is left open to the porch. Ribs spring 
 from each angle towards a quadrilateral space above, from which a pen- 
 dant hangs. Each side forms a recess, of three faces, separated by a 
 slender attached column. 
 
 The front of the porch is executed in Portland stone, and is really a 
 very creditable performance if we consider the time at which it was 
 erected. The upper portion is principally occupied by a three-light 
 window spanned by a flat four- centred arch. The sill of this window 
 is formed by a heavy stone transom, which separates it from a doorway 
 and little window below. Three small niches occur on either side, 
 moulded and canopied with some delicacy of workmanship. The ex- 
 treme corners of the front are decorated with octagonal shafts panelled 
 in their upper portions. 
 
 The whole of the carving, and, indeed, the general design of the 
 chapel, has been executed with great care and more attention to detail 
 than one might expect from such a period. Walpole's Gothic, in 
 short, though far from reflecting the beauties of a former age, or anti- 
 cipating those which were destined to proceed from a redevelopment 
 of the style, still holds a position in the history of English art which 
 commands our respect, for it served to sustain a cause which had other- 
 wise been well-nigh forsaken. 
 
 In tracing the history of any particular branch of art or science it is 
 often needful, if only for the sake of continuity, to take cognisance of 
 facts which in themselves seem unimportant, and of personages whose 
 names, but for the object of research, might remain in the oblivion to 
 which they have long been consigned. It is trusted that this will be 
 deemed a sufficient excuse for a reference to the works of an architect 
 whose connection with the subject before us is interesting only because 
 
 it is curious. 
 
 The age in which Batty Langley lived was an age in which it was 
 customary to refer all matters of taste to rule and method. There 
 was one standard of excellence in poetry— a standard that had its 
 
 E 
 
5<d Pedantry of the Renaissance. 
 
 origin in the smooth distichs of heroic verse which Pope was the first 
 to perfect, and which hundreds of later rhymers who lacked his nobler 
 powers soon learned to imitate. In pictorial art, it was the grand school 
 which exercised despotic sway over the efforts of genius, and limited 
 the painter's inventions to the field of Pagan mythology. In architec- 
 ture, Vitruvius was the great authority. The graceful majesty of the 
 Parthenon — the noble proportions of the Temple of Theseus — the 
 chaste enrichment which adorns the Choragic monument of Lysicrates, 
 were ascribed less to the fertile imagination and refined perceptions of 
 the ancient Greek, than to the dry and formal precepts which were 
 invented centuries after their erection. Little was said of the magnifi- 
 cent sculpture which filled the metopes of the Temple of Minerva; 
 but the exact height and breadth of the triglyphs between them were 
 considered of the greatest importance. The exquisite drapery of 
 Caryatids and Canephorce no English artist a hundred years ago thought 
 fit to imitate ; but the cornices which they supported were measured 
 inch by inch with the utmost nicety. 
 
 Ingenious devices were invented for enabling the artificer to repro- 
 duce, by a series of complicated curves, the profile of a Doric capital, 
 which probably owed its form to the steady hand and uncontrolled 
 taste of the designer. To put faith in many of the theories pro- 
 pounded by architectural authorities in the last century would be 
 to believe that some of the grandest monuments which the world has 
 ever seen raised owe their chief beauty to an accurate knowledge of 
 arithmetic. The diameter of the column was divided into modules ; 
 the modules wer£ divided into minutes ; the minutes into fractions of 
 themselves. A certain height was allotted to the shaft, another to the 
 entablature. These proportions might vary certainly, but such 
 variation entirely depended upon whether the ( order ' was mutular or 
 denticular (in other words, whether the cornice was ornamented with a 
 few large projecting blocks or a great number of little ones), and 
 whether the capital was simply moulded, or carved into the form of 
 
Batty Langley. 51 
 
 acanthus leaves. Sometimes the learned discussed how far apart the 
 columns of a portico might be. To the ordinary mind this would soon 
 resolve itself into a question of light and facility of access. But in the 
 days to which we allude they called things by grand names, and the 
 eustyle and diastyle each had their supporters. 
 
 Batty Langley, who had no doubt well read his Vitruvius and knew 
 to a decimal point the orthodox height and projection of every feature 
 in the five orders, possessed, with all his classical predilections, an 
 undercurrent of admiration for Mediaeval art. It was an admiration, 
 however, not untempered by disdain, and, perhaps, when he gazed on 
 the mysterious grandeur of our English cathedrals, he felt what he 
 conceived to be a generous pity that such large and important works 
 should have been undertaken in ages which appeared to him so dark 
 and barbarous in their notions of design. The style had some merit 
 certainly. It was pretty and fanciful. It would do very well for a 
 porch in the country or for a summer-house ; but if it was ever con- 
 templated to employ it again in buildings of any importance, some- 
 thing must be done to modify the style— that was certain. The 
 question remained how this could be managed. Here was a crude and 
 unmethodical order of architecture which resembled neither Doric nor 
 Corinthian, whose columns were sometimes two diameters high and 
 sometimes twenty, and might be, as far as rules were concerned, two 
 hundred. All sorts of foliage were used in the capitals. The cornice 
 profiles were eternally varying, and, worse than all, those ignorant 
 Goths had directly violated the most obvious principles of eurythmia. 
 Could nothing be done to improve the style and rescue it from utter 
 degradation ? Mr. Batty Langley thought that he would try. 
 
 It was perhaps a somewhat ambitious venture ; but, atter all, what 
 advantages had Boyden and de Bek, Thomas of Canterbury, and 
 William of Wykeham, compared with the erudition of the eighteenth 
 century ? Our reformer was, as we have said, well versed in those 
 mysterious relations of shaft and capital, column and entablature, which 
 
 E 2 
 
52 Gothic Architecture 'Improved' 
 
 characterised the designs of Palladio. It occurred to him that some 
 such system might be applied with advantage to Gothic architecture. 
 He actually imagined that by assimilating the proportions of Mediaeval 
 features to those of the Classic school or by grafting Gothic mouldings 
 on an Italian facade, he should be able to produce a style which would 
 rival, if not surpass, any building which had been raised during the 
 Middle Ages ; that because the folly of the late Renaissance designers 
 had attached a false importance to modules and minutes, a like system 
 of measurement would ennoble and purify an art which included among 
 its examples tha choir of Ely Cathedral and the chapter-house of 
 York Minster. 
 
 Accordingly, in the year of grace 1742, a work appeared in the form 
 of a neat folio volume with this astounding title : — 
 
 * Gothic Architecture, improved by Rules and Proportions in many 
 Grand Designs of Columns, Doors, Windows, Chimney-peices, Arcades, 
 Colonades, Porticos, Umbrellos (!), Temples and Pavillions, &c, with 
 Plans, Elevations, and Profiles ; geometrically explained by B. and T. 
 Langley.' 
 
 These gentlemen, whose book appears to have been subsequently 
 accompanied by text which few have had the good fortune to peruse,* 
 begin by announcing the discovery of five new orders of columns, plain 
 and enriched ; and then proceed to show their application to the 
 various features of a dwelling c in the Gothick manner.' The entire 
 height of the first order they divide into eleven parts, whereof one is 
 given to the subplinth, half to the base of the column, seven to the 
 shaft, another half to the capital, and the remaining two to the entabla- 
 ture, which, by the way, is in its turn subdivided into architrave, frieze, 
 and cornice, after the Roman fashion. The upper members of the 
 cornice are the ordinary cyma, fillets, and corona of Italian design, but, 
 in place of the bed-mouldings, a huge cavetto succeeds, enriched with 
 
 * The British M eum copy contains illustrations only ; the letter-press probably appeared 
 in a lat:r edition. 
 
The Five Orders Gothicised. ' 53 
 
 a sort of trefoil panelling and separated from the frieze below by a 
 bird's beak and reversed cyma moulding. The rest of the features are 
 parodied in a most preposterous manner from the Classic school. The 
 metopes become quatrefoil panels ; the triglyphs are grooves with 
 cusped and pointed heads. The plan of the shaft itself is quatrefoil, 
 and a careful diagram shows how it may be fluted with advantage. 
 The base-mouldings are of that type which may be occasionally seen at 
 the foot of an iron column in a monster railway-station. A pao-e or so 
 farther on we have the same order with more elaborate enrichments : 
 the corona bears lozenge-shaped dies, raised upon a sunk ground; the 
 cyma, torus, and minor mouldings are decorated after a manner peculiar to 
 Mr. Langley, and which, if not very graceful in itself, has at least the 
 merit of originality. Acanthus leaves crop up in the cavetto, the tri- 
 glyphs are hung with strings of beads, and the whole presents an appear- 
 ance of incongruity which it would be hardly possible to match else- 
 where. The most extraordinary feature of these designs is the great 
 trouble the author has given himself to work out every detail employed. 
 The elevations are projected from plans with the nicest accuracy; 
 each feature is set out with unerring care, and the engravings themselves 
 are remarkably good and carefully executed. 
 
 Of the other so-called c orders ' in this curious book it will be suffi- 
 cient to say that each surpasses the last in absurdity. Now and then 
 one finds a crude attempt to embody the characteristics of Pointed Art 
 in the way of decoration, but, as a rule, the ornament introduced is at 
 once feeble and vulgar, and reflects about as much of the spirit of classic 
 or Gothic design as may be recognised in the proportions of a modern 
 bed-post. 
 
 Batty Langley's ideas of pointed doors and windows were not a whit 
 better. It is singular that they should be conspicuous for that fault 
 which Mr. Ruskin deftly pointed out as one of the chiefest signs of 
 debased Gothic. The impost of the arch is almost always omitted, 
 and where it does occur it is rarely moulded, and never enriched with 
 
54 Batty Langley s Designs. 
 
 carving. Langley has, moreover, with that fatuity which marked all 
 the Mediaeval revivalists, insisted on inventing a new species of crocket, 
 which has precisely missed the spirit, and reversed the principle, of that 
 useful feature in genuine work. It does not seem to bud from, but 
 rather to creep up, the hood-moulding or pinnacle to which it is attached. 
 Sometimes a battlemented cornice is introduced over a porch. But 
 merlons and embrasures are all numbered, and the height and width of 
 each bear a certain proportion to some unit which forms the basis of the 
 whole design. 
 
 As for the f porticos ' and c umbrellos,' the arcades and colonnades, 
 which are included in the work, they are simply Italian in general 
 outline, with a bastard detail, which one can only call Gothic because it 
 can be called nothing else. Any carpenter's foreman could now use his 
 pencil to better purpose.' The chimney-pieces have as much affinity with 
 the art of the Middle Ages as the monuments which may be bought of 
 a New Road statuary. The c temples ' are Mediaeval in the same sense 
 as similar structures at Cremorne or Rosherville. Posterity may 
 wonder whether any of these remarkable works were ever executed — 
 whether men in whose hearts was still cherished a lingering love of Old 
 English architecture put any faith in this eccentric, vain enthusiast — 
 what his contemporaries thought of him — whether he shared the con- 
 tempt which fell upon Ripley, or forgave Lord Pembroke for recom- 
 mending his rival Labelye's designs for Westminster Bridge in pre- 
 ference to his own. Certain it is that Batty Langley 's commissions 
 were not numerous, nor do those which he undertook reflect much 
 credit on their author. His name is chiefly remembered in association 
 with the singular but now worthless volume on whose title-page it is 
 inscribed. Gothic architecture has had it vicissitudes in this country. 
 There was a time when its principles were universally recognised ; there 
 was a time when they were neglected or forgotten. But in the days of 
 its lowest degradation, it may be questioned whether it would not have 
 been better that the cause should have remained unespoused than have 
 been sustained by such a champion as Batty Langley. 
 
77 te ' Georgian ' Era. 55 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 pLTHOUGH the eighteenth century was, on the whole, more 
 distinguished for its neglect of Mediaeval architecture than 
 the age which preceded or the age which followed that 
 period, still many examples of the style exist, which were certainly 
 erected during the reigns of the first Georges. Among these is the 
 gateway on the east side of the second quadrangle at Hampton Court. 
 A reference to early plans of the palace will show that a considerable 
 portion of that facade was remodelled later than the reign of Queen 
 Anne ; and, indeed, a stone tablet inserted in the wall immediately 
 above the apex of the arch contains the initials G n . R., and the 
 date 1732. This work derives especial interest from two remarkable 
 facts. In the first place, it was executed after Wren's classic additions 
 to Hampton Court, and midway between the stately quadrangle and 
 the Ionic colonnade which contributed no little to his fame, and which, 
 in his own day, no doubt commanded universal admiration. That an 
 architect within a few years after Sir Christopher's death, and while the 
 taste for Italian art which he had so ably encouraged was at its height, 
 should have ventured on a design whose principles were diametrically 
 opposed to those held and taught by so great a master, is notable in 
 itself. But this is not all. The building thus altered had been 
 originally Gothic, it is true, but Gothic of a very different kind from 
 that which was subsequently engrafted on it. Every one familiar with 
 that example of the Tudor style will remember the low four-centred 
 arches which span the older gateways of Hampton Court. If any form 
 of Mediaeval architecture found favour in the last century, it was 
 certainly that which had prevailed during the reign of Henry VII. 
 
56 Additions to Hampton Court. 
 
 The most obvious course for an architect to pursue under the circum- 
 stances would have been to adopt, in any alterations of the palace, the 
 style in which it had been originally conceived. That, however, was 
 not done in the instance mentioned. The entrance archway is not 
 a four-centred, but an Early Pointed arch. The windows above it 
 belong more to the Transition, or to the Decorated, than to the Per- 
 pendicular period, while the whole design bears the impress of an 
 originality in design which is unusual in work of this date, and seems 
 to indicate that it was undertaken by some one who possessed some- 
 thing more than the mere skill of a copyist. 
 
 The gateway is enclosed by two semi-octagonal turrets (decorated 
 with string-courses and medallion heads) which rise above the battle- 
 mented parapet, and are surmounted by stone cupolas, octagonal in 
 plan and ogival in profile, terminating in finials of the same character. 
 The wall space between these turrets is divided into three storeys, in 
 the uppermost of which is a window partitioned by mullions into four 
 lights, whereof the two central ones rise higher than the others, and are 
 included in an ogival arch round which a drip-stone is carried. The 
 lower window also consists of four lights with cinquefoil heads, under 
 a four-centred arch, the spandrils between being filled in with tracery. 
 This window has no label of the ordinary kind, but is surmounted by 
 a stone canopy of a peculiar design, and slender shafts, with caps and 
 bases, are used in place of the principal mullions. Each window has 
 a moulded sill, which projects from the face of the wall. 
 
 The mouldings of the archway below are particularly good of their 
 kind, and the attached columns which decorate the jamb on either side 
 are well-proportioned. Their capitals are, however, without foliage, 
 nor is there any carving in the usual sense of the word, throughout the 
 whole design. 
 
 It is almost impossible to cite any instance of Pointed architecture of 
 this date in which groining, where introduced, is not altogether a sham, 
 or set out on a wrong principle. In this case the vault under the 
 
Eighteenth Century Gothic. 57 
 
 passage is executed in plaster, and on such a plan as to make it at once 
 apparent that no constructive element is involved in the design. From 
 each corner of the vault springs a quadrant of fan tracery. The rest is 
 simply a flat roof, panelled after a manner which might represent the 
 plan of a groined vault, but which itself is, in reality, nothing more 
 than a ceiling. 
 
 In addition to this example, which may be classed under the head of 
 public works, a great many mansions for the nobility and landed gentry 
 of this country were either restored or rebuilt some years later, in a 
 style which humbly imitated, if it could not rival, the art of former days. 
 Among these may be mentioned Belhus, the seat of Lord Dacre, in 
 Essex, which was remodelled towards the latter half of the last century. 
 Lord Dacre was an accomplished amateur in architecture, and a learned 
 antiquarian. His researches had been of a kind which well qualified 
 him for the task, and his appreciation of Mediaeval art was, for the 
 age in which he lived, very considerable. 
 
 Adlestrop Park, in Gloucester, the property of Lord Leigh, was the 
 field of another Gothic restoration. The old house dated from a good 
 period, and care was taken in the alterations to preserve its original 
 character. Llanerchydol, in Montgomeryshire, a stone mansion in the 
 c castellated' style (as it was then called), appears to have been built in 
 1776, and is by no means a bad example of the school. 
 
 Beeston Hall, Norfolk, which was built in 1786 for Mr. Jacob 
 Preston, is another specimen of the Revival. It presents, or rather 
 presented at the time of its erection, a simple elevation, two storeys in 
 height. At each angle of the facade are slender octagonal turrets, 
 terminating in pinnacles, ornamented in the usual way with crockets 
 and finials. The three divisions into which the front is divided are 
 surmounted by battlements, with blank shields introduced on the 
 merlons, above which rises a somewhat high-pitched roof with clustered 
 chimneys. Canopied niches occur on either side of a large central 
 window in the upper storey. 
 
58 Costessy Hall: Norfolk. 
 
 Costessy, or Cossey Hall, the seat of Lord Stafford, in the same 
 county, may be said to have presented in its earlier state and sub- 
 sequent improvement, two distinct and interesting links in the history 
 before us. The original building was erected in 1564, and the purity 
 of its general conception is a pleasing evidence of the respect which still 
 obtained for the old style. But the chapel, which was designed by 
 Mr. Edward Jerningham,* in the last century, is equally remarkable 
 as one of the best and earliest designs in modern Gothic. The 
 Mediaeval spirit almost seems to have been an heirloom with the 
 owners, or at least to have been part and parcel of the estate. The 
 last rays of a declining art illumined the founders, and the earliest 
 dawn of the Revival enlightened the restorers of Cossey Hall. 
 
 In Scotland the old baronial type of residence was long preserved, and 
 it would not be difficult to cite instances of its adoption in successive 
 ages from feudal days down to our own time. For present purposes, 
 however, it will be sufficient to mention one which belongs to the period 
 now reached by our history. Inverary Castle, near Loch Fyne, was 
 begun by Archibald, Duke of Argyle, in 1745, and completed a few 
 years afterwards. It is a large square building, flanked at each angle 
 bv a round tower, the centre block rising to a height sufficient to give 
 light from above to a large hall. Pointed windows occur in the principal 
 facade and in the towers at each angle. The main body of the building 
 is two floors in height, but the towers are carried up a storey higher. 
 The parapet wall is battlemented throughout. On the western side is 
 the chief entrance leading into the grand hall, which is hung round with 
 old Highland weapons and armour. This hall corresponds in design 
 with the general character of the building, but the rest of the interior 
 is modern. 
 
 * This gentleman, an amateur of great taste, was a younger brother of Sir George 
 Jerningham, the owner of the mansion. He also supplied the designs and superintended 
 the restoration of Stafford Castle, which had been demolished by order of Cromwell to 
 within fifteen feet of the basement. 
 
The Revival in Scotland. 59 
 
 It is easy to conceive that in a country like Scotland, where the 
 tales and traditions of Border chivalry still lingered, and which had 
 hardly yet succumbed to the modernising influences induced by a 
 union with this nation, there should have existed a romantic but 
 genuine love for an architecture so intimately associated with its early 
 and martial history. But in England the case was different. Events 
 had occurred which tended to dissipate that species of nationality 
 which finds an echo in national art. The character of our literature, 
 our intercourse with France, and the vulgar superstition which then 
 and long afterwards identified the Pointed arch with the tenets of 
 Rome, had all helped, to efface anything like a popular feeling in 
 favour of Gothic. Where it existed with individuals it generally 
 assumed the form of a false and eccentric sentiment based on a 
 cockney notion of old ecclesiastical life, but which had no more in 
 common with real monastic seclusion than Byron's affected misan- 
 thropy had with the doctrines of Apemantus. The novels of Walpole 
 and the pseudo-Mediaeval whims which he cherished did much to 
 encourage this feeling in the clique to which he belonged. Among 
 those who imbibed it earliest was Thomas Barrett, a gentleman who 
 had been elected as the representative of Dover in 1773, but who 
 retired into private life on the dissolution of Parliament which followed 
 soon afterwards, and devoted himself to rural pursuits at his country 
 house in Kent. There Lord Orford, his friend and correspondent, 
 visited him, and no doubt found some pleasure in examining and 
 criticising the queer old mansion of his host, which, originally built in 
 the time of James I., had since undergone numerous alterations. One 
 room especially struck his lordship's fancy. He compared it to an 
 abbot's study, and Mr. Barrett, who had long thought of remodelling 
 the house, caught at the notion, Gothicised his dwelling in 1782, and, 
 though it neither was nor ever had been connected with any conventual 
 establishment, insisted on calling it c Lee Priory.' The elder Wyatt, 
 then a young man rising into notice, was the architect employed in the 
 
6o Lcc Priory: Milton Abbas. 
 
 design, which has been reckoned among the most successful efforts of 
 
 his youth. 
 
 The principal entrance front of the ' Priory ' is on the north side, 
 where the centre is occupied by a square embattled tower with pinnacles 
 at the angles. At the extremities of this front are octagonal turrets. 
 The chief feature of the west front is a large mullioned window, above 
 which rises the large eight-sided tower containing the library. It is 
 surmounted by a parapet of stone designed in tracery and probably 
 copied from some old example. It terminates in a well-proportioned 
 spire, conspicuous in the more distant views above the mass of foliage 
 by which the house is surrounded. The south elevation is flanked by 
 a square tower. Although the greater part of the building is only two 
 storeys in height, its outline is sufficiently varied to redeem it to some 
 extent from the cold formality which characterises this period of the 
 Revival. 
 
 Of a still earlier date ( 177 1) was Milton Abbas, in Dorsetshire, 
 built for the Earl of Dorchester by Sir William Chambers, on the site 
 of an old abbey house, of which the refectory was allowed to remain 
 and became incorporated in the new design. The latter presents a 
 symmetrical facade. The central block, which contains the principal 
 entrance, is a three- storey ed building, ornamented at each angle by an 
 octagonal turret and cupola. Right and left of this block are minor 
 buildings two floors high, connecting it with side wings which again 
 rise to a height of three storeys and project some feet beyond the rest. 
 
 Arundel Castle, Sussex, the seat of the Duke of Norfolk, was in 
 a ruinous condition, until it was 'restored' by his Grace in 177 1. 
 The Gothic element is certainly present in this structure, but it is of 
 that kind which we are more accustomed to associate with the scenes 
 of a theatre than with the masonry of the Middle Ages. The most 
 important elevation contains the anomaly of a Norman doorway sur- 
 rounded by perpendicular windows. 
 
 Ashburnham Place, in Sussex, is another building of the same class, 
 
Eighteenth Century Gothic. 61 
 
 and of no higher pretensions to art. The chief facade is divided into 
 compartments by octagonal solid turrets, which occupy the place of 
 buttresses. It is crowned by a heavily-machicolated cornice. The 
 windows are square-headed, and labelled with a Tudor drip-stone. A 
 carriage-porch in the centre presents a lofty archway (without impost) 
 on three sides. It was designed by George Dance. 
 
 In Swinton Park, Yorkshire, stood an old mansion, which, towards 
 the end of the last century, was enlarged and improved (?) by James 
 Wyatt, architect. He built the drawing-room, assisted by Mr. John 
 Foss, of Richmond, and made other additions to the house, in what 
 was then called the castellated style. Early in this century, Mr. Danbv, 
 who then resided there, built a massive, tower-like wing at the east end 
 of the same residence, from the designs of Robert Lugar. 
 
 Instances of the application of Gothic in church restoration, between 
 1700 and 1800, are by no means rare, but inasmuch as they were for 
 the most part mere reproductions of old work, due rather to a respect 
 for the integrity of the building than to a love of the style, it is hardly 
 worth while to quote them here. 
 
 The central tower of Beverley Minster may, however, be mentioned 
 as a meagre specimen of Perpendicular work, which dates from this 
 period. In Manchester, the Church of St. Mary and Salford Chapel 
 have Gothic belfry-storeys in their towers — the rest of the buildings in 
 each case being Italian, and about the time of Queen Anne. A chapel 
 in Windsor Park — Mediaeval at least in motive — was designed early in 
 the reign of George III. 
 
 The close of the last century was remarkable for the erection of a 
 building which, for its size, eccentricity of character, and bold adapta- 
 tion of Gothic form, is unequalled in importance by any which had 
 preceded it, and indeed caused no small sensation amorjg the critics and 
 general public of the day. The fashion which once prevailed of in- 
 vesting, either by name or other means, any modern residence which 
 happened to include a pointed arch in its composition with something 
 
62 // tlliam Beckford. 
 
 of an ecclesiastical character has been already mentioned. In no case 
 was this foible more conspicuous than in the once celebrated Fonthill 
 Abbey. 
 
 The history of this strange place presents so many features for con- 
 sideration, and is so inseparably associated with that of its still more 
 extraordinary owner, that they form together a subject which calls for 
 special comment. 
 
 William Beckford, son of the famous alderman of that name, 
 and author of ' Vathek,' a wild Oriental romance which has been 
 long forgotten, was born at Fonthill-GifFard, near Salisbury, on 
 September 29, 1759. ^' s f atner na d acquired great wealth in 
 the West Indies, and was celebrated for his munificence, both in the 
 office of Lord Mayor (to which he was twice elected, in the years 
 1763 and 1770) and as an encourager of the fine arts. When the 
 young heir came of age, he succeeded to a fortune of a million of 
 money, and an income of 100,000/. a year. An early predilection for 
 the study of heraldry, and the opportunities which he enjoyed of 
 foreign travel, no doubt combined to form in him a taste for Gothic 
 architecture, which in later life he gratified by raising for himself, in 
 that style, one of the most remarkable mansions of the day. 
 
 He had previously made himself notorious by encircling the greater 
 portion of his estate at Fonthill with a wall twelve feet high, and pro- 
 tected by a chevaux de frise. It was about seven miles in length, and 
 was finished by the contractor in little more than a year. It was built 
 to prevent the intrusion of sportsmen on the planted and arable portion 
 of the grounds, Mr. Beckford having a great dislike to the pursuits of 
 hunting and shooting. The erection of this wall had the effect of 
 cutting off the general public from any chance of inspecting the new 
 residence which, in accordance with the whim of its owner, was called 
 Fonthill Abbey, and which, in fact, assumed to a great extent the 
 appearance of an ecclesiastical building. It was cruciform in plan, its 
 length from north to south being 312 feet, while the transverse portion 
 
Foil tli ill Abbey. 63 
 
 extended to 250 feet, from east to west. The principal feature was an 
 octagonal tower, which rose from the centre to a height of 278 feet. 
 To give an idea of the mystery which attended its construction, we may 
 mention that in a number of the * Gentleman's Magazine ' it was 
 seriously announced that the lantern at the top would command a 
 view of the surrounding country to an extent of eighty miles, and that, 
 notwithstanding the enormous height of the tower, a coach and six 
 might be driven with convenience from the base to the summit, and 
 down again. 
 
 During the progress of the works, which were conducted from the 
 designs and under the superintendence of James Wyatt, architect 
 this tower accidentally caught fire, and Beckford, who possessed, or 
 perhaps affected, through life, a philosophical indifference to misfortune 
 of all kinds, is said to have enjoyed from his garden the magnificent 
 spectacle of its conflagration. The erection of Fonthill Abbey was 
 begun in 1796, and extended over a period of many years. During 
 part of this time the number of artificers engaged on it, in various 
 capacities, was extraordinary. On one occasion all the available labour 
 of the neighbourhood was monopolised for it, and even the agricultural 
 industry in the district was sensibly affected. On another, the royal 
 works at St. George's Chapel, Windsor, stood still for the same reason. 
 No less than 460 men were then employed on the building. They 
 worked night and day, relieving each other in gangs. The expenses 
 thus entailed must have been enormous. Beckford himself stated that 
 the entire cost of Fonthill Abbey was over 273,000/. The former 
 family seat, inhabited by Alderman Beckford, was an Italian structure. 
 After the completion of the c Abbey ' it was pulled down, and the 
 building materials alone sold for 10,000/. 
 
 South of the central abbey tower was a wing, then known as St. 
 Michael's Gallery. On the west side was a covered cloister, which 
 connected the hall with a block of buildings at the end of the south 
 wing, buttressed and flanked by two octagonal turrets. Between this 
 
64 Font hill Abbey. 
 
 cloister and the south wing of the Abbey was a cortile, in the centre of 
 which a fountain played. The east wing was carried up rather higher 
 than the rest, and included in its design two turrets, copied from those 
 in the entrance gateway of St. Augustine's Monastery, at Canterbury, 
 and features of the same kind, but of a smaller size, were repeated at 
 the end nearest the central block. The south side of this wing was 
 lighted by three large pointed windows, filled with tracery. 
 
 The principal entrance was on the west side, and consisted of a lofty 
 doorway, thirty-one feet high. It was spanned by a richly moulded 
 pointed arch, the drip-stone of which bore crockets and terminated its 
 ogival curve in a finial. In the wall above was a small window, and 
 above this the gable was decorated at its apex by a niche containing a 
 statue of St. Anthony of Padua. 
 
 The oratory was richly ornamented throughout. The ceiling was of 
 oak, gilded and divided into pendental compartments. To ensure a dim 
 and mellow light, the windows of this room were inserted in a hollow 
 or double wall, of which the outer fenestration was not immediately 
 opposite the inner openings. The latter were filled with stained glass. 
 
 The hall, one of the chief internal features of the Abbey, was of 
 important dimensions, being sixty-eight by twenty-eight feet on plan, 
 and seventy-eight feet high. Thence, under a lofty arch, the grand 
 staircase led to the floor of the saloon above. This central apartment, 
 which formed what we may call the first floor of the octagonal tower, 
 was connected with the several wings of the building by four lobbies. 
 In the space between them were deep recesses about fifty feet high and 
 lighted by windows which had been copied from some in the Royal 
 Monastery at Batalha ; over the apex of the arches thus used was a 
 gallery which ran round the tower. Attached columns were corbelled 
 out in the spandrels, and from these sprang the groining which carried 
 the lantern above. Both the east postern tower and that at the south- 
 east were strengthened with buttresses, and their parapets, in common 
 with those throughout the building, were battlemented. 
 
Sale of Font hill Abbey. 65 
 
 A staircase which led to the gallery and upper portion of the tower 
 was entered through a lobby on the left of the western vestibule. The 
 dining-room and library were both elegantly fitted up with oak. 
 Indeed, the arrangements of the interior, though far from compatible 
 with comfort (owing to the nature of the plan and a constant sacrifice 
 to external effect), were of a most costly and magnificent character. 
 Pictures, objects of art and virtu, and every luxury which wealth could 
 command were assembled there in profusion. Some idea of their value 
 may be formed when we state that in 18 19, at the sale of the Abbey 
 and its contents to Mr. Farquhar, 7,200 catalogues at a guinea each 
 were sold in a few days. 
 
 It was only when the building had passed out of Beckford's hands 
 that he became fully aware of its instability and how shamefully Wyatt 
 (who, by the way, died before its completion) had been deceived by 
 those to whom the construction of the Abbey had been entrusted. 
 A few years after the sale, Mr. Beckford was summoned to the death- 
 bed of a man who had been clerk of works at Fonthill. He confessed 
 that, though a large sum of money had been paid for sound founda- 
 tions under the central tower, the inverted arches described in the spe- 
 cification had never been provided. The whole fabric, or at least this 
 portion of it, might fall down at any time. The only wonder was how 
 it had kept so long together. Beckford lost no time in communicating 
 with Mr. Farquhar on the subject ; but that gentleman remarked with 
 coolness that he had no doubt it would last his lifetime. He was, 
 however, mistaken. Not long afterwards the tower fell in a heap of 
 ruins. Fonthill Abbey has since undergone various repairs and altera- 
 tions. A new mansion has been erected near its site ; but little or no 
 vestige remains of that strange ambitious building which was once the 
 wonder of the western counties, and which formed so important a 
 feature in the Gothic Revival. 
 
 We have already seen how materially literature and the labours of 
 the antiquary helped to sustain the traditions of Mediaeval art. Let us 
 
 F 
 
66 Literature of the Revival. 
 
 now take a rapid survey of those books which were published during 
 the eighteenth century in connection with this subject. 
 
 So early as 1683 Lord Clarendon had begun his 'History and 
 Antiquities of Winchester Cathedral.' The work was continued by 
 Mr. Samuel Gale, who in 17 15 published the result of their joint 
 labours. The volume contained a full description of the tombs and 
 monuments in the church, together with an account of all its bishops, 
 deans, and prebendaries, to which was added the history and antiquities 
 of Hyde Abbey. A later edition appeared in 1723. 
 
 Thomas Pownall, Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Society of 
 Antiquaries, a gentleman of considerable learning and political know- 
 ledge, was born at Lincoln in 1722, and died in 1805. He wrote on 
 the ( Origin of Gothic Architecture.' The treatise is little known, 
 and there is no copy of it in the British Museum. 
 
 In 1 722-3 two additional volumes to Dugdale's c Monasticon ' were 
 added by Mr. John Stevens. 
 
 In 1762 appeared Perry's c Series of English Medals,' in which the 
 author attempted to illustrate and classify Gothic tracery from the 
 Conquest downwards. The descriptive text was written by Mr. John 
 
 Aubrey. 
 
 A more important work was published in 1771 by James Bentham, 
 M.A., Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and rector of Feltwell 
 St. Nicholas, Norfolk. It was entitled ' The History and Antiquities 
 of the Conventual Church of Ely, from the Foundation of the 
 Monastery, a.d. 673, to the year 1 77 1 .' It was printed at the 
 Cambridge University Press, and was illustrated with engravings on 
 copper of interior views, plans, monuments, &c, by P. S. Lamborn, 
 from the drawings of Mr. Heins. Some of the architectural examples 
 are selected with little discrimination, but they are, on the whole, very 
 finely etched. 
 
 1 The Carpenter's Treasure, a collection of designs for temples, with 
 their plans, gates, doors, rails, &c, in the Gothic taste,' is a curious 
 
Grose s 'Antiquities of England: 67 
 
 little book by one Wallis, which made its appearance in 1774, and may 
 perhaps be still met with at old bookstalls. 
 
 Grose's ' Antiquities of England and Wales ' — one of the most 
 comprehensive works of the kind which had appeared since Dugdale's 
 f Monasticon ' — was published in four folio volumes, to which were 
 afterwards added two supplementary volumes, between the years 1773 
 and 1787. It is amply illustrated with careful engravings. In a 
 lengthy preface the author gives a useful essay on Gothic Architecture, 
 including a general history of ancient British castles, explaining the 
 terms relative to the construction of their garrisons, and the old 
 machines used for attack and defence. To this information is added 
 a useful account of British monastic institutions, compiled from the 
 (then) best existing authorities, including Domesday Book, which is 
 frequently quoted. The architectural drawings which accompany this 
 work vary in merit. Ornamental sculpture, when given in detail, 
 is feebly drawn, but the general views are useful, and doubly interesting 
 when we remember that many of the buildings which they illustrate 
 have since perished. Fonts, brasses, and other objects of ecclesiastical 
 service are represented, and the second volume of the supplement 
 includes some etchings and descriptive text of Druidical remains in the 
 Channel Islands. In treating the English and Welsh antiquities, each 
 county is separately considered and accompanied by a small map, with 
 a list of the places most worthy of notice. Mr. Grose was assisted in 
 this work by various antiquarians, clergymen, and artists of his time. 
 He makes especial mention of Mr. Gough, Thomas Sandly, then 
 professor of architecture to the Royal Academy, and several noble- 
 men and gentlemen who furnished descriptions or histories of their 
 seats. 
 
 In 1789 the same author produced his 'Antiquities of Scotland' in 
 two folio volumes, a useful work of its kind, prefaced by an introduc- 
 tion, in which the history and leading characteristics of Mediaeval 
 Scotland are described. The engravings, most of which were executed 
 
 F 2 
 
63 Carter s Works. 
 
 by a Mr. Sparrow, are inferior to those of the England and Wales 
 
 series. 
 
 In 1795 Mr. Grose undertook the same sort of work for Ireland, 
 on this occasion in two quarto volumes — also prefaced by a description 
 of Irish architecture. It is remarkable that, in almost all illustrations 
 of sculptured ornament which were produced at this time, there is one 
 unvaried and conventional treatment noticeable. If a knot of foliage 
 or a carved head is to be represented on a cornice or in a capital, it is 
 drawn in outline or with the faintest indication of half-tone, while the 
 ground on which it is supposed to be relieved is shaded flat, without 
 any attempt to show cast shadows. The result of this is an extra- 
 ordinary meanness of effect, much at variance with the bold and artistic 
 manner in which general views were often treated by the same 
 draughtsman. 
 
 This fault was to some extent avoided by Mr. Carter, an architect, 
 who in 1786 published his c Specimens of ancient Sculpture and 
 Painting,' which he dedicated to Horace Walpole. It contained 
 numerous illustrations and letter-press descriptive of monuments, 
 brasses, encaustic tiles, wall-painting, and mural sculpture, &c, and 
 was a most valuable contribution to the art literature of his time. In 
 1795 the same gentleman brought out his c Ancient Architecture of 
 England.' It was divided into two parts, the first being entitled 
 * The Orders * of Architecture during the British, Roman, Saxon, and 
 Norman eras.' The second part was called ' The Orders of Archi- 
 tecture during the reigns of Henry III., Edward III., Richard II., 
 Henry VII., and Henry VIII.' The engravings in this book, though 
 somewhat coarse, are boldly and skilfully executed, the author's pro- 
 fessional skill, no doubt, enabling him to render the illustrations of a 
 more useful and practical kind than many which had preceded them ; 
 
 * It was long before the use of this foolish word was abandoned. It had been 
 unsatisfactory in its application to Greek and Roman art, but it became ridiculous in 
 connection with Medixval architecture. 
 
Hearne's 'Antiquities of Great Britain.' 69 
 
 details were now given, with plans and sections of mouldings, and the 
 examples were selected with taste and judgment. In the delineation 
 of carved foliage, the spirit of ancient art was still misinterpreted, and 
 many of the earlv English capitals in Carter's book remind one more 
 of the Renaissance school than of the period to which they belong. 
 But, taken as a whole, the work was a decided advance on what had 
 hitherto appeared. It was dedicated to the Duke of York, who had 
 been a patron of Carter, and had employed him to carry out some 
 designs at Oatlands in accordance with the style which, it appears, His 
 Royal Highness, as well as our author, affected. 
 
 Hearne's f Antiquities of Great Britain,' illustrated by views of 
 monasteries, castles, and churches, many of which were then existing in 
 a ruined state, was printed by James Phillips, in George Yard, Lom- 
 bard Street, and published jointly by T. Hearne and W. Byrne, the 
 former of whom drew and the latter engraved the illustrations, in 1786. 
 The architectural views, like many others of the same class and date, 
 were executed with reference rather to general and picturesque effect, 
 than to any accuracy of detail. Short descriptions, written in French 
 and English, accompany each plate in the volume, which is of an 
 oblong quarto size. 
 
 In the same year (1786) Gough published his f Sepulchral Monu- 
 ments of Great Britain,' a large and important work of five folio 
 volumes, which gave not only excellent illustrations of tombs, mural 
 monuments, brasses, costumes, armour, &c, of the Middle Ages, but 
 descriptive text of great value to the antiquary. 
 
 Although the merits of Pointed architecture were now becoming 
 gradually acknowledged, its decorative features had still been little 
 studied. The publication, therefore, of a work devoted almost ex- 
 clusively to the illustration of Mediaeval sculpture was an event of 
 some importance. In 1795 Mr. Joseph Halfpenny brought out a 
 book of this description entitled c Gothic Ornaments in the Cathedral 
 Church of York.' The illustrations were drawn and etched by 
 
yo Bentham and Willis. 
 
 himself. They are exceedingly careful and delicate in execution, but 
 wanting in spirit, and, in fact, are far too smooth and neat to be 
 characteristic of ancient art. The carved work is coldly drawn, and 
 wherever two sides of a capital are identical in motive, the foliage is 
 reproduced line by line at each corner without the slightest deviation 
 of curve. The result is of course an absence of vitality for which no 
 refinement can atone. Again, the leaves themselves are frequently 
 bounded by a hard outline or mass of shadow gradated evenly from 
 their edges to the ground behind. This gave them a sharp metallic 
 appearance which is absolutely false in effect. But the most curious 
 and inexcusable fault of all was the manner in which the sculpture of 
 human features was delineated. Almost all the grotesque heads in 
 Halfpenny's engravings are leering at each other with fupilled eyes. 
 Such representations fail to convey the notion of sculpture altogether, 
 and become vulgar caricatures. This foolish conceit has, happily, long 
 been abandoned. 
 
 [\\ 1798 James Bentham and Brown Willis published a 'History of 
 Gothic and Saxon Architecture in England, exemplified by descriptions 
 of the Cathedrals, &c.' It appeared in a thin folio volume, containing 
 large engravings of perspective exteriors, not devoid of grace, but 
 wanting in appreciation of detail. In this treatise Bentham defends 
 Mediaeval architecture from the stigma of c barbarism ' with which 
 modern ignorance had associated it. He was, however, but a cautious 
 champion of the style, and evidently laboured under the impression, 
 which has been entertained even in our own day, that King's College 
 Chapel represented the culminating glory of the Middle Ages. 
 
 Indeed, it seems to be only within the last decade of years that we 
 have learned to reverse that theory, and to admire the period of 
 Mediaeval art which was distinguished, not for the cunning intricacy of 
 its ornament, but for graceful simplicity of design and for sound prin- 
 ciples of construction. 
 
 It would be ungrateful, however, to ignore the services rendered to 
 
The Gothic Revival. 71 
 
 the cause of the Gothic Revival by many an antiquary and many an 
 author of the last century, because their opinions and their books fail 
 to suggest or illustrate those principles of taste which have since been 
 enlightened by later research and more practised skill. 
 
 It was something, at least, to draw attention to the noble works of 
 our ancestors, which had long been neglected and despised : to record 
 with the pencil or the pen some testimony, however inadequate, of their 
 goodly forms and worthy purpose : to invest with artistic and historical 
 interest the perishing monuments of an age when art was pure and 
 genuine. 
 
 And if, at the present day, we flatter ourselves that the buildings 
 which we raise have at length realised the spirit of old English architec- 
 ture, and reproduced its most essential merits, let us remember that 
 these works have been aided by the past, and will be judged by a future 
 generation, and as the former strove to teach, the latter will not fail to 
 criticise. 
 
72 Difficulties of Classification. 
 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 N reviewing the various phases through which the fine arts 
 have passed from their earliest development down to the 
 present time, it has long been the custom to indicate such 
 phases chronologically by the names of successive centuries. This has 
 been especially the case with English architecture of the Middle Ages, 
 because it would be hardly possible by any different system to distin- 
 guish schools which followed, or rather grew out of, each other so 
 gradually and imperceptibly, and in which the change from style to 
 style must be attributed to the inevitable progression of national taste 
 rather than to that influence of individual skill or genius which marks 
 the history of pictorial art. 
 
 It is, however, but an approximately correct method of classification, 
 and if imperfect as an index to the varieties of ancient architecture, will 
 be found doubly so in dealing with the works of modern days. The 
 present age, from numerous causes upon which it is not now necessary 
 to dilate, presents a greater diversity of opinion on matters assthetical 
 than probably ever before existed in one country at the same time. 
 Yet in this nineteenth century, 01 rather that portion of it included 
 within the last thirty years, the glimmering sparks of enthusiasm for 
 Mediaeval art first quickened into a flame, which though it is still 
 exposed to the fitful gusts of private bias and public caprice, promises 
 one day to burn long and steadily. 
 
 It would, of course, be impossible to give anything like a detailed 
 description of even the prominent examples of the Revival during that 
 period. As they increase in number they necessarily diminish in, at 
 least, historical interest, and it will therefore be desirable that the more 
 
The I Forks of Nash. 73 
 
 modern section of this history should be devoted to the characteristics 
 of each architect, as typified in his most important works, rather than to 
 the endless task of describing every building which in this generation, 
 by pinnacle or pointed arch, puts in an appearance as Gothic. 
 
 The instances, however, of that style which belong to what we may 
 be allowed to call the pr<e-Puginesque era are entitled to our respect as 
 resulting from a spirit that stemmed the current of popular prejudice 
 before the genius and ingenuity of later minds had been brought to 
 bear on the subject, or the maturer study of ancient models had taught 
 experience in design. 
 
 Among the architects who at the dawn of the present century con- 
 tributed by their works to the Revival were Wyatt and Nash. The 
 former has been already mentioned in connection with Fonthill Abbey, 
 which he did not live to see completed. He was employed on many 
 ether large works in Wiltshire, including the restoration of Salisbury 
 Cathedral. 
 
 Nash's alterations and additions to Windsor Castle — especially the 
 Waterloo Gallery, though far from embodying the spirit of the ancient 
 structure — were nevertheless good of their kind. His country houses, 
 especially in Ireland, were chiefly of the pseudo-baronial sort, which, 
 for want of better definition, received the general name of c castellated.' 
 Among them the mansions of Lord Lorton and Lord Gort may be 
 mentioned. Ravensworth Castle, at Gateshead, is another example of 
 his skill. Luscombe, near Dawlish in Devonshire, was begun for Mr. 
 Charles Hoare, from designs by Nash, in 1800, and finished in 1804. 
 The south or garden front * consists of a large octagonal tower in the 
 centre, united by three of its sides to the main building, which extends 
 east and west of it. At the east end is a cloister of Tudor arches with 
 an embattled parapet. The piers of each bay are strengthened by 
 
 * In this and other cases it must be remembered that the description given is of the 
 original design. Many houses of this date have, of course, since undergone alteration, 
 and some have been pulled down. 
 
•74 The Works of IVyatt. 
 
 buttresses which terminate in pinnacles above. On the west side is a 
 porch of the same character, with a mullioned window deeply recessed. 
 The first floor of the tower is lighted by two large pointed windows 
 filled with stained glass. The dining-room is at the east end. The 
 west is occupied by offices, and on the north is a square tower, the 
 lower part of which forms an opened porch, with a pointed arch on 
 three sides. The whole is a bold and vigorous composition. 
 
 Belvoir Castle, in Leicestershire, is an old building which was entirely 
 remodelled in the early part of this century by the Duke of Rutland, 
 under the direction of James Wyatt, at an expense of, at least, 200,000/. 
 Its principal feature is a circular tower, four storeys in height, crowned 
 by a machicolated parapet. The windows of this tower are flat-pointed, 
 or nearly round-headed. They are divided into two lights, each head 
 being filled with tracery. The rest of the building presents a straggling 
 but not unpicturesque assemblage of features, including two octagonal 
 turrets with pinnacles at each angle, and three square towers of various 
 dimensions, also machicolated. Some of the windows here and there 
 are pointed, but as a rule they have square heads with Tudor labels — 
 a species of decoration which once passed for good Gothic. The lower 
 part of the principal tower forms a colonnade from which stone brackets 
 project to carry a verandah above. The buttresses used here, and 
 throughout Wyatt's work, are generally of a thin and wiry description. 
 They are, for the most part, divided, whatever their height may be, 
 into two pretty equal portions by one set-off. On October 16, 1816, 
 while the works were in progress, a most calamitous fire broke out, 
 which destroyed a considerable portion of this building. Among the 
 rest, a valuable picture gallery was consumed, and many paintings of 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, including the celebrated c Nativity,' perished in 
 the flames. 
 
 During the works recently carried out at Combe Abbey, the Earl of 
 Craven's seat, an old room was taken down which had long been sup- 
 posed to belong to the Elizabethan age. Before its demolition, how- 
 ever, certain facts were brought to light with regard to constructive 
 
Country Mansions. 75 
 
 detail which leave little doubt that it was erected at a much later 
 period. The ceiling had been decorated with papier-mache orna- 
 ment, and the panel lining of the wall proved, on examination, to 
 be composed of deal strips glued in their places, instead of being 
 worked in solid wood. A transomed window by which the room 
 had been lighted was executed in cast iron. The fireplace alone was 
 genuine old work. It had evidently been refixed when the room was 
 c remodelled,' which is supposed to have happened in 1803. 
 
 The foundation-stone of Lord Bridgewater's seat, Ashridge, in 
 Buckinghamshire, was laid in 1808. It was a large and important 
 mansion of a Mediaeval character, built on the site of an old edifice, of 
 which portions were allowed to remain and become incorporated in the 
 new work which was carried out by Wyatt. The style is Tudor. Its 
 principal facade is decorated with turrets, and with a porch which 
 reminds us of the c Lords' entrance ' in the present Houses of Parlia- 
 ment. The design exhibits no obtrusive faults, but is remarkable for 
 great coldness of treatment. 
 
 Elvaston Hall, near Derby, was an old mansion belonging to Lord 
 Harrington, but the principal portion was rebuilt early in this century 
 by Mr. Walker, an architect who, however, only carried out Wyatt's 
 plans. It contains the usual complement of turrets and battlements, 
 but has also a very fair oriel window. Nash built Garnstone House 
 in Herefordshire, and a house for Colonel Scudamore, at Kentchurch 
 Park, both of which may be considered examples of the Revival. 
 Childwall Hall, Lancashire, was another of his efforts in the same direc- 
 tion. It is a two-storeyed building, flanked by square and octagonal 
 towers, and heavily machicolated. His designs for Magdalen College, 
 Oxford, were much admired at the time — they were, however, never 
 executed. In his own residence, East Cowes Castle, he had an 
 opportunity of indulging a taste which was more distinguished for 
 its appreciation of Gothic than that which characterised most of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 Donnington Hall, in Leicestershire, the property of Lord Hastings, 
 
76 Hawarden Castle: Dittou Park, &c. 
 
 was erected between 1790 and 1800, by Mr. W. Wilkins, architect. 
 In composition it presents a rectangular mass, with a porch, tower, and 
 turrets. Coleorton Hall, in the same county, once the country seat of 
 the generous art patron, Sir George Beaumont, was one of the few 
 attempts in the way of Pointed architecture which were made by G. 
 Dance.* Stanley Hall, in Shropshire, was built early in the present 
 century by Mr. Smalman, an architect of Quatford, near Bridgnorth, 
 and is not a bad specimen of provincial work. Armitage Park, about 
 six miles from Lichfield, in Staffordshire, and Rindlesham Hall, near 
 Woodbridge, Suffolk, are interesting as early specimens of nineteenth- 
 century Gothic. 
 
 Hawarden Castle was built by Sir John Glynne in 1752. There had 
 formerly existed on the same spot an old mansion of wood and plaster 
 belonging to the Ravenscroft family, called Broadlane House. The 
 new residence was an unpretending but substantially constructed house, 
 which retained its original name until 1809, when Sir Stephen Glynne, 
 assisted by the professional advice of Mr. Thomas Cundy, caused the 
 brick exterior to be cased with stone in the c castellated ' style. 
 
 Lord Montagu's seat at Ditton Park, Somersetshire, was designed by 
 Mr. Atkinson, architect, about 181 1. It is in part a three-storeyed 
 building, while the rest consists of only two floors. In general plan 
 it is nearly quadrangular. The central feature is a square tower, to 
 which a turret is added at one corner. The windows are square-headed 
 and protected by an ordinary Tudor drip-stone. About the same time 
 Lord De la Warr's old country mansion, Bourn House in Cambridge- 
 shire, was restored by Mr. John Adey Repton, who introduced new 
 features, such as bay-windows, chimney-shafts, &c. Cobham Hall, 
 Kent, then the residence of Lord Darnley, was another old building 
 on which the elder Repton and his two sons, besides Wyatt, were 
 employed at various times for additions and restoration. 
 
 * A new storey was added to this building (Coleorton Hall) in 1862, from the designs 
 of Mr. F. P. Cockercll. 
 
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Eaton Hall. 77 
 
 One of the most important attempts at Pointed architecture of this 
 date is Eaton Hall, Cheshire, the seat of the Marquis of Westminster. 
 In design it is a mixture of Early and Late Gothic. It was built on the 
 site of an old mansion, erected by Sir Thomas Grosvenor in the reign 
 of King William. The later structure was designed by Mr. Porden, 
 an architect whose name has been long forgotten, but who, no doubt, had 
 considerable practice in his day. It was probably finished quite early 
 in this century, for a full account of it is given in the * Monthly 
 Magazine' for September 18 14. 
 
 The south-east view presents a large quadrangular block of buildings 
 irregularly divided into bays by buttresses and turrets. It is three 
 storeys in height, with a battlemented parapet running round the main 
 walls. The windows were filled with tracery, but the latter was 
 executed in cast iron, moulded on both sides, and grooved to receive 
 the glass. The walls, balustrades, battlements, and pinnacles, are of 
 a light-coloured stone. The principal entrance to the house is in the 
 middle of the west front, under a vaulted portico, which admits a 
 carriage to the steps leading to the hall, a spacious and lofty apartment 
 occupying the height of two storeys, and roofed by a vaulted ceiling. 
 The pavement is of coloured marble arranged in geometrical patterns. 
 f At the end of the hall a screen of five arches supports a gallery that 
 connects the bed-chambers on the north side of the house with those 
 on the south. Under this gallery two open arches to the right and 
 left conduct to the grand staircase, and opposite to the door of the hall 
 is the entrance to the saloon.' The grand staircase itself is enriched 
 with canopied niches, and with groining under the landings and sky- 
 light. The second staircase was constructed of cast iron, after a design 
 which no doubt was then considered very appropriate. The saloon 
 forms a square on plan about thirty feet each way. Fan tracery, 
 executed in plaster (but now removed), sprang from attached columns 
 at the angles and sides of the room to receive the vault, which in plan 
 was nearly octagonal. On the right and left are little vestibules 
 
78 Eaton Hall: Seldon House. 
 
 which must be passed to reach the drawing-room and dining-room. 
 The windows of these rooms are traceried and filled with painted glass. 
 The dining-room at the north extremity of the east front is about fifty- 
 feet long. The ceiling was panelled, and a central pendant was con- 
 structed to carry a chandelier. The drawing-room occupies the south 
 extremity of the east front, and is of the same form and general dimen- 
 sions as the dining-room, with the addition of a large window (now 
 blocked up) which had a southern aspect.* The library is in the centre 
 of the south front ; its ceiling and large bow window being decorated in 
 character with the other features above mentioned. It is fitted up with 
 oak. In the principal facades, the windows are pointed, and many 
 have ogival hood-mouldings. The middle window of the saloon opens 
 on a vaulted cloister, occupying the space between the dining-room and 
 drawing-room, and from the cloister a flight of steps leads to a spacious 
 terrace. The size of this building alone would make it imposing, but 
 the distribution of parts, as in many efforts of that day, is more suited 
 to the outline of an Italian composition than that of a Gothic design, 
 while the character of the details is of a pseudo-ecclesiastical kind. 
 Indeed, here as in many other contemporary examples of the Revival, 
 it is evident that the architect sought his inspiration in the churches 
 rather than in the domestic architecture of the Middle Ages. The 
 noble mansions of old England had still to be studied. 
 
 Seldon House, near Croydon, had for its garden front a sort of 
 arcade, divided into five bays, each spanned by a pointed arch with 
 buttresses between. This arcade was flanked on either side by turrets 
 which rose above the parapet of the building. It was completed early 
 in this century. 
 
 At the same period Lord Derby's residence at Knowsley Park was 
 
 * Since this description was written, Mr. A. Watcrhouse has been employed bv the 
 present Marquis of Westminster to remodel the building, which will thus undergo con- 
 siderable alteration and improvement. The internal decorations will be of an exceedingly- 
 rich and beautiful description. 
 
Sir Robert Smirke. 79 
 
 rebuilt, ' in the style of a baronial mansion/ under the superintendence 
 of Mr. Foster of Liverpool, while Mrs. Bulwer Lytton adopted the 
 now rapidly developed taste in erecting Knebworth House, in Hert- 
 fordshire, about fifty years ago. 
 
 Warleigh House, a two-storeyed building, was raised in 1814 for 
 Mr. Henry Skrine by Mr. Webb, a Staffordshire architect. 
 
 After Wyatt and Nash perhaps Smirke may be next reckoned in 
 importance. He built Eastnor Castle, in Herefordshire, for Lord 
 Somers. It is a massive and gloomy-looking building, flanked by 
 watch-towers, and enclosing a keep. To preserve the character at 
 which it aimed, the windows were made exceedingly small and narrow. 
 This must have resulted in much inconvenience within. Indeed all 
 the admirers of Pointed architecture fell at this time into the grievous 
 error of supposing that its merits lay in the quaint unccuthness of early 
 necessity rather than in those immutable but ever applicable principles 
 which should really hold as good now as they did five hundred years 
 ago, and accommodate themselves to every new requirement and modern 
 invention. The building in question might have made a tolerable fort 
 before the invention of gunpowder, but as a residence it was a 
 picturesque mistake. 
 
 Wilton Castle, in Yorkshire, was built by Smirke, on the site and 
 out of the ruins of an ancient edifice. Offley Place, in Hertfordshire, a 
 Tudor mansion, also designed by him, is a large building three storeys 
 high, having in the centre of its block a tower 20 feet square which 
 contains the staircase, and is lighted by painted windows. The library 
 is nearly 40 feet long. 
 
 In Scotland, Gillespie was the great revivalist of his day. Lord 
 Macdonald's seat at Armidale, in Inverness, was built from his designs. 
 He enlarged Wishaw, in Lanarkshire, for Lord Belhaven, and also 
 erected Culdees Castle, once the residence of General Drummond. The 
 latter is in the oft-quoted c castellated ' style and includes in its compo- 
 sition a square tower, which, like the one at Offley Place, is used for a 
 
8o J°h n Brit ton. 
 
 hall and staircase. It has a large pointed window on one side enriched 
 
 with tracery. 
 
 Crichton was another Scotch architect of some note. He prepared 
 plans for Abercairny Abbey, in Perthshire, which his successors, Messrs. 
 Dickson, of Edinburgh, afterwards carried out. 
 
 In Ireland, the reintroduction of Pointed architecture was mainly due 
 to the skill and ingenuity of the Messrs. Morrison (Richard and 
 William), two architects who lived at Walcot, near Bray, and were 
 extensively employed in works of a Mediaeval character. They 
 restored Kilcuddy Hall, and executed facades of Shelton Abbey for 
 Lord Wicklow. They also built Ballyleigh Castle, Kerry, the seat 
 of Colonel James Crosbie, M.P. The latter was a very creditable 
 performance, and the beauty of the scenery by which it is surrounded 
 contributed no little to its effect. 
 
 Having briefly examined some of the chief examples of Pointed 
 architecture which were designed in the early part of this century, under 
 the patronage or direction of those from whom the Revival received 
 especial encouragement, let us now turn to another source of impulse 
 which helped the same cause, viz., the archaeological literature of the 
 day. In the consideration of this subject, one name stands pre- 
 eminently forward, the name of an extraordinarily prolific writer, who, if 
 he did not possess a high order of genius, was distinguished for his 
 indomitable industry, and for the zeal which enabled him, year after 
 year, to contribute to the press the results of his research during a 
 period which extended far beyond the limits of ordinary authorship — a 
 name which, in the history of art, connects at least four generations, for 
 it belonged to one who was a young man when Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 still wielded his brush, but who lived to see Eastlake president of the 
 Royal Academy. 
 
 John Britton was born at Kingtown, near Sodbury, in 177 1, and 
 died in London exactly fourteen years ago. In addition to a list of 
 nearly seventy works, of more or less importance, whose titles may be 
 
B n't toil's Early Life. 8 
 
 read in the British Museum catalogue, he has left behind him an auto- 
 biography, which he did not live to complete, but which was published 
 after his death. What length that memoir would have assumed, in a 
 finished state, may be inferred from a perusal of its present contents. 
 It is impossible to read the first few pages without coming to a conclu- 
 sion that the author had kept a diary since he had learned to write, and 
 intended to publish the whole of it up to the time of his death. Indeed, 
 though this intention, if it ever existed, was never carried out, a more 
 diffuse and erratic narrative never issued from the press. Amidst his 
 numerous good qualities, it cannot be denied that the author had one 
 
 failino- vanity, and to this fact we may attribute the unnecessary care 
 
 with which he chronicles the details of his early life. He begins with 
 a description of his native village, which alone occupies some pages — 
 gives us the character of his father, the caprices of his uncle — relates 
 how he fell out of a bedroom window, and was raked out of the 
 squire's fishpond — tells us what he drew on his slate at school, and 
 what became of all his schoolfellows — gravely reports that he once made 
 a large snowball, which rolled down hill and made a breach in some 
 garden wall. The most trivial and unimportant incidents, in short, 
 which help to vary the monotony of schoolboy life, he records with 
 something like schoolboy pride ; but these may be at once passed over. 
 On October 25, 1785, he set out with his uncle for London, where 
 young Britton was at length apprenticed to Mr. Mendham, a wine 
 merchant, by whom he was initiated into the mysteries of the trade. 
 His time was chiefly employed in bottling and corking, an occupation 
 which he soon began to feel was beneath his abilities, and which led him 
 to regard even the occasional visits of excisemen as a pleasant relief. 
 The house of business where he laboured in this humble capacity was 
 known as the Jerusalem Chambers, Clerkenwell. He appears to have 
 been in the habit of rising early, and taking walks into the suburbs 
 before the hours of work. In one of these excursions, he fell in with a 
 man named Essex, who painted figures on watch faces, and having 
 
 G 
 
82 Early Literary Efforts. 
 
 struck up an acquaintance with him, was introduced to Brayley, who 
 at that time was also an enamel painter, but who afterwards became asso- 
 ciated with Britton in the publication of several topographical works. 
 They composed and published between them a song called f The 
 
 Guinea-pig ' intended as a satire on the powder tax. It was Britton's 
 
 first published work, and years afterwards he flattered himself that a time 
 might come when it would be regarded with curiosity. 
 
 In the course of time a love adventure with Mrs. Mendham's lady's 
 maid caused him to run away from his employer, and follow the object 
 of his affections into Devonshire, where, however, he became disen- 
 chanted, and after vainly endeavouring to get employment at Bath, he 
 returned to town on foot. Here fortune so far smiled on him as to 
 permit his filling the post of cellarman at the London Tavern, and he 
 afterwards obtained a similar situation with a hop-merchant's widow, 
 who allowed him 40/. a year and his breakfast. About this time his 
 ambition led him to frequent the third-rate debating societies and 
 spouting clubs with which the metropolis then abounded, and this helped 
 him to form new acquaintances, by whose assistance he at length 
 became engaged as a lawyer's clerk to Mr. Simpson, an attorney, at a 
 salary of fifteen shillings a week. On the death of his master, he 
 entered the service of Messrs. Parker and Wix, solicitors, whose prac- 
 tice was not so extensive as to prevent Britton from finding time to 
 read — an opportunity of which he was only too ready to avail himself. 
 
 In 1799 he was hired by a Mr. Chapman to write, sing, and recite 
 for him at a theatre in Panton Street, Haymarket, where he received 
 three guineas a week. This led to an acquaintance with Lonsdale, 
 manager of Sadler's Wells, at whose house he met Dibdin, Grimaldi, 
 and the famous Egyptian traveller and antiquary, Belzoni, who, strange 
 to say, was at that time performing as an acrobat in London theatres.* 
 
 '•' Belzoni was six feet six inches high and proportionably muscular. He was a native 
 of Italy, and had received an education for the priesthood Having saved some money, he 
 sailed for Egypt, where he so pleased the Pasha by some mechanical invention that he 
 obtained permission to open the pyramid of Gizeh and several tombs at Thebes. We are 
 indebted to his 7.cal for many valuable relics of antiquity now in the British Museum. 
 
' The Beauties of Wiltshire! 83 
 
 Britton's first literary efforts were of the humblest description. He 
 was tempted by the great success of one of Sheridan's plays (translated 
 and altered from the German of Kotzebue) to write a romance, entitled 
 c The enterprising Adventures of Pizarro.' For this performance he 
 received ten pounds. The most valuable of his early friends and 
 patrons was Wheble, who induced him to begin those topographical 
 researches of which the world first saw a result in his c Beauties of 
 Wiltshire.' 
 
 His first expedition is thus described : — 
 
 With maps, a pocket-compass, a small camera obscura (for the more portable 
 and simple camera luc'ida was not then known), two or three portable volumes, 
 an umbrella, and a scanty packet of body linen, &c, I commenced a walk from 
 London, on June 20, and returned again to it on September 30. During that 
 excursion, I visited Oxford, Woodstock, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwick, 
 Kenilworth, Birmingham, Hagley, 'the Leasowes,' and Church Stretton. 
 Thence I made diverging excursions to Shrewsbury, Welsh Pool, and several 
 other places within twenty miles of my residence, and returned through 
 Ludlow, Leominster, Hereford, Ross, down the Wye to Chepstow, to Bristol, 
 and Bath ; thence to several parts of Wiltshire, and back to London. This 
 long and toilsome, but eminently interesting and attractive journey, cost me only 
 11/. 165. 0//. I was compelled to practise economy, for my finances were low, 
 and I knew not how or where to recruit them. My sister kindly presented me 
 with 5/., and her good husband lent me ten more, which seemed to me a fortune. 
 
 f The Beauties of Wiltshire' met with such commercial success, that 
 Britton, in conjunction with his friend and fellow-worker Brayley, was 
 employed on the more extensive work which followed or rather deve- 
 loped from it. ' The Beauties of England and Wales ' formed a series 
 of eighteen volumes, which were published between 1800 and 18 16, and 
 contained c original delineations, topographical, historical, and descrip- 
 tive of each county.' They included about 700 engravings of mansions, 
 views, &c. Some of the woodcuts were by Bewick, and worthy of that 
 master; but, as a rule, the illustrations were poor, and of a kind which 
 
 G 2 
 
84 'The Antiquities of Great Britain.' 
 
 will not bear comparison with those given In Britton's later works. 
 Britton himself when he began his literary career knew little of archi- 
 tecture, and thus in c The Beauties of Wiltshire,' while the tombs and 
 painted glass in the churches which he visited are fully described, the 
 buildings themselves inspire him only with that vague admiration which 
 results from uneducated taste. 
 
 But Britton was not a man to be easily discouraged. He soon began 
 to qualify himself for the pursuit which he had chosen. In 1803 he 
 had attained sufficient skill with the pencil to produce his ' Drawings of 
 Stonehenge,' and in 1805 he began a more important work, 'The 
 Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain,' which appeared in forty 
 parts, and made four quarto volumes, the last bearing date 18 14, and 
 a fifth being added in 1818. They were illustrated with nearly three 
 hundred plates, after drawings by various artists, among whom were 
 Turner, Cattermole, and Westall, but by far the best are those which 
 were engraved by Le Keux from drawings by Mackenzie, and which 
 will be easily recognised by the care and delicacy of their execution.* 
 
 The work included many examples of ancient domestic, as well as 
 ecclesiastical English architecture. Abbeys, priories, castles, with an 
 occasional view of a cathedral, or the details of some remarkable build- 
 ing — such as Crosby Hall — were delineated for the first time with 
 something like accuracy, as well as artistic power, and in many cases 
 the ichnography of buildings — so essential to the student — was added. 
 
 In 1813 Britton published a description of St. Mary Redcliffe 
 Church, at Bristol, to which he appended an essay on the life and 
 writings of Chatterton, and in 18 14 he began his most important work, 
 f The Cathedral Antiquities of Great Britain.' The letterpress which 
 accompanies this series bears evidence of great research on the part 
 of its author, who spared neither time nor pains to collect material. 
 Besides a description of the buildings themselves, which he was by this 
 
 * Portions of the text in this, and some other publications by Britton, were from the 
 pen of Mr. E. J. Willson, F.S.A., of Lincoln. 
 
Brit fan's ' Cathedral Antiquities' 85 
 
 time fully competent to give, he adds a vast quantity of information 
 regarding their history and foundations, with anecdotes and brief 
 memoirs of the principal dignitaries of the Church who were from time 
 to time associated with them. As may be supposed, the c Monasti- 
 con Anglicanum ' is constantly quoted by him, but, in addition to this 
 work, he consulted Sumner, Batteley, Godwin's Catalogue of English 
 Bishops, and a host of other authorities. 
 
 The original edition appeared in fourteen parts, the illustrations of 
 the earlier numbers being executed by Britton's old fellow-workers 
 Mackenzie and Le Keux, who had now attained a perfection in their 
 peculiar branch of art which had not hitherto been reached, and has 
 since been scarcely surpassed. It is indeed to be regretted that all the 
 plates were not entrusted to their hands. It will be no detraction from 
 the merit of Cattermole to say that his acknowledged excellence as a 
 water-colour artist unfitted him for the less dignified labour, but nicer 
 accuracy, of an architectural draughtsman. He could throw an effect 
 upon the view of a ruin with perhaps greater skill than Mackenzie, but 
 for refinement, perspicuity, and attention to detail, especially in outline 
 views, Mackenzie distanced every one. 
 
 Perhaps the least satisfactory of the cathedral series, in regard to 
 illustration, is the one on Bristol, in which a great falling off is notice- 
 able in the execution of the plates. The careful hand of Le Keux 
 redeemed some from the charge of slovenliness, but in many those 
 qualities are wanting which should render such works of value to the 
 architectural student.* 
 
 * The cathedral series appeared in the following order : — 
 
 Salisbury- 
 
 1814 
 
 Bath Abbey 
 
 . 1825 
 
 Norwich 
 
 1816 
 
 Exeter 
 
 . 1826 
 
 Winchester . 
 
 1817 
 
 Peterborough 
 
 . 1828 
 
 York 
 
 1819 
 
 Gloucester . 
 
 . 1829 
 
 Lichfield 
 
 1820 
 
 Bristol 
 
 . 1830 
 
 Canterbury . 
 
 1821 
 
 Hereford . 
 
 . 1831 
 
 Oxford 
 
 . 1821 
 
 Worcester . 
 
 • ^35 
 
 Wells 
 
 . 1824 
 
 
 
86 The 'Antiquities of Normandy! 
 
 In 1827, Pugin and Le Keux brought out their 'Specimens of the 
 Architectural Antiquities of Normandy/ for which Britton, who acted 
 as their publisher, supplied the descriptive text. This work is in 
 one quarto volume, and contains illustrations of the Caen churches, of 
 Bayeux Cathedral, the Hotel de Bourgtheroulde, and Abbey of St. 
 Amand, Rouen, with views of various churches at Caudebeck, Caen, 
 Vancelles, and Dieppe. The original drawings were either executed 
 by the elder Pugin himself, or prepared under his immediate superin- 
 tendence. They were exceedingly careful, and have been admirably 
 engraved by Le Keux. The letterpress is very useful in its way, and, 
 as Britton takes care to tell us, was printed and published as a 
 separate work. 
 
 Meanwhile our author did not confine his labours to the produc- 
 tion of these volumes. His c Fine Arts of the English School, with 
 Biographical and Critical Descriptions, illustrated by engravings after 
 Reynolds, Flaxman, Westall, Romney, Nollekens, Northcote, West, 
 etc.,' appeared in 1812. In 1830 he brought out his 'Picturesque 
 Views of English Cities,' a quarto volume copiously illustrated. c A Dic- 
 tionary of the Architecture and Archaeology of the. Middle Ages' was 
 compiled by him, and published in 1838, with illustrations by Le Keux. 
 It will be unnecessary to mention a host of minor works, of which 
 he was either joint author, editor, or publisher. For the space of half 
 a century his pen was continually active, and it may be safely said that 
 he did more to promote the due appreciation of Mediaeval Art than 
 any contemporary writer. 
 
 His long association with architecture, and with men who adopted 
 its profession, prompted him more than once in his life to try his hand 
 at design. His sketch for a monument to Chatterton, of which an 
 illustration is given in his life, might provoke the ridicule of our 
 modern architects ; but the plans which he submitted in competition 
 for the Nelson cenotaph, though by no means realising our present 
 notions of Gothic, are far from contemptible; and, if we remember the 
 
Brit ton's Autobiography. 87 
 
 time when they were prepared (1839), probably represented the average 
 ability of his day. It is, however, but fair to state that in the latter 
 work he availed himself of the services of Mr. W. Hoskintr, to whose 
 care, if the design had been successful, its execution would have been 
 committed. Neither in this case, however, nor in that of the Chatterton 
 memorial, were Britton's suggestions adopted. 
 
 The materials of his autobiography are diffuse and scattered. He 
 seems to have followed no regular plan in its compilation. It is 
 wanting in chronological sequence. If he is describing a town as he 
 saw it in 18 14, he is reminded of some circumstance which occurred 
 there when he revisited it in 1840, and forthwith the two epochs are 
 jumbled together. In his youth he made many acquaintances, of 
 whom he writes at full length. He saw many other people whose life 
 and characters he finds it necessary to touch upon. Those he only- 
 heard of are still more numerous ; yet, about these, too, he has something 
 to say. Meanwhile, though he is prolix on the subject of his infancy, 
 he gives us little or no information of his life as a man. We know 
 however, that his services in the cause of art became gradually and 
 steadily appreciated. He who began his London career as a humble 
 cellarman, lived to be feted and honoured by those who had themselves 
 grown famous in the world.* 
 
 The rapidity with which Britton wrote, the occasional inaccuracy of 
 his pen, and perhaps, too, the very success which he achieved, have 
 laid him open to the charge which is often brought against men who, 
 without aspiring to the higher departments of literature, accept author- 
 ship as a business and means of livelihood, and cater for public enter- 
 
 * The last proof-sheets of his autobiography were sent to the printer on December 2, 
 1856, with an intimation that Mr. Britton would rest for a day or two before he resumed 
 his work. He was destined never to resume it. On the 4th of the same month, he was 
 taken ill with bronchitis, a disorder to which he was subject, and from which he now felt 
 that he should not recover. He sent for his old friend Le Keux, and gave him some last 
 instructions about certain prints and drawings which he desired should be sold. He died 
 at last, we are told, peacefully and with resignation. 
 
88 Pugin and IVillsou. 
 
 tainment or information as c book-makers.' But granting that Britton 
 belonged to this class of writers, it may safely be urged that he did 
 more service to the cause of the Gothic Revival in such a capacity than 
 he could have rendered in any other. Before a national taste can be 
 made effective it must be instructed, and before it is instructed it must 
 be created. Britton himself was of course no designer. He did not 
 even attempt to teach what good design ought to be. But for many 
 years he supplied the public with illustrations and descriptions of ancient 
 English architecture which had previously been familiar to the anti- 
 quary alone. He helped, and successfully helped, to secure for 
 Mediaeval remains that kind of interest which a sense of the picturesque 
 and a respect for historical associations are most likely to create. 
 
 While Britton was thus enlisting the sympathies of the amateur 
 world, two architects were engaged in preparing a practical and valu- 
 able work for the use of professional students. The examples of 
 Gothic architecture which had hitherto been selected for publication, 
 were chiefly those which either served to illustrate a principle in the 
 history of the style, or possessed some picturesque attractions in the 
 way of general effect. But neither of these were of real service to the 
 practical architect, who required geometrical and carefully measured 
 drawings of ancient roofs, doors, and windows to guide him in his 
 designs, and to help him in reviving a style the details of which had 
 been as yet most imperfectly studied. Pugin and Willson's { Speci- 
 mens of Gothic Architecture ' supplied this want. It was a happy 
 accident which brought these men together — the one eminently quali- 
 fied as a draughtsman for the task, the other equally fitted to under- 
 take its literary labour. 
 
 For the first time the structural glories of Westminster Hall were 
 revealed with mathematical nicety ; the graceful mouldings of York 
 and Lincoln were accurately profiled on a large and intelligible scale; 
 the towers and gateways of Oxford were measured with scrupulous 
 care. Many an oriel window and groined porch, many a canopied 
 
The ' Specimens of Got hie Architecture! 89 
 
 tomb and flying buttress, the proportions of which had been simply 
 guessed at by those who endeavoured to imitate its design, was now 
 transferred to paper, line for line, with every dimension clearly nVured, 
 with every feature separately dissected and explained. 
 
 Instead of the vague and frequently inaccurate sketches of ancient 
 tracery and groining which had previously been published, we find in 
 this work plans and sections of stone vaulting and elevations of windows 
 drawn out with the utmost care, the radius and centre of every seg- 
 mental curve ascertained, and the ' mitering ' of every junction clearly 
 shown. The individual character of c cusping,' once considered, if we 
 may judge from early illustrations, a matter of little moment, is here 
 rendered with singular fidelity. The same may be said of crockets, 
 finials, and decorative panelling. 
 
 The advantage of all this to the professional designer was immense. 
 The time had not yet arrived when architects, engaged in any impor- 
 tant practice, thought it worth while to measure and study for them- 
 selves the relics of Mediaeval architecture ; still less had they reached 
 that sort of skill which would have enabled them to design in the 
 spirit of ancient art without absolutely reproducing its details. In this 
 dilemma they had copied after a rough and ready fashion, and their 
 copies were contemptible. But now, by simply turning over the 
 leaves of a convenient volume, they were enabled for the first time to 
 enrich their designs, and perhaps in some instances to work them out 
 as a whole, from ' Specimens ' which were unimpeachably correct in 
 style. 
 
 The consequence may be easily imagined. An age of ignorance 
 was succeeded by an age of plagiarism. If an architect wanted a spire 
 for his new church, there was that of St. Mary's at Oxford drawn to 
 scale and ready for imitation. If a Gothic monument was to be 
 raised in the same edifice, the altar tombs of Westminster Abbey, 
 engraved in Pugin and Willson's book, supplied a series of examples 
 for selection. The details of Crosby Hall, of Hampton Court, and of 
 
9<d The Age of Plagiarism. 
 
 Eton College were adapted for many a modern country mansion. 
 The oriels of Lincoln Palace were revived in St. John's Wood. 
 
 This was by no means a satisfactory state of things, but it was better 
 than that by which it had been preceded. Faithful copies of old work 
 were at least more tolerable than bungling attempts at original design. 
 And it was simply impossible for modern architects to originate success- 
 ful designs in Gothic, until they had learned to appreciate the value of 
 proportion, and had mastered the grammar of detail in ancient examples. 
 ' The Specimens of Gothic Architecture * helped their studies in an 
 eminent degree, and perhaps not less by the carefully written and well- 
 arranged text than by the illustrations which formed the bulk of the 
 volume. It is to be feared that Mr. Willson's share in the preparation 
 of this work has never been thoroughly appreciated. But it must be 
 evident to all who read his descriptions of the plates, and the intro- 
 ductory essays which preface each volume, that he was thoroughly 
 master of his subject, both in its antiquarian and artistic aspect. Pugin's 
 own reputation was considerable, but it was destined to be far eclipsed 
 by that of his son, whose career and works will be described in due 
 course. 
 
A Retrospect. 91 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 [HE publication of practical and accurately illustrated books 
 in Gothic Architecture may be considered as the main 
 turning-point in the progress of the Revival, and for 
 obvious reasons it is necessary to measure by a very different standard 
 the artistic merits of work executed before and after this great assist- 
 ance had been afforded to professional designers. We must also bear 
 in mind the important influence brought to bear upon the movement 
 by a gradually increasing conviction that our churches and other 
 national relics of the Middle Ages ought not only to be kept in a state 
 of repair, but also to be f restored ' or c improved ' as occasion might 
 warrant. 
 
 To realise what this then meant, and what it afterwards came to 
 mean, it may be advisable to turn back a little in our History. 
 
 If, in the last century, an architect, led by any rare instinct of indi- 
 vidual taste or by any accidental circumstances, devoted his attention to 
 Mediaeval Art with a view to its adaptation for a modern work, he 
 was obliged to rely almost entirely on the advice and assistance of the 
 antiquaries. James Essex, who was born at Cambridge and was brought 
 up with a boyish admiration for King's College Chapel, may perhaps 
 have been an exception to the rule. But it is probable that his friendship 
 with Bentham, who had employed him, as a young man, to prepare 
 illustrations for the famous c History of Ely ' (already mentioned), exer- 
 cised no small influence on his early predilections. 
 
 In those days there was little or no scope for an architect with 
 mediaeval tendencies except in the way of restoration. The choir of 
 Ely Cathedral was altered under his direction in 1770, and during a 
 
92 J- 'amcs Essex. 
 
 period of some twenty years he superintended very extensive repairs in 
 the same building. He was afterwards employed on similar work at 
 Lincoln Minster, where he erected a stone reredos, and at King's College 
 Chapel, for the east end of which he designed a stone screen. The 
 Memorial Cross at Ampthill may be mentioned as another of his works. 
 He also enlarged and repaired the ancient mansion of Madingley, which 
 is well known to Cambridge men of our own time as the residence 
 selected for the Prince of Wales while he remained at the University. 
 He repaired the Tower of Winchester Cathedral, and carried out what 
 were then called c improvements ' at Merton and Balliol Colleges, 
 Oxford. Some of these were important works in their way, and, no 
 doubt, led to many others which were subsequently undertaken under 
 the plea of ' restoration.' Essex may be fairly described as the first 
 professional architect of the last century who made a study of Gothic. 
 But he was far from a thorough appreciation of its merits. 1 * 
 
 At the time that Essex died (1784), James Wyatt had, in the 
 opinion of contemporary critics, just established his reputation as a 
 Gothic architect by the remodelling of Mr. Barrett's house at Lee, 
 which has been already mentioned, and which won the admiration of 
 Horace Walpole. In one of Lord Orford's letters (1782) he says: — 
 
 I have seen, over and over again, Mr. Barrett's plans, and approve them 
 exceedingly. The Gothic parts are classic : you must consider the whole as 
 Gothic, modernised in parts — not as what it is, the reverse. Mr. Wyatt, if 
 more employed in that style, will show as much taste and imagination as he 
 does in Grecian. 
 
 And again, in a letter to Mr. Barrett himself, he admits the defects 
 of Strawberry Hill, and adds, ' My house was but a sketch by 
 beginners : yours is finished by a great master.' 
 
 It is stated that, while professionally engaged on the works at Ely Cathedral, Essex 
 advised the destruction of the Galilee and South-west transept, as being ' neither useful 
 nor ornamental ' and ' not worth preserving.' 
 
y antes JVyatt. 93 
 
 Posterity, judging from Wyatt's later works, as for instance the 
 Military Academy at Woolwich, his alterations of Windsor Castle, and 
 his design for the (old) House of Lords, will scarcely feel inclined to 
 confirm this opinion, or indeed to regard him in the light of a master at 
 all. But the lapse of a century has brought about a great revolution 
 in public taste, and with it a deeper study of Mediaeval Art. 
 
 No English architect has perhaps been so much overrated by his 
 friends, or so unfairly abused by his enemies, as James Wyatt. It is 
 probable that both praise and blame were honestly given, but neither 
 his admirers nor his maligners have done him thorough justice. Raised 
 by private interest and the caprice of public taste to be the fashionable 
 architect of his day — loaded with commissions from every quarter, 
 patronised by Bagot and flattered by Walpole — it is no wonder that this 
 highly favoured and fortunate gentleman not only believed himself to 
 be a great architect, but induced the world to think so too. The 
 country squires who sent for him to embellish their family seats, the 
 Oxford dons who allowed him to pull down and rebuild the ancient 
 colleges of their University, the Deans and Chapters who committed our 
 noble cathedrals to his notions of improvement and restoration, never 
 stopped to inquire what qualifications he had for the several tasks 
 which he only too readily undertook, or what amount of personal 
 supervision he could afford to allot to each. It was sufficient for these 
 illustrious patrons and reverend dilettanti to know that Mr. Wyatt 
 was the c eminent' architect of their day. Artistic reputation has a 
 rapidly accumulative quality. Everybody had employed him, and 
 therefore everybody continued to do so. It would almost have been 
 bad ton to seek for assistance elsewhere. Other practitioners might 
 have his ability, but who had heard of them ? In consulting a person 
 of Mr. Wyatt's reputation, the world of fashion thought it w r as quite 
 safe. 
 
 At first sight this seems reasonable enough. The most distinguished 
 physician of his day will always command, and has a right to command, 
 
94 Wyatfs Professional Practice. 
 
 the most extensive practice. The most noted counsel will get the 
 most briefs. The most popular preacher will attract the largest 
 congregations. But it must be remembered that in the consulting 
 room, in the law court, and the pulpit we can at least secure the 
 personal presence and individual talent of our favourite doctor, lawyer, 
 or divine. 
 
 In the field of architectural practice it is different. The mere name of 
 an architect goes a great way. The rest is a matter of conscience. A 
 man may throw his whole energy into the work on which he happens 
 to be employed, or he may satisfy himself and his employers by 
 occasional visits. He may bring all his inventive power and skill to 
 bear upon the design, or he may simply hand over a slight sketch to be 
 worked out entirely by his assistants, in short, he may make an art 
 of his calling, or he may make it a mere business ; and in proportion 
 as he inclines to one or the other of these two extremes, he will 
 generally achieve present profit or posthumous renown. 
 
 If Wyatt did not make a fortune by his profession, it was certainly 
 from no undue prominence of artistic feeling. His practice was large 
 and lucrative. His designs do not seem to have given him any very 
 great trouble to prepare. It is recorded that many of them were 
 improvised and even executed in his travelling carriage as he rolled 
 along the road to his country clients. He was a great man in his way, 
 and no doubt a pencil sketch by Mr. Wyatt was thought more 
 valuable than a whole set of working drawings prepared by an inferior 
 hand. Can we blame him if, when commissions poured in upon him 
 from every side, he accepted them all, dashed off his notions upon 
 paper, left them to be realised by his subordinates, and took no pains 
 to consider and revise them, lest he should meanwhile be losing 
 another job ? If this sort of practice is to be condemned, let us call it 
 the fault, not of the overworked architect, but of the public who insist 
 on giving him more than he can possibly manage, with credit to him- 
 self, to undertake. The very extent of Wyatt's professional employ- 
 
Wyatfs 'Improvements' 95 
 
 ment must have left him little or no leisure for the study of ancient 
 examples ; and the consequence was that, in instances where he ought to 
 have Jed, or at least to have tempered and corrected the vitiated taste of 
 his day, he simply pandered to it. So long as this was confined to the 
 design of modern mansions, no great harm was done. The present 
 inheritors of many a country house erected under his instructions may 
 indeed deplore the ignorance of their grandsires in adopting a style of 
 architecture which is c Gothic ' only in the original and contemptuous 
 sense of the word. It may have brought discredit on the cause of the 
 Revival, and to some extent retarded its progress. Still, it involved no 
 national loss ; it inflicted no positive injury on the nobler and purer 
 works of a previous age. But when our fair English churches and 
 venerable colleges were committed, one after another, to Wyatt's care, 
 when he was invested with full power not only to restore but to alter 
 and c improve ' these ancient structures, the result was melancholy 
 indeed. Durham, Winchester, Salisbury, and too many other cathedrals 
 bore for a long while, and in some cases still bear, painful evidence of 
 his presumption or ignorance. And even in cases where a later and 
 more educated taste has removed his ill-devised additions, and replaced 
 features which he was permitted to destroy, one cannot help feeling 
 that such repairs, however well-intentioned and skilfully executed can 
 never make the building what it was, or satisfactorily realise the spirit 
 of its original design. 
 
 The Revival of the Pointed style, for ecclesiastical and other build- 
 ings in this country, has led in our own day to a question on which the 
 mediasvalists are divided against themselves. Happily for their cause 
 England is still rich in examples of a school of art which, after three 
 centuries of neglect and contumely, has been hailed as one eminently 
 fitted by grace, convenience, and national characteristics for modern 
 readoption. But though these venerable monuments have survived 
 as it were, to plead their cause, most of them have suffered terribly 
 from the ravages of time, fanaticism, or wilful negligence. Cathedrals 
 
96 Imperfect 'Restorations! 
 
 in which the thurible once swang its incense high up into roof and 
 vault, churches v/hich needed no further warmth than that which 
 they received from the flame of votive candles and the constant pre- 
 sence of worshippers who thronged to Mass, have long grown damp 
 and mouldy from disuse. Those old baronial halls, which once echoed 
 with the clank of armour and noise of revelry, are silent and deserted 
 now ; those ample fireplaces, once piled high with oak and pinewood, 
 are cold and empty; and rain and wind beat in through mullioned 
 windows, which once cast a gay and chequered light upon the rush- 
 strewn floor. 
 
 Of course, one's first impulse would be, if only for association's sake, 
 to rescue these fast-decaying relics of a by-gone age — to replace the 
 rotten timbers with sound wood — to fill in with newly-moulded voussoirs 
 those cruel gaps in arch and groin — to pull out the aged, crumbling 
 imposts and corbels and set fresh stone-carving in their places — to 
 exchange the battered old casements for modern painted glass — to 
 reconstruct, on what we consider the original model, every part which 
 we think fit to pull down. This is what the parson or the country 
 squire — maybe the architect himself — does, and calls it ' restoration.' 
 It is generally a well-intentioned work, but unfortunately, in nine 
 cases out of ten, it defeats its own purpose. These good people fancy 
 they are perpetuating the design of their forefathers. In reality they 
 are falsifying it. Let us take a case in point. The jamb mouldings 
 of an ancient doorway need repair. They are chipped and rubbed 
 away in some places more than in others. The mason who is em- 
 ployed on the job selects one stone which appears to him less damaged 
 than the rest, and moulds his new quoins as nearly as he can in imita- 
 tion of this example. The probability is that he will not be very 
 careful ; so, when the jamb is set up, to prevent any trifling inaccura- 
 cies, the old work is ' tooled ' over, and the whole is rubbed down 
 together. When the c restoration ' is complete, will any one undertake 
 to say how much of this doorway is new and how much old, or how far 
 
Old and Modern Sculpture. 97 
 
 it may be reckoned upon as a transcript of that which once stood in its 
 place, when we remember that the depth of a quarter of an inch may 
 make all the difference in the contour of a moulding ? But this is not 
 the worst to be apprehended. If the reproduction of the mouldings be 
 attended with difficulty, what can we say of wood and stone carving in 
 its wider sense ? Every one who has studied the principles of Medieval 
 art knows how much its character and vitality depend upon the essential 
 element of decorative sculpture— on the spirit of what Mr. Ruskin 
 has called c noble grotesque,' in its nervous types of animal life and 
 vigorous conventionalism of vegetable form. The capitals, the 
 corbels, the bosses, the enriched spandrils of Pointed Architecture, are 
 
 the jewels — and more than the jewels, the very blossom and fruit of 
 
 that prolific style. To copy these line for line, even when sound and 
 fresh from the chisel, and yet preserve the spirit of the original, would 
 have been a difficulty in the best ages of art. The Medieval sculptors 
 never — to use an artistic phrase — repeated themselves. If the con- 
 ditions of their work required a certain degree of uniformity in design, 
 they took care to aim at the spirit, but not the letter, of symmetry. 
 Part might balance part in a general way, but not with that slavish 
 precision which could be tested with the rule and compass. Indeed, 
 common sense points to the fact that no noble work can be thus tran- 
 scribed without losing in effect. But modern carvers employed in 
 'restoration' are not unfrequently men who can only be trusted to 
 copy in the most literal sense of the word. The fragments which serve 
 them for a model are frequently mutilated, and afford to any but the 
 most experienced eye a very incorrect notion of their original form. 
 The consequence is that a copy is too frequently produced not only 
 deficient in spirit, but with the same degree of accuracy which might be 
 expected from a Chinese engraver who should undertake to imitate line 
 for line and spot for spot a damaged print. Of course in large works, 
 and where the supervision of an efficient architect is secured, these 
 mistakes are avoided ; but there remains the broad fact that many of 
 
 H 
 
98 yudicious Repairs. 
 
 our f decorative' sculptors, modern carvers with quite as much mechanical 
 skill and twice as good working tools as their Gothic ancestors, can do 
 little more than tamely copy the inventions of others. Under these 
 circumstances, we cannot hope that their work will be worthy to stand 
 in place of that executed by men whose hands realised the inventions of 
 their own fertile fancy — who took the birds of the air and the flowers 
 of the field for their models, but who seemed to know instinctively the 
 true secret of all decorative art, which lies in the suggestion and sym- 
 bolism rather than the presumptuous illustration of natural form. 
 
 Does it follow from this that we are to suffer our cathedrals, our 
 Tudor mansions, and other monuments of antiquity to perish for want 
 of timely succour ? By no means. There is much useful work which 
 can be done, and done honestly, towards preserving such buildings from 
 decay. Any mason can square a stone and put it in its proper place, 
 or secure the safety of a tottering wall. There is work for the 
 carpenter, the plumber, the slater, and others whose handicraft is of a 
 purely mechanical kind. But the thought of the old artist sculptor — 
 his wit, his satire, his love of leaves and flowers, his gay or grim notions 
 of life and death — these we must see fade away before our eyes and let 
 them pass. We cannot reanimate the mouldering freestone, or realise 
 with a sober modern chisel the wayward fancies of the Middle Ages. 
 Before, therefore, we c restore,' let us endeavour to preserve what still 
 remains to us of our old national architecture — let us watch its very 
 fragments with a jealous eye, propping them up when needed, shielding 
 them so far as we can from the effects of weather and wanton destruc- 
 tion. If any portions are already past this care, and in absolute danger 
 of falling, it is better to pull them down at once than falsify them with 
 new work. A porch, a tower, or a window may frequently be rebuilt 
 entirely with advantage ; but then it should be ostensibly the work of 
 the nineteenth century, and not be so incorporated with the rest as to 
 deceive the student of the next generation. A brass plate or a stone 
 tablet let into the wall might record in legible characters the date and 
 
Restoration of Henry VII Is Chapel. 
 
 99 
 
 circumstances of the re-erection. There can be no objection to per- 
 petuating the style of the original buildings, but it is of far more 
 importance to adopt the spirit than to follow the letter of the design. 
 
 Thus, it may be presumed, would reason many of the rising school of 
 architects in our own time ; but in Wyatt's day, while the grammar of 
 Medieval art had still to be re-acquired — while the sentiment which had 
 begun to recommend it to popular favour remained, as yet, but a weak 
 and misdirected sentiment, it was in vain to expect that restorations would 
 be conducted on any other principle than that which suggests a literal 
 reproduction of old work. In so far as Wyatt confined himself to this 
 principle, he was successful ; but when he presumed — and he frequently 
 presumed — to alter and, as he thought, to improve upon the architecture 
 of the Middle Ages, the result was a lamentable failure. 
 
 The most notable instance of his ability in the field of restoration 
 is certainly that of Henry VII.'s Chapel at Westminster. During the 
 last century the exterior of the building had been rapidly decaying, 
 and, in a period of about twenty years, a sum exceeding 28,000/. had 
 been spent on repairs. In the year 1803 a ^ re broke out in the roof 
 which involved an expense of several thousand pounds, and the Dean 
 (Dr. Vincent) and Chapter, feeling that the c Fabric Fund ' which had 
 been set apart for repairs was no longer sufficient to meet the annual 
 outlay required, determined to apply to the Government for assistance. 
 Accordingly a memorial was drawn up and presented to the Treasury in 
 1806. That department referred the subject to a Committee of Taste, 
 who were good enough to promise their opinion on any plans for the 
 restoration which might be submitted to them, but did nothing further. 
 In the following year the Dean and Chapter, nothing daunted, 
 prepared another petition, this time to the House of Commons, stating 
 that ' the petitioners had long seen with extreme regret the decay and 
 ruinous appearance of King Henry VII.'s Chape!, the most beautiful 
 specimen of Gothic architecture in the kingdom, and perhaps in Europe.' 
 They added that it appeared from the survey of their architect (Mr. 
 
 H 2 
 
ioo Aid from Government. 
 
 Wyatt) that the decay had hitherto only affected the exterior of the 
 building ; that the interior was still in a fairly sound state ; and that, if 
 the exterior were repaired before the weather was suffered to make 
 further ravages, the whole structure might be preserved. The peti- 
 tioners concluded by asking for an annual grant of 1,000/. and an 
 additional sum of 1,000/. 'extraordinary' for the first year. The 
 House appointed a Committee, who, as a first step, examined Wyatt as 
 to the probable cost of the restoration. He stated that it would be 
 difficult to estimate it exactly, but he conceived that about 14,800/. 
 would be required for ? necessary repairs,' and probably 10,40c/. for 
 ornamental work. He added that the works might be completed in 
 three years. As is often the case in such undertakings, it turned out 
 in due course that both the time and the amount of money required had 
 been considerably underrated. The House of Commons voted 2,000/. 
 as the first instalment towards the work, and at Dr. Vincent's request 
 the general arrangements for the scheme were left in the hands of a 
 body of gentlemen, then known as the ' Committee for the Inspection of 
 Models for National Monuments.' This Committee included among 
 its members the Marquis of Stafford, the Marquis of Buckingham, 
 Lord Aberdeen, Sir George Beaumont, Mr. Thomas Hop,-, Mr. R. 
 Payne Knight, and other distinguished amateurs. But the Government 
 showed its good sense by adding several artists to the Committee. 
 Among these were Flaxman, Banks and Westmacott, three cf the most 
 eminent sculptors of the day. Sir Charles Long acted as chairman. 
 
 Every care was taken to ensure the use of a good quality of stone 
 for the restoration. Gayfere, the abbey mason, who appears to have 
 played a far more prominent part in the work than would be allotted 
 to any similar official in our own time, was examined and directed to 
 report on this subject. He visited Bath and St. Albans Abi^ey, and at 
 length decided in favour of Kentish stone and that of Coomb Down 
 quarries. An incident occurred during Gayfere's examination which 
 shows the tendency, even in those days, to cheapen the cost of artistic 
 
Confidence in Jl'yatt. 101 
 
 work at a sacrifice of its quality. Bernasconi's composition (a species 
 of terra cotta) had then come into use, and Gay fere was asked what he 
 thought of the durability of this material, if it were employed instead 
 of stone for the external carvings. The document from which these 
 particulars are gleaned records no answer to this enquiry. Whether it 
 was actually answered does not now signify. But, as a matter of tact, 
 Bernasconi's composition was not used, and we may be thankful for the 
 decision. 
 
 Just as the works were to have been begun they were delayed by an 
 untoward accident. A vessel bringing 150 tons of stone from Bristol 
 was wrecked off the Isle, of Portland. In 1809 the restoration was 
 fairly begun, and though some slight misunderstandings appear to have 
 at first arisen between the Dean and Chapter and the Parliamentary 
 Committee, it was carried on gradually and successfully for many years, 
 grants being made by Government even during the war with France, 
 until it was finally completed (long after Wyatt's death) in 18 21. 
 
 Restorations such as this, conducted with a careful reverence for 
 
 ancient work and an accurate reproduction of its detail, would have 
 
 won for Wyatt the respect of his antiquarian contemporaries, and saved 
 
 him from the censure of later critics. But unfortunately he had had 
 
 in the early days of his practice many cathedrals and other Mediaeval 
 
 buildings of importance committed to his care by those who placed the 
 
 fullest confidence in his ability, and who had themselves but a scanty 
 
 acquaintance with even the elementary principles of Gothic art. It is 
 
 not exactly on record that the ecclesiastical authorities of the day 
 
 declared him to be a greater architect than Bertram of Salisbury or 
 
 Waynflete of Winchester, but it is not improbable that they believed 
 
 it. How far Wyatt may have been morally responsible for the deeds 
 
 of vandalism which were too frequently carried on in his name ; 
 
 whether his vanity or his ignorance led him to remodel architectural 
 
 work of the Middle Ages, the excellence of which he could never 
 
 hope to imitate, may be doubtful ; but the plain fact remains, that on 
 
102 New College Chapel. 
 
 such occasions he far exceeded his professional duty, and that having 
 been called on to repair, he did not hesitate to alter and even to destroy. 
 It was to be hoped that, at least, one stronghold of Mediaeval art 
 would have been proof against Wyatt's innovations. Oxford, as we 
 have seen, had preserved, down to a late period, the traditions of a 
 national style. In our own time it has distinguished itself by a 
 strenuous and successful attempt to revive them. But a dark interval 
 occurred between the two epochs, and though, during that interval, the 
 University acquired many buildings which were creditable specimens of 
 Italian architecture, the character of local Gothic sank to zero. So 
 long as Hawksmoor's work at All Souls' College remains standing, it 
 will probably retain the reputation of being the most debased travesty 
 of Pointed Architecture in Oxford. Wyatt's designs did not exactly 
 descend to this level, but they approached it. No one who has any 
 reverence for Mediaeval art can examine the present condition of New 
 College Chapel without a feeling of surprise that even in Wyatt's day 
 such work as his plaster reredos, mean as it is in material, and vulgar in 
 the extravagance of its detail, could have passed for restoration. Yet it 
 is not improbable that, at the time when it was executed, the College 
 dons considered it a finer specimen of art than that which had been 
 doomed to destruction by Bishop Home. Westmacott's sculptured 
 panels, in mezzo-relievo, are at least of real marble, and exhibit some 
 inventive skill ; but the dramatic action of his figures is completely out 
 of character with the architecture of the building which they were 
 intended to decorate. Fragments of the old sculpture, removed to make 
 place for this work, may still be seen in the adjoining cloister. Im- 
 partial critics, who compaie the Mediaeval carving with its modern sub- 
 stitute, will, probably, consider the neat finish and anatomical correctness 
 of Westmacott's groups a poor exchange for the earnest and vigorous, 
 though somewhat rude, treatment of the old design. 
 
 If Wyatt's innovations had been confined to decorative detail, more 
 excuse might be made for him at the present day. A style of art 
 
IVyatt's Responsibilities. 103 
 
 which has fallen into neglect for two or three centuries is not likely to 
 be revived with much of its original spirit in the course of a few years. 
 The natural tendency of modern uneducated taste is to set an undue 
 value upon mere elaboration of ornament and on the literal imitation of 
 natural forms. It is liable to mistake the noble abstractive treatment 
 so well understood in past ages of art for ignorance or incapacity of 
 hand. We may charitably suppose that Wyatt thought the fruit and 
 foliage of his plaster reredos a real improvement on the crockets and 
 flnials of a Mediaeval sculptor. But that an architect who was 
 entrusted to restore buildings erected in the Middle Ages should have 
 presumed to sacrifice important and constructive features in more than 
 one cathedral for the sake of satisfying his own notions of proportion 
 and effect, is an example of intolerable vanity and ignorance. He who 
 had studied in Rome the principles of classic architecture would, pro- 
 bably, have been the first to resent an impertinent remodelling of the 
 Pantheon. One might reasonably suppose that if he possessed half the 
 respect for Gothic art with which he was accredited by his contem- 
 poraries, he would have seen the same necessity for preserving the 
 integrity of its remains. Unfortunately Lichfield, Durham, and Salis- 
 bury bear evidence to the contrary. 
 
 It is possible that much of the vandalism committed at this time, 
 under the plea of restoration, has been since unjustly attributed to 
 Wyatt. But that he was in several well-known instances directly 
 responsible for needless destruction and injudicious repairs is quite 
 certain. How long such work would have been permitted to go on by 
 those whose duty it was to watch with jealous care the venerable build- 
 ings entrusted to their charge, may be doubted. Luckily, remonstrance 
 was at hand from an unexpected quarter. It was administered sharply, au- 
 thoritatively, and persistently, and, in course of time, with excellent effect. 
 
 Mention has already been made of John Carter's c Specimens of 
 Ancient Sculpture and Painting,' published in 1786. But this and 
 other works of the same class, and by the same hand, creditable as they 
 
io4 yolui Carter. 
 
 are to their author, will reflect less permanent honour on his memory 
 than the fact that, for a period of nearly twenty years, he employed his 
 pen in a vigorous protest against the ruthless and ignorant ' innovations ' 
 of his day. 
 
 The history of this doughty champion of Gothic architecture 
 may be sketched in a few lines. He was born in the middle of the 
 last century. His father, who had carried on business which may 
 be euphemistically described as that of a monumental sculptor, but 
 which really included the manufacture of mantel-pieces* died in 1763, 
 leaving his son at the early age of fifteen almost entirely dependent on 
 his own exertions for a livelihood. The lad had been taken from 
 school to assist his father in the preparation of the working drawings 
 necessary to guide the workmen who executed his designs. This occu- 
 pation taught him to use his pencil, which he soon employed to better 
 purpose. In 1764 young Carter made a perspective view of the 
 Herald's Tower, Windsor Castle — the first of a long series of similar 
 productions, which at first brought him bread, and afterwards renown. 
 Builders of the day, who seem to have frequently acted without the 
 supervision of architects, gladly secured his artistic services. In 1786 
 he was engaged to prepare illustrations for the ' Builder's Magazine,' 
 probably the first professional journal brought out in this country. 
 
 But a more important engagement dates from a few years previously, 
 
 when the Society of Antiquaries, recognising his delineative skill and 
 
 knowledge of architecture, employed him to etch many of the views of 
 
 ancient buildings, published under their direction. The cathedrals of 
 
 Exeter, Durham, Gloucester, and York ; the abbeys of Bath and St. 
 
 Albans, with a host of others, became, in turn, subjects for his pencil. 
 
 Every ancient building which he visited was useful to him in a twofold 
 
 sense. He made drawings and he made notes. The drawings weix- a 
 
 source of immediate profit. By means of the notes he, by degrees, 
 
 laid up a store of archaeological information which, in course of time, 
 
 placed him among the foremost antiquaries of the day. As an architect 
 
His Antiquarian Tastes. 10 
 
 - 
 
 he seems to have had little or no practice. A small chapel at Sevenoaks, 
 a few almshouses, and a monument or two, are the only works on 
 record for which he was directly responsible ; but it is well known that 
 he was- frequently consulted by other members of the profession, who 
 were in the habit of submitting their designs to him for approval or 
 correction. The study of Mediaeval architecture had been almost an 
 instinct with him from his earliest youth. His delight was to sketch, 
 to measure, and to describe every ancient English building which he 
 saw, and in such pursuits he passed the greater part of a long life. One 
 other taste, indeed, he had, which occasionally beguiled him from his 
 antiquarian researches. It was for that art which is allied to architec- 
 ture by some mysterious link long imaged by poetical conception and 
 not unfrequently confessed in the experience of ordinary life. He was 
 passionately fond of music* 
 
 It may easily be conceived that a man of Carter's accurate knowledge 
 and ardent temperament saw with a feeling stronger than impatience our 
 national relics of Mediaeval architecture one by one perishing through 
 neglect, injured by clumsy restoration, and in some cases being partially 
 destroyed by ignorant attempts to improve upon their original design. 
 In such instances, if we may believe his contemporary cricics, he felt all 
 the indignation which might be justified by a personal affront. If his 
 private character had been attacked he could scarcely have been more 
 inclined to resent the injury. The manner in which he did resent it 
 was characteristic not only of the man but of the age in which he lived. 
 Towards the middle of the year 17 98 a letter was published in the 
 c Gentleman's Magazine,' calling attention to certain injudicious repairs 
 and alterations which had been carried on in Peterborough Cathedral. 
 The writer signed himself c An Architect,' and if no further correspon- 
 
 * Carter's enthusiasm for music led him, as an amateur, not only to perform but to 
 compose. He was the author of two operas, produced at one of the minor theatres, but 
 long since forgotten — ' The White Rose,' and ' The Cell of St. Oswald ' — which were 
 intended to illustrate dramatically English life in the Middle Ages. In each case the 
 words, as well as the music, were his own. He also painted the scenery. 
 
io6 Letters in the { Gentleman's Magazine' 
 
 dence had ensued, it is possible that he would have preserved his incog- 
 nito. But this letter was only the first of a long series which continued 
 to appear, at intervals, in the same journal and under the same signa- 
 ture, for the extraordinarily long period of twenty years. In the year 
 1 8 17 this remarkable correspondence was brought somewhat abruptly 
 to a close, not, however, before the writer had begun to depart from 
 his original theme, viz. the c Pursuits of Architectural Innovation.' 
 The 2 1 2th letter promised that the subject should be continued, but 
 the Fates had ordered otherwise. The writer had laid down his pen 
 for the last time. 
 
 The fact that Carter died in 18 17 is scarcely required to prove the 
 authenticity of these letters. During the time which elapsed since the 
 first appeared, considerable advance was made in the study of Gothic 
 architecture. As years rolled on, other men might have been found 
 equal to the task of criticising modern f improvements ' as shrewdly, as 
 learnedly, and as carefully as Carter. But it may safely be asserted 
 that no one else would have sustained the task with such prolonged 
 energy and perseverance. 
 
 It is true that the very nature of his ordinary occupation afforded 
 peculiar facilities for this additional work. Every sketch which he 
 made was, to his appreciative eye, a fresh lesson in architectural style. 
 Every tour which he made gave him an opportunity, not only for 
 artistic study, but for critical inspection. At Gloucester he laments the 
 injury caused by turning it into a place for periodical music meetings, 
 and notices the absence of heraldic propriety in the restoration of sculp- 
 tured details. At Canterbury he calls attention to the modern dis- 
 figurement of Archbishop Wareham's monument and to the shameful 
 condition of St. Augustine's Monastery.* At Lichfield the transept 
 windows and the choir arches were walled up. At Salisbury the Beau- 
 
 : ' Now rescued from desecration, restored, and converted into St. Augustine's (Mission- 
 ary) College, by the timely munificence of Mr. Bercsford Hope, M.P., and the professional 
 skill of Mr. W. Butterfield. This building will form the subject of some later remarks. 
 
Effect of Catter's Remonstrance. 107 
 
 champ Chapel was destroyed. He found Winchester neglected and 
 Howden Church half in ruins. He visited the Welsh castles, and was 
 ashamed of their dilapidations and still more deplorable repairs. The 
 condition of the ancient churches of Coventry excited his pity and his 
 anger. He went to Oxford, and finding himself excluded from Divine 
 service at Magdalen College Chapel, was indignant not only with the 
 architectural innovations, but with the ecclesiastical polity of the Esta- 
 blishment. At Westminster he groaned over alterations which had 
 been made, and deprecated others which were threatened in the Abbey. 
 He waxed wroth at discovering that while the New Courts of Justice 
 were accepted as examples of good modern Gothic, the beautiful Chapel 
 of St. Stephen was condemned to desecration as a dining room. 
 
 These and a hundred other similar grievances formed the subject- 
 matter for the letters of c An Architect.' They declared war a outrance 
 to modern innovation, by whatever hand or under whatever direction it 
 was carried on. Sometimes this interference was resented by replies 
 also published in the Magazine, and then a sharp controversy ensued, in 
 which Carter generally came off victorious.* The style of his letters 
 must not be judged by the literary standard of our own day. To the 
 modern reader they will seem stilted and extravagant in language. But 
 his remarks were always to the point, and when they were answered by 
 an opponent, Carter returned again and again to the charge, bringing 
 fresh arguments and new evidence in support of his original assertions. 
 
 The information which he supplied and the criticism which he 
 offered must have been invaluable at the time. Thousands of readers 
 who had previously regarded Gothic as a barbarous kind of architecture 
 to which no recognised canon of taste would apply, learnt for the first 
 
 * Occasionally the correspondence took a serious turn. At the conclusion of one of 
 his letters (January 1810), Carter, referring to the communications of * An Amateur,' 
 who had contradicted him flatly on a point of fact, replied as follows: ' The "Amateur" 
 may be assured that I am ready to meet him on any ground, let his onset be what it may, 
 question or answer, or otherwiseV It does not, however, appear that any hostile encounter 
 was the result of this challenge. 
 
io8 William Atkinson. 
 
 time their mistake. Many a country parson who had allowed his parish 
 church to fall into decay, must have been reminded that it was his 
 duty to take an interest in its repair. Many a Dean and Chapter who 
 had indulged in grand notions about cathedral ' improvements,' paused 
 before they lent themselves to a work of destruction which was now so 
 reasonably condemned. The sentiments of c An Architect ' found grate- 
 ful response, not only in the pages of the ' Gentleman's Magazine,' but 
 in other journals. Wyatt, for whose professional ability Carter appears 
 to have entertained no small contempt, died in 1813, and thenceforth a 
 new era began to dawn for the Gothic Revival. 
 
 Of course it was long before restorations were conducted with that 
 careful attention to detail which can alone justify such repairs. The 
 character of ancient mouldings and of sculpture ornament had still to 
 be analysed and studied before the nineteenth-century architect could 
 hope to approach the grace and refinement of the original forms which 
 he professed to imitate. But the presumptuous folly of attempting to 
 alter and improve upon work elevated by its excellence far beyond the 
 aim of modern design and workmanship was now openly confessed and 
 by degrees abandoned. 
 
 The generation of British architects whose professional career ex- 
 tended from the past to the present century includes many names 
 which have long been forgotten, and many others which will soon 
 follow them into oblivion, but which were in their time more or less 
 associated with the Revival of Gothic. 
 
 In this list William Atkinson occupies an early and not undis- 
 tinguished place. Born at Bishop Auckland about 1773, he began life 
 as a carpenter, but through the patronage of Dr. Barrington, then 
 Bishop of Durham, he became a pupil of James Wyatt, and in 1797 
 obtained the gold medal of the Royal Academy. In the course of his 
 practice he designed Scone Palace, Perthshire, for the Earl of Mans- 
 field (1803-6); Rossie Priory for Lord Kinnaird (1810-15); Abbots- 
 
L. N. Cottingharris Works. 109 
 
 ford, Roxburghshire, for Sir Walter Scott, and many other country- 
 mansions in England and Scotland.* 
 
 Between the years 18 14 and 1822 Mr. L. N. Cottingham did some 
 service to the Revival by publishing several works in illustration of old 
 English architecture. His plans, &c. of Westminster Hall appeared in 
 1822. Shortly afterwards he brought out a more voluminous work on 
 Henry VII. 's Chapel. His working drawings of Gothic ornaments are 
 ill-selected and coarse in execution, but curious as being perhaps the 
 first full-size illustrations of Mediaeval carving published in this form. 
 He built Snelston Hall in Derbyshire, and in 1825 designed a new 
 central tower for Rochester Cathedral, besides restoring other portions 
 of the same building. In 1829 he was the successful competitor for 
 the restorations (completed in 1833) of the interior of Magdalen 
 College, Oxford. Under his superintendence repairs were also carried 
 on at Hereford Cathedral, St. Albans Abbey, and the Church of 
 St. James at Louth. 
 
 It is, however, as a collector of Mediaeval antiquities rather than as 
 an architect that his name has been chiefly associated with the Revival. 
 In addition to a vast number of casts taken from capitals, bosses, and 
 other examples of decorative sculpture in English and foreign cathedrals, 
 he had acquired many specimens of original carved work in wood and 
 stone — in some cases entire features of buildings which had been 
 dismantled or pulled down. These, in addition to a host of other 
 objects, including ancient furniture and metal-work, formed a most 
 
 * It is necessary to distinguish this architect from others of the same surname, and all 
 born in the last century, viz. : Peter Atkinson (the son of a carpenter), who practised at 
 York ; Peter Atkinson, the son and partner of the last-mentioned, who was employed by 
 the Duke of Devonshire, and who erected many churches for the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
 sioners between 1821 and 1 83 1 ; Thomas Atkinson, who made additions to the Arch i- 
 episcopal Palace, Bishopsthorpe, near York, in 1769; and T. W. Atkinson, a London 
 architect, who published * Gothic Ornaments Selected from the different Cathedrals and 
 Churches of England,' in 1829. 
 
1 10 yohn C. Buckler. 
 
 valuable and interesting Mediaeval museum long before public energy 
 or national funds had been devoted to a similar purpose.* 
 
 Among Carter's friends and contemporaries was Mr. John Buckler, 
 F. S.A.j who published some fine 'Views of the Cathedral Churches of 
 England and Wales, with Descriptions.' His son, Mr. John Chessell 
 Buckler, designed in 1825 the modern portion of Costessey Hall, 
 Norfolk, for Lord Stafford — one of the most important and successful 
 instances of the Revival in Domestic Architecture. It is built of red 
 and white brick, with stone dressings, and the style is Tudor, of the type 
 adopted in Thornbury Castle. f 
 
 The general appearance of the building is that of an irregular but 
 well grouped and interesting composition, in which stepped gables, angle 
 turrets, and richly moulded chimney-shafts form picturesque features, and 
 exhibit a knowledge of detail and proportion far in advance of contempo- 
 rary work. In the centre of the block rises a solid square tower, 
 crowned with machicolations and an embattled parapet. 
 
 Internally the rooms are fitted up with great care, the carved ceilings, 
 stone mantel-pieces, and carved panel-work being all of rich design, 
 and in character with the external architecture ; which is more than 
 can be said for many of the so-called Gothic mansions of the day. 
 
 The old mansion, erected in the reign of Queen Mary, still occupies 
 the site of the intended hall and principal staircase. The chapel erected 
 early in the present century has been already mentioned. 
 
 Mr. J. C. Buckler was largely employed at Oxford in the restora- 
 tions of and additions to the various buildings of the University. St. 
 Mary's Church, as well as Oriel, Brasenose, Magdalen, and Jesus 
 Colleges, bear evidence of his professional handiwork. He also restored 
 Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk, and Hengrave Hall, Suffolk. Among the 
 
 * Mr. Cottingham's collection was sold by public auction a few years after his death, 
 which occurred in 1847. 
 
 t Erected in Henry VIIl.'s reign by Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, an ancestor 
 of the present Baron. 
 
Mr. Buckler s Protest. 1 1 1 
 
 country mansions which he was entrusted to design may be mentioned 
 Dunston Hall, Norfolk, and Butleigh Court, in Somersetshire. In 1823 
 Buckler published a description of Magdalen College, adding to it an 
 account of the ' innovations ' then recently executed there, and a protest 
 against others which were threatened. This little work, which for 
 personal reasons existing at the time was published anonymously, did 
 good service at Oxford. It argued well and earnestly for the preserva- 
 tion of the old colleges, which had been sadly maltreated under the 
 guise of 'improvement.' Antiquaries, in short, no longer stood alone 
 as champions of the Revival. The cause was espoused by many profes- 
 sional architects of ability and repute. This would not in itself have 
 sufficed to secure the support of public taste. But public taste received 
 a stimulus of its own, as we shall presently see. 
 
1 1 2 Sir fl 'alter Scoff. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANIFOLD as the influences are to which the modern revival 
 of Gothic Architecture have been referred, they may, if taken 
 broadly, be classed under three heads, viz. literary, religious, 
 and antiquarian. To the first may be assigned the taste for media> 
 valism, which was encouraged in this country by the writings of Sir 
 Walter Scott, Bishop Percy, and Dr. Lingard ; in France by those of 
 Chateaubriand ; and in Germany by those of Friedrich von Schlegel. 
 It is impossible to read either the poems or the novels of Scott without 
 perceiving how greatly their interest depends on that class of sentiment, 
 half chivalrous and half romantic, which is centered in the social life and 
 history, the faith, the arts, and the warfare of the Middle Ages. 
 ' Ivanhoe,' < The Abbot,' c Woodstock,' c The Fair Maid of Perth,' and 
 f The Monastery,' abound in allusions to the Architecture, either military 
 or ecclesiastical, of a bygone age. It forms the background to some of 
 the most stirring scenes which the author depicts. It invests with a 
 substantial reality the romances which he weaves. It is often inti- 
 mately associated with the very incidents of his plot. 
 
 We need not necessarily infer that Scott possessed anything more 
 than a superficial knowledge of the art which he so enthusiastically ad- 
 mired. On the contrary, the descriptions which he gives of Mediaeval 
 buildings not unfrequently betray an ignorance of what have since been 
 called the true principles of Gothic design. The poetic but erroneous 
 notion that the groined vault of a cathedral church had its prototype in 
 the spreading branches of a tree — the comparison of clustered shafts to 
 bundles of lances bound with garlands — may raise a smile from those who 
 have studied with any attention the real and structural beauties of old 
 
The IVaverley Novels. \ \ 3 
 
 English Architecture. The truth is that the service which Scott ren- 
 dered to the cause of the Revival was to awaken popular interest in a 
 style which had hitherto been associated, except by the educated few, 
 with ascetic gloom and vulgar superstition. With the aid of his magic 
 pen, the Castle of Coningsburgh is filled as of yore with doughty war- 
 riors ; Branksome Hall is restored to its feudal splendour ; Kenilworth 
 becomes once more the scene of human love, and strife, and tragedy ; 
 the aisles of Melrose echo again with a solemn requiem. 
 
 The Waverley novels and the poems which preceded them were read 
 with an eager interest which we can only realize in this blase generation 
 when we remember the class of fiction, in prose or verse, with which 
 our grandsires had been previously supplied. With the exception of 
 Horace Walpole and Mrs. Radcliffe, no author of any note had sought 
 for inspiration in the old-world lore ; and though the < Castle of 
 Otranto ' and the f Romance of the Forest ' have had, no doubt, their 
 admirers, the Mediaeval element which they contain bears no nearer 
 relation to f Ivanhoe ' and c The Monastery ' than the Gothic of Batty 
 Langley does to the designs of Butterfield. 
 
 The works of Fielding and Smollett — and, if we may compare small 
 things with great, of Richardson — derived their chief interest from the 
 delineation of character in scenes of contemporary life. Mr. Thomas 
 Jones and Mr. Roderick Random are essentially modern heroes. 
 Their respective adventures point a doubtful moral to a disreputable 
 tale, not without redeeming points of sparkling wit, trenchant satire, 
 and genuine philosophy. But we may search them, and many similar 
 novels of the same age and class, in vain to find the least evidence of 
 that order of sentiment which depends on national tradition or reverence 
 for the past. Sir Walter Scott was the first historical novelist that 
 England produced. Whether he gave a reliable picture of social life 
 in the Middle Ages may be doubted. It is the province of such a 
 writer to deal with his material after the manner of all artists. He 
 must keep virtues for his hero and faults for those who cross his hero's 
 
 1 
 
1 14 The Romance of Archceology. 
 
 path. He must fiil in the lights and shades of his story as best befits 
 its climax. He must keep probability subservient to effect. All this 
 Sir Walter did to perfection, and he did more. He drew public atten- 
 tion to the romantic side of archaeology. It had hitherto been regarded 
 as a formal science. He charmed it into an attractive art. And this he 
 accomplished without any parade of the special knowledge which he had 
 acquired in the study of old English life and its picturesque accessories. 
 We find in his romances none of that laboured accuracy in regard to 
 detail which has characterised the writings of those who have endea- 
 voured in a similar field to unite the taste of the dilettante with the 
 imagination of the novelist. In reading such a work as the f Last 
 Days of Pompeii/ one is struck with the palpable effort which its 
 author makes to describe and turn to dramatic account the latest 
 facts and discoveries concerning the disinterred city. Scarcely an in- 
 cident is recorded, scarcely a scene is described, which does not reveal 
 the narrator's aim at correctness in his studies of what a painter 
 would call c still life.' It is as if he had invoked the shade of Sir 
 William Hamilton instead of the Muse of Fiction to aid him in 
 his task, and had composed his story after spending a week in the 
 Museo Bourbonico. 
 
 With far more subtle skill and magic power, Scott entered on his 
 work. The pictures which he sets before us of life in the Middle 
 Ages are not encumbered with needless minutias of material fact. The 
 aspect of the dwellings, the costume, the household gods of our ances- 
 tors, is not indeed forgotten, but they are not allowed to obtrude on 
 the reader's attention, and they are always kept subordinate to the 
 interest which is elicited by character and conversation. It is some- 
 what remarkable that the 'Antiquary,' a novel in which Scott might have 
 found it easy to display his acquaintance with the relics of ancient art, 
 should contain so little evidence of the author's taste in that direction. 
 Mr. Oldbuck, who is familiar with the rare quarto of the Augsburg 
 Confession, who is an authority in heraldic matters, whose wrath is 
 
Progress of Mediceval sen ti incut. 115 
 
 kindled by the spurious poems of Ossian, and who quotes everything 
 he has read from Virgil to a Border ballad, would have cut a poor 
 figure in the Camden Society. He collects indeed Roman lamps, and 
 Scottish thumbscrews, but for aught we can gather from his discourse, 
 he knows no more of Jedburgh Abbey than of the Palace of the Caesars. 
 
 The Mediaeval sympathies which Scott aroused were enlisted less by 
 reference to the relics of Pointed architecture than by the halo of 
 romance which he contrived to throw around them. The fortunes of 
 the Disinherited Knight, the ill-requited love of poor Rebecca, the very 
 jokes of Wamba and the ditties of the Bare-footed Friar, did more for 
 the Gothic Revival than all the labours of Carter and Rickman. The 
 description of the desecrated church in the c Abbot ' excites our interest 
 not merely because its niches have been emptied and its altar despoiled, 
 but because it forms a background to the figures of Magdalen and 
 Roland. The castles of the Rhine appear to every modern tourist 
 picturesque monuments of antiquity, but they acquire a double charm 
 in association with the story of l Anne of Geierstein.' 
 
 It would be difficult to overrate the influence which Scott's poetry 
 has had on both sides of the Tweed, in encouraging a national taste 
 for Mediaeval architecture. Every line in the c Lay of the Last Min- 
 strel,' every incident in ( Marmion,' is pregnant with that spirit of 
 romance which is the essence of traditional art. The time may 
 perhaps have now arrived when the popular mind can dispense 
 with the spell of association, and learn to admire Gothic for its intrinsic 
 beauty. But in the early part of this century, England could boast 
 of no such author as Mr. Ruskin, to teach, discriminate, and criti- 
 cise, in matters of taste. Guided by his advice and influence, we 
 may succeed in kindling the Lamps of Life and Power. But fifty 
 years ago, in the darkest period which British art has seen, we were 
 illumined by one solitary and flickering flame, which Scott contrived 
 to keep alive. It was the Lamp of Memory. 
 
 Strange as it may appear to us in these days of advanced ritualism, 
 
 1 2 
 
1 1 6 Domestic Architecture. 
 
 the earliest instances of the application of Gothic as a definite style at 
 that period were to be found, not in the churches, but in the mansions 
 of modern England. In our own time, the most bigoted opponents of 
 the style are generally found to admit that if unsuitable for a dwelling, 
 it may with propriety be employed — to use their own language — for a 
 1 place of worship.' But when Scott was in the zenith of his fame, the 
 reverse of this opinion would appear, at first sight, to have prevailed. 
 While many country houses of the nobility and gentry were designed, 
 or rebuilt, in what was then known as the Castellated style, almost 
 every modern church that was erected aped the general arrangement 
 of a Gretk temple, or the pseudo-classic type of the Renaissance. 
 
 The explanation of this apparent anomaly becomes obvious when we 
 remember the condition of things under which it occurred. In the first 
 place, the revived taste for Mediaeval Architecture was as yet caviare to 
 the multitude. It seemed but natural that the landed proprietors — the 
 heads of ancient families, the source of whose lineage was intimately asso- 
 ciated with the early welfare of this country — should feel some interest 
 in a style which kept alive the memories of the past, and symbolised at 
 once the romance of history and the pride of name. But the majority 
 of parsons and churchwardens, the committee-men and vestrymen, of 
 a town parish, could scarcely be expected to participate in these senti- 
 ments. Their notions of grand architecture were linked to the Five 
 Orders, or based on a glimpse of Stuart's Athens; their ideas of devotion 
 were centered in the family pew. And it was only in town parishes 
 that the church architect then found exercise for his ability. The 
 expediency of providing additional churches for the increasing population 
 of rural districts was a problem which had not as yet presented itself to 
 the parochial mind. And it must be confessed that if it had, the ne- 
 cessity of acting on it would have been doubtful. A large parish does 
 not always, and certainly did not in those days, mean a large congrega- 
 tion. In plain language, it would have been absurd to build new churches 
 while the old ones remained half filled. How far the clergy, and how 
 
TJie Church of ' the Period' 1 17 
 
 far the people themselves, were responsible for this state of things, it 
 is difficult to estimate. But of one fact we may be quite sure, that 
 at this period the Church of England had lost its hold on popular 
 favour, and ecclesiastical sentiment was almost unknown. No doubt 
 much of the apathy which then prevailed was due to the uninteresting 
 character of the service and all that pertained to it. To the zealous 
 artist or devotee of the present day, the interior of a church fitted up 
 at that period would have presented indeed a melancholy spectacle. 
 We must tax the recollections of our childhood, if we would realise to 
 some extent the cold and vapid nature of the ceremonies which passed 
 for public devotion in the days of our grandfathers. 
 
 Who does not remember the air of grim respectability which per- 
 vaded, and in some cases still pervades, the modern town church of a 
 certain type, with its big bleak portico, its portentous beadle, and muffin- 
 capped charity boys ? Enter and notice the tall neatly grained witness- 
 boxes and jury-boxes in which the faithful are impanelled ; the f three- 
 decker ' pulpit placed in the centre of the building ; the lumbering 
 gallery which is carried round three sides of the interior on iron columns ; 
 the wizen-faced pew-opener eager for stray shillings ; the earnest penitent 
 who is inspecting the inside of his hat ; the patent warming apparatus ; 
 the velvet cushions which profane the altar; the hassocks which no one 
 kneels on ; the poor-box which is always empty. Hear how the clerk 
 drones out the responses for a congregation too genteel to respond for 
 themselves. Listen to the complicated discord in which the words of 
 the Psalmist strike the ear, after copious revision by Tate and Brady. 
 Mark the prompt, if misdirected zeal, with which old ladies insist on 
 testing the accuracy of the preacher's memory by turning out the text. 
 Observe the length, the unimpeachable propriety, the overwhelming 
 dulness of his sermon ! 
 
 Such was the Church, and such the form of worship which prevailed 
 in England while this century was still in its teens. It may have 
 been, and probably was, well suited to the religious feeling of the day. 
 
u8 Dr. Milner. 
 
 The reaction which has since ensued may have its errors and its dan- 
 gers. But one fact is certain, that that art, with the history of which 
 we have alone to deal in these pages, had sunk at this period to its 
 lowest level, and required the services of more than one doughty 
 champion to rescue it from oblivion. 
 
 It is a common error to suppose that the Church of Rome has en- 
 couraged to any great extent, or for any special purpose, the Revival of 
 Gothic Architecture. Those who have witnessed the gorgeous ceremonial 
 with which her rites are celebrated in Italy, will be aware how utterly in- 
 dependent they have become of any association with Mediaeval usage, so 
 far as outward appearance and ecclesiastical appointments are concerned. 
 It is, however, remarkable that two of the first, and in their time un- 
 questionably the most eminent, apologists for the revival of the style in 
 this country were Roman Catholics, viz. Milner and Pugin. Beyond 
 the fact that their creeds and their architectural tastes were in common, 
 no parallel can be drawn between them. Both, indeed, contributed to 
 the literature of art, but under different conditions, at a different time, 
 and in a very different vein. Dr. Milner was a priest and a bishop of 
 his Church. Pugin was a layman and a professed architect. Dr. 
 Milner wrote with the sober judgment of an antiquary; Pugin with 
 the fiery enthusiasm of a religious convert. Finally, Milner, who was 
 born in 1752, preceded Pugin by nearly half a century. 
 
 It was in the year 1792 that Dr. Milner resolved to build a new 
 chapel at Winchester, in place of one which, erected in the seventeenth 
 century, had fallen into a ruinous state. Of this work he says (in his 
 ' History of Winchester ') : — 
 
 Instead of following the modern style of building churches and chapels, which 
 are in general square chambers with small sash windows and fashionable decora- 
 tions hardly to be distinguished, when the altars and benches are removed, from 
 common assembly rooms, it was concluded upon to imitate the models in this 
 kind which have been left to us by our religious ancestors, who applied them- 
 selves to the cultivation and perfection of ecclesiastical architecture. 
 
TJie Antiquities of Winchester. 119 
 
 Although competent to give general instructions for the execution of 
 this work, Dr. Milner had the good sense to seek the professional 
 assistance of Mr. John Carter, of whose talents he always had a very 
 
 high opinion. 
 
 ' I know one man, indeed,' he writes in one of his essays, f who is 
 eminently qualified to direct any work of this nature, and who, without 
 either an original or a copy to look at, could sit down and make pure 
 and perfect drawings for any kind of building in the Pointed Style, from 
 a monument to a cathedral, according to any one of its different periods. 
 
 But this architect is so inflexibly strict in adhering to ancient 
 
 rules and practice, that he would not build for a prince who should 
 require the slightest deviation from them.' 
 
 This was high praise in 1800. In some respects, perhaps, it would 
 be higher praise at the present day. 
 
 The chapel is described by Dr. Milner himself as c a light Gothic 
 building, coated with stucco resembling freestone, with mullioned 
 windows, shelving buttresses, a parapet with open quatrefoils, and 
 crocketed pinnacles terminating in gilt crowns.' This description is 
 not very suggestive of the glories of Gothic art in its modern Revival. 
 But if we remember the benighted period at which it was written, we 
 may be thankful for this link, however humble, in the chain of our 
 
 history. 
 
 Dr. Milner's f Survey of the Antiquities of Winchester,' a carefully 
 written and, for its time, an erudite work, was chiefly remarkable 
 for the short, but now famous essay which it contained, f On the Rise 
 and Progress of the Pointed Arch.' This essay, together with three 
 others by Professor Warton, the Rev. J. Bentham, and Capt. Grose, all 
 bearing on the subject of Gothic Architecture, were published by Taylor 
 in 1 800, with an introductory letter by Milner. To dilate on the various 
 opinions expressed by these gentlemen would probably be tedious, 
 and would certainly not be edifying to the reader of these pages. Dr. 
 Milner himself seems inclined to lose patience with two of the learned 
 
i2o M Unci's Literary Works. 
 
 antiquaries, who, differing in their nomenclature, are at variance on the 
 question, whether Salisbury Cathedral is or is not a Gothic structure. 
 In his own Essay and Introduction, which form the most interesting part 
 of the volume, he uses for the first time an expression which has since 
 been universally accepted as a generic term for the Architecture of the 
 Middle Ages, viz. the Pointed Style. 
 
 The origin of the Pointed Arch has proved a subject of as much 
 fruitless discussion as the authorship of Junius, or the identification of 
 the Man in the Iron Mask. In Britton's Architectural Antiquities 
 alone no fewer than sixty-six different theories appear on the subject. 
 Milner's had at least the merit of simplicity. But the origin of the 
 Pointed Arch, as Mr. Fergusson has justly observed, is after all far less 
 important than the history of its use, and the light which the last- 
 mentioned work has thrown upon that history is worth all the 
 countless conjectures regarding a structural feature whose form was 
 probably defined by expedience rather than by sentimental or aesthetic 
 considerations. 
 
 In 1810, Milner was invited by Dr. Rees to furnish an article on 
 Gothic Architecture for his Encyclopaedia. The research necessary 
 for this purpose led to the publication of a c Treatise on the Ecclesiasti- 
 cal Architecture of England during the Middle Ages,' which appeared 
 in the following year — a scholar-like and interesting work, which it is 
 impossible to peruse without feeling how far its author was in advance 
 of his time, not only as an antiquary, but as a man of taste. To him 
 we are indebted for one of the earliest protests against the injudicious 
 restoration, or rather remodelling, of our ancient cathedrals. The 
 works carried out under Wyatt's professional direction at Durham and 
 at Salisbury had given, as we have seen, great dissatisfaction among 
 the antiquaries of the day. Dr. Milner became their spokesman in a 
 pamphlet entitled ' A Dissertation on the Modern Style of altering 
 Ancient Cathedrals, as exemplified in the Cathedral of Salisbury.' His 
 charges against Wyatt were thus summed up : ' the loss of several 
 
Milner s Attack on Wyatt. 121 
 
 valuable monuments of antiquity ; the violation of the ashes and the 
 memorials of many illustrious personages of former times, and the de- 
 struction of the proportions, and of the due relation of the different 
 parts of the Cathedral.' 
 
 These were serious charges, and that they were made with some acri- 
 mony may be inferred from the fact that the Essay, which was to 
 have been read before the Society of Antiquaries, had to be withdrawn. 
 It was, however, printed in 1798 with the well-known lines from 
 Horace, ' Humano capiti,' &c, significantly prefixed as a motto on the 
 title-page. Whatever opinion we may now form of the justice of Mil- 
 ner's strictures upon Wyatt, it is impossible to help admiring the 
 shrewdness with which they are supported by arguments the very essence 
 of which proves the writer's thorough acquaintance with the leading 
 principles of Mediasval design. Thus, in referring to the so-called 
 c uniformity,' then wrongly considered to be an essential element of 
 Ecclesiastical Architecture, he says : — 
 
 This I have proved to be contrary to the original nature and design of 
 Cathedrals, and likewise to the form in which they are everywhere built. For 
 when the Lady Chapel is let into the Choir of Salisbury Church, does it form 
 one and the same room in conjunction with it ? No more than a small cham- 
 ber does with an adjoining spacious hall when the door of it is left open. And 
 when the transepts are swept clean of their chapels and monuments, and nothing 
 is seen in them but the naked high whitewashed walls, do they assimilate and 
 become uniform with the lengthened halls which these gentlemen are so fond of?. 
 By no means. On the contrary, it is plain that they would destroy them also 
 if it were in their power to do so. 
 
 Milner was well pleased to find that Horace Walpole (then Lord 
 Orford) entirely agreed with him on this point, and had so expressed 
 himself in a letter to Gough, which the author took care to print at the 
 end of his Essay. 
 
 Midway in point of time between Milner and Pugin, and possessing, 
 though in a minor degree, the talents of both, Thomas Rickman, as an 
 
122 Thomas Rickmau. 
 
 architect and author, plays no unimportant part in the history of the 
 Revival. His churches are perhaps the first of that period in which the 
 details of old work were reproduced with accuracy of form. Up to 
 this time antiquaries had studied the principles of Mediaeval architecture, 
 and to some extent classified the phases through which it had passed, 
 while architects had indirectly profited by their labours when endeavour- 
 ing to imitate in practice the works of the Middle Ages. Rickman 
 united both functions in one man. He had examined the best examples 
 of Gothic with the advantage of technical information. He did his 
 best to design it after the advantage of personal study. In the science 
 of his art he will not, of course, bear comparison with Willis. In the 
 analysis of its general principles he must yield to Whevvell. In capa- 
 bility of invention he ranks, even for his time, far below Pugin. But 
 it may be fairly questioned whether; if we consider him in the twofold 
 capacity of a theorist and a practitioner, he did not do greater service 
 to the cause than either his learned contemporaries or his enthusiastic 
 disciple. 
 
 It is probable that what may be called the grammar of Mediaeval 
 architecture interested him more than its constructive problems or its 
 religious associations. With the latter indeed he could have had but 
 little sympathy. As a member of the Society of Friends he must, 
 in the course of his studies, have investigated with mixed feelings the 
 iconography and symbolism of a faith so intimately allied with his 
 beloved Gothic — so distantly removed from the simplicity of his early 
 creed. Whether he laid aside his scruples so far as to bow down (with 
 aesthetic reverence at least) in the House of Rimmon — or whether he 
 sensibly considered that his conscience was not committed by his taste, 
 we need not stop to enquire. Certain it is that Rickman was largely 
 employed by the clergy for ecclesiastical and other works in various 
 parts of England. In Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Preston, Liverpool, 
 Carlisle, and Canterbury, to say nothing of smaller towns and villages, 
 he erected churches. In Northumberland he designed a mansion for 
 
Sf. Georges CJiureli, Birmingham. 123 
 
 Sir E. Blackett ; in Staffordshire another for Miss Herickes. Barfield 
 Lodge, near Bristol, Brunstock House, near Carlisle, and two residences 
 (one for Colin Campbell) in the neighbourhood of Liverpool, were 
 either executed or rebuilt under his instructions. To measure such 
 works as these by the standard of modern taste in Gothic would be 
 obviously unfair. To enter on any detailed account of their design, to 
 attempt to fix their precise position as links in the chain of the Gothic 
 Revival, would be tedious. It suffices to know that Rickman worked 
 according to the light which was in him. It was indeed a light of no 
 great brilliancy, but he turned it to good account, and it served in his 
 day as a beacon to many, who without it would have groped in utter 
 darkness. 
 
 St. George's Church at Birmingham, built in 1822, may be accepted 
 as a fair specimen of Rickman's ability in design. Its style may be 
 described as late Middle Pointed. It consists of a lofty nave, with 
 clerestory, north and south aisles, a square tower at the west, and flanked 
 by porches, and a sort of parvise at the east, connected with the main 
 body of the church by flying buttresses. The window tracery is remark- 
 ably good in motive, but, sad to say, is all executed in cast iron. For 
 this unfortunate solecism various reasons might be assigned, the most 
 probable one being that it was a cheap means of obtaining an effective 
 fenestration. Yet it is remarkable that no other structural meanness is 
 observable in other parts of the building. The walls are of fair thick- 
 ness, stouter indeed than those in some of Pugin's churches. The 
 tower, especially its upper part, is well designed ; and but for the rigidly 
 formal arrangement of its subordinate features, the west end would have 
 been an effective composition. Internally, the nave arches have a 
 bolder span, and the aisle windows are splayed' more deeply than was 
 usual in contemporary work. The roofs of both nave and aisles are 
 flat, and divided by ribs into square panels. It was only in later 
 years that the high pitched and open timber roof was recognised as an 
 essential feature both for internal and external effect. 
 
124 Rickman' s Literary Works. 
 
 The reredos, though of a design which we should now call common- 
 place, is unobjectionable in proportion, and really refined in detail. The 
 introduction of galleries in the aisles was an inevitable concession to the 
 utilitarian spirit of the age. In dealing with them it is, however, only 
 fair to state that Rickman left them independent of the nave arcade, 
 and not as now intruding on it.* 
 
 It would be curious to compare the cost of such a church as this 
 with that of one — one of many hundreds — which has been erected 
 in our own time for a congregation of similar number. If experience 
 has taught the modern architect anything, it ought to have taught him 
 this, that when there is but little money to spare, it should be devoted 
 to stability of construction, to sturdy walls, stout rafters, and efficient 
 workmanship. Judicious proportion and a picturesque distribution of 
 parts will always atone, and more than atone, for the absence of merely 
 decorative features. Fifty years ago this principle was not understood. 
 Walls were reduced to a minimum of thickness, buttresses were 
 pared down to mere pilasters, roof timbers were starved of their just 
 proportions, while the cost saved by this miserable economy was wasted 
 on the loveless carving of empty niches, and redundant pinnacles, with 
 bosses and crockets, multiplied ad nauseam. 
 
 The study of ancient examples was the best remedy for such an 
 egregious error of judgment — an error which Rickman, by his researches 
 rather than by his executed works, contrived to amend. 
 
 In i 819 he published at Liverpool his ( Attempt to Discriminate the 
 Styles of English Architecture' — a little book which undoubtedly did 
 great service both in educating popular taste and in supplying to pro- 
 fessional architects, who had by this time begun to try their 'prentice 
 
 * In the churchyard of St. George, and under the shadow of the building which lie 
 designed, Rickman himself lies buried. A canopied monument of a simple Gothic 
 character, raised by some of his friends and admirers, marks the site of his grave, and a 
 modest inscription, briefly referring to his aim in life, informs us that he died in 1 841, aged 
 sixty-four. 
 
Rick ma lis 'Ancient Examples.' 1 125 
 
 hands at Gothic, a recognised standard by which they could test to some 
 extent the correctness of their designs. In the compilation of its con- 
 tents Rickman was probably indebted in some measure to the labours 
 of his predecessors, but he was the first to turn them to practical 
 advantage. Much had already been written on the subject of Gothic. 
 Endless theories had been propounded as to the origin and develop- 
 ment of style. It was reserved for Rickman to reduce the result of 
 these researches to a systematic and compendious form, and in place of 
 ponderous volumes and foggy speculation, to provide his readers with 
 a cheap and useful handbook. 
 
 It is a remarkable evidence of the inferior place which Mediaeval Art 
 still occupied in public estimation, and of the caution necessary in any 
 departure from the much revered canons of classic taste, that Rickman 
 should have prefaced his book with a formal description of the Five 
 Orders. What possible connection they can have had with c English 
 Architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation ' it is difficult to 
 conceive, and one can only suppose that this first portion of the volume 
 was introduced as a peace-offering to the shade of Vitruvius. 
 
 The main division of periods adopted, if not originated, by Rickman 
 remains unaltered at the present day. The nomenclature of the various 
 parts of a church has been but little modified. The popular error by 
 which Norman work was still supposed to be the work of Saxon archi- 
 tects he pointed out and refuted. In a clear and methodical manner 
 every feature of a Mediaeval building is taken in turn and described 
 under the head of that period with which the author deals in chrono- 
 logical order. The peculiar characteristics of style are thus brought 
 prominently forward and impressed upon the reader's mind. In matters 
 of detail there are, no doubt, many points on which additional light has 
 since been thrown. But a better system of instruction than that which 
 Rickman employed could scarcely have been devised. The engravings 
 which illustrate the text are few and coldly executed, but they serve 
 their purpose. The notes appended to the volume c On Ancient 
 
126 yohn Shaw's Works. 
 
 Examples of Gothic Architecture in England,' must have been most 
 useful at that time as an itinerary to the Architectural student. The 
 work has since passed through several editions, enlarged and revised. 
 
 The fruits of Rickman's labours were gradually manifested in an 
 improvement not only of public taste but also of professional skill. 
 It is probable that many of the then young and rising architects of the 
 day were at least stimulated by his example, even if they did not profit 
 by his research, in the study of Mediaeval art. Among these may be 
 mentioned Shaw, Scoles, Salvin, and Poynter, each of whom played 
 a part, more or less conspicuous, in the history of the Revival. 
 
 Before the first quarter of the present century expired Mr. John 
 Shaw had made some important additions to Christ's Hospital, which, 
 if they did not exactly revive the ancient glory of { Grey Friars,' were 
 by no means contemptible specimens of modern Gothic. He was sub- 
 sequently employed to design the present hall, which is erected partly 
 on the foundations of the ancient refectory and partly on the site of 
 the old city wall. According to the original scheme, it had been pro- 
 posed to convert the old hall into dormitories, but upon examination it 
 proved to be in such a dilapidated state, that it was condemned to de- 
 struction, and indeed a portion of it fell during the progress of the modern 
 building, the foundation-stone of which was laid with much ceremony 
 on April 28, 1825. The interior is of ample dimensions, being 187 feet 
 long by 52 in width and 48 feet high. It has a ceiled roof, of which the 
 main timbers are moulded and decorated with pendants, while the panels 
 are rendered in plaster, coloured in imitation of oak. The hall is 
 lighted on the south side by nine lofty mullioned windows, divided by 
 transoms in the centre. It is remarkable that, although these windows 
 are crowned with four centred arches, the minor lights between the 
 mullions are lancet-pointed. They are filled with stained glass, chiefly 
 heraldic in decoration. The opposite wall is panelled to a height of 
 some twelve feet in deal, grained to look like oak. A wood screen and 
 organ-loft at the east end, and the visitors' gallery at the west, form 
 
Christ 's Hospital. 1 2 7 
 
 picturesque features, and give a certain character to the interior, which, 
 though sadly deficient in refinement of detail, is on the whole effective. 
 The hall is vaulted underneath with flat brick arches, which, where neces- 
 sary — as in the kitchen — are carried on monolith blocks of Dartmoor 
 granite. Neither in the basement nor in any part of the building which 
 is out of public sight were any pains taken to preserve a structural con- 
 sistency of design. The Gothic of that day was, it must be confessed, 
 little better than a respectable deception. It put a good face on its 
 principal elevations, but left underground offices and back premises to 
 take care of themselves. The superficial qualities of the style were 
 imitated with more or less success, but the practical advantages of its 
 adaptation had still to be learned and appreciated. 
 
 The front towards Newgate Street may, in its general proportions, lay 
 claim to architectural effect. Its open cloister, its staircase turrets, its 
 traceried windows, and its battlemented parapet may be described as well- 
 intentioned features in the design, which fails, as many a Gothic design 
 of this period failed, not from a positive misuse of detail either con- 
 structive or ornamental, but from the coarse and clumsy character of 
 its execution. Thus the subdivision of buttresses into two equal parts 
 by a splayed weathering introduced exactly in the centre of their height, 
 the exaggerated projection and deep undercutting of string course 
 mouldings, the employment of large and uniformly sized blocks of 
 stone in the masonry of its walls, are all quite opposed to the spirit of 
 ancient work. Considered separately these mistakes may seem of small 
 importance to the unprofessional critic, who would, perhaps, fail to 
 recognise them as mistakes at all. It is, nevertheless, such points as 
 these which constitute the difference between poor and genuine work. 
 Many an amateur has examined a modern church or group of school 
 buildings, feeling generally dissatisfied with a result which seems — he 
 knows not exactly why — to have missed the spirit of ancient art, while 
 professedly aiming at its conditions. In the majority of such cases it is 
 the details which are at fault, and these are precisely what the uninitiated 
 
1 28 St. Katharines Hospital. 
 
 know nothing about. To this ignorance may be attributed much of 
 the ill-deserved praise and unjust censure which is occasionally bestowed 
 on the designs of modern architects by the public press. The specious 
 attractions of a building remarkable for its size or the profusion of its 
 ornament are loudly recognised, while thoughtful and scholarlike work, 
 if it present itself in a modest form, is passed over as commonplace, or 
 if it be displayed in features which are unfamiliar to a conventional 
 taste, is voted eccentric and even ugly. 
 
 In 1826 St. Katharine's Hospital was begun from the designs of 
 Mr. A. Poynter. The original institution was of great antiquity, and 
 had occupied quarters in the East of London, on a site now occupied 
 by St. Katharine's Docks. When those works were undertaken, it 
 became necessary to remove the Hospital elsewhere, and the present 
 group of buildings was erected in Regent's Park. In plan they are 
 symmetrically disposed round three sides of a small quadrangle. The 
 chapel with its large west window flanked by two lofty octagonal 
 turrets occupies a central position, and is connected with the domestic 
 buildings right and left of it by open screens with Tudor arches. 
 Internally the chapel has a flat ceiled roof of oak and its walls are 
 panelled to a height of some ten feet with the same material. Accord- 
 ing to the fashion of the day, part of the west end of the chapel is 
 screened off to form an entrance porch. The domestic buildings have 
 ordinary low-pitched roofs, mullioned windows and obtuse gabled 
 dormers. The walls are of white brick with stone dressings, the 
 chapel being faced entirely with stone. As a design this work must be 
 judged by the standard of its day, when rigid formality of composition 
 was an inevitable condition of all plans, from a cottage to a palace, and 
 when architects made a little Gothic go very far. The details of St. 
 Katharine's Hospital were very fair for their time, and the carving, 
 especially in some of the decorative panels, exhibits no small advance in 
 design and workmanship. 
 
 Mr. A. Salvin, another architect whose career was destined to be one 
 
The Works of A. Salvin. 129 
 
 of great success, and who, throughout his life, took a conspicuous part 
 in the Revival, came into public notice about this time. He built 
 Moreby Hall, in Yorkshire, for Mr. Henry Preston — a house presenting 
 no remarkable characteristics beyond the evidence which it affords of a 
 gradual return to the manorial Gothic of old English mansions. The 
 windows are square-headed, and are provided with double transoms as 
 well as mullions of stone. The roofs are raised — not, indeed, to the 
 high pitch which should properly belong to the style — but at an angle 
 of about 45 . Chimney shafts, instead of being kept out of sicrht or 
 arranged in symmetrical stacks at each end of the building, are allowed 
 to rise where they are most needed, and being designed in accordance 
 with the rest of the work, become picturesque features in the compo- 
 sition. Servants' offices, instead of being crowded at the back of the 
 house (an almost inevitable condition in the Palladian villa), are planned 
 so as to extend to the right or left in buildings of lesser height, and thus 
 give scale to the principal front. 
 
 The facility with which this kind of domestic Gothic could be 
 adapted to the requirements of any sort of plan, or any size of house 
 which the owner might require, was probably a strong plea in its 
 favour. Even those country squires and landed gentlemen who had 
 affected a taste for classic architecture, began to ask themselves whether 
 the dignity of a Greek portico or an Italian facade was worth the incon- 
 venience which such features were sure to entail on the house at their 
 rear ; whether there was not some greater advantage to be derived from 
 the employment of a style which was not only thoroughly English in 
 character but also permitted every possible caprice regarding the distri- 
 bution of rooms to be freely indulged without detriment to the design. 
 Salvin soon found ample employment for his talents, and it is but 
 fair to add that every work executed under his superintendence shows 
 a steady advance in his knowledge of the style which he had made his 
 special study. Mamhead, the seat of Robert Newman, near Exeter, 
 was begun in 1828, and occupied some years in erection. The size 
 
 * K 
 
130 Dr. WhewelL 
 
 and importance of this mansion, no less than the skill with which, tor 
 that day, it was designed, make it an interesting specimen of revived 
 domestic Gothic. Scotney Castle, in Sussex, was erected some years 
 later, for Mr. Edward Hussey, a gentleman of great taste as an 
 amateur. The building derives its name from an exquisite relic of 
 Mediaeval fortified architecture still standing in the grounds. The 
 modern mansion, for obvious reasons, did not aim at the reproduction of 
 a fourteenth- century stronghold, but it realises many of the picturesque 
 features of a Tudor manor-house. The internal fittings are remarkably 
 good, and reflect great credit on the skill and ingenuity of the designer. 
 
 Scoles was a pupil of Ireland, who, as a Roman Catholic architect, 
 was patronised by Dr. Milner — at that time vicar-apostolic of the 
 Midland District. Ireland built several Roman Catholic Churches, one 
 of the earliest of which was that at Hinckley, in Nottinghamshire. 
 It is probable that for the details of these designs he was indebted to 
 Carter's supervision. Scoles himself designed a church at St. John's 
 Wood, which was afterwards copied at Edgbaston, near Birmingham. 
 The churches of St. Ignatius, at Preston, and St. Peter, at Great 
 Yarmouth, are also specimens — and by no means bad ones — of his 
 Gothic. . But his best works were executed at a later period, which 
 our History has not yet reached. 
 
 In 1832, Rickman, accompanied by his friend Whewell (afterwards 
 the famous master of Trinity), who had already contributed out of his 
 vast and comprehensive store of information some valuable ' notes ' on 
 German Gothic, spent some time in the north of France, and visited the 
 chief cathedral towns in Picardy and Normandy for the purpose of 
 architectural study. On his return, he addressed to the Society of Anti- 
 quaries a series of letters descriptive of his tour. These were afterwards 
 published in the c Archaeologia ' of the Society. It is interesting to 
 think of the simple Quaker and his clever, shrewd-headed companion 
 linked together by a bond of common admiration for Mediaeval Art, 
 and with the same purpose exploring the magnificent relics of ancient 
 
Foreign Gothic. 131 
 
 architecture at Rouen, Abbeville, and Amiens ; sketching, noting, 
 and measuring at Lisieux, Caen, and Coutances. Few objects out of 
 the range of art could thus have brought into close association men of 
 such opposite lives, ambitions, and temperaments. 
 
 The comparison which Rickman drew between the Mediaeval re- 
 mains in France and England have been most useful in determining 
 the history of style and the various influences to which it has been 
 subject. Whewell's notes on the same journey are well known, and 
 afford a remarkable instance of the success with which an amateur, 
 backed by generally scientific education and encouraged by enthusiasm, 
 may investigate and speculate on a subject for the technical details of 
 which he has had no special training. His comparison of French and 
 English ' decorated ' is all the more interesting because the study of 
 continental Gothic has greatly increased of late years, and we have 
 borrowed so much from our neighbours across the Channel, that there 
 was at one time some fear of our losing all national characteristics in 
 modern design. 
 
 Happily a reaction is already taking place. That it will be uni- 
 versal in its effects or exclusive in its tendency need not be feared. But 
 thoughtful men are beginning to feel that the wholesale and sudden 
 importation of a foreign style subject, as it must be, to perversions and 
 misadaptations by the uneducated, will work no good for the national 
 architecture of this country. The changes which mark the progress of 
 that art in past ages have been always gradual, and were brought about 
 not by the whims of individual caprice, but by a concourse of events 
 of which they became a material and lasting record. We must learn to 
 labour and to wait. It will be time enough to think of improving on 
 the taste of our forefathers when we have learned to realise the period 
 of its highest perfection, and when we have identified and rejected those 
 errors which first led to its decline. 
 
 K 2 
 
132 The Pointed ArcJi Question. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 HOSE disinterested outsiders who are content to survey the 
 ' Battle of the Styles ' from neutral ground, would be not a 
 little surprised to find, on closer scrutiny, how much of civil 
 warfare exists on either side. If it were merely a question of Goth 
 against Greek, of arch against lintel, the issue might be dubious, but 
 the cause of strife would be plain and intelligible. As it is, the 
 partisans of Mediaeval art, at least, have been divided against them- 
 selves by constant faction. We have been disputing for upwards of 
 half a century as to what really constitutes the style which we desire to 
 uphold. Its very name is still a vexed question. lf y then, doubts 
 prevail in our own day, with all the light which has been thrown on 
 this much-discussed subject, it is not difficult to imagine the per- 
 plexities which arose in the minds of those who, fifty years ago, in turn 
 assumed the championship of Gothic. The theories then individually 
 propounded, regarding the origin of the style, outnumbered in extent 
 and diversity those which have arisen from time to time about the use 
 of Stonehenge. Some writers ascribed the form of the Pointed arch 
 to the intersection of round arches ; some found a prototype in the 
 interlacing branches of trees ; others recognised in its outline the sacred 
 Vesica ; while a fourth and more romantic kind of speculator insisted 
 that it was but a symbol of the human hands raised upwards in an 
 attitude of prayer ! 
 
 The introduction, or development of the style in this country, 
 became a subject of endless controversy. Evelyn, in a previous age, 
 had not hesitated to express his opinion that ' the Goths and Vandals, 
 
Theories on the Origin of Gothic. 133 
 
 having demolished the Greek and Roman architecture, introduced in its 
 stead a certain fantastical and licentious manner of building, which we 
 have since called modern, or Gothic' Wren endorsed this opinion, 
 and there the matter rested for a while, but in the beginning of this 
 century, various arguments were again rife. The style was Gothic ; it 
 was Saracenic ; it had been brought to England by the crusaders ; it 
 had been invented by the Moors in Spain ; it was an adaptation of the 
 designs of Dioti Salvi ; it might be traced to the pyramids of Egypt. 
 One ingenious theorist endeavoured to reconcile all opinions in his 
 comprehensive hypothesis that c the style of architecture which we call 
 cathedral or monastic Gothic, was manifestly a corruption of the sacred 
 architecture of the Greeks or Romans, by a mixture of the Moorish or 
 Saracenesque, which is formed out of a combination of Egyptian, 
 Persian, and Hindoo ! ' 
 
 The labours of Milner, of Rickman, and of Whewell, helped in 
 their several ways to check the extravagance of these notions, and to 
 dissipate the cloud of doubt and ignorance by which the history of 
 Mediaeval art had been hitherto enveloped. Before their time the taste 
 for Gothic, such as it was, and so far as the general public were con- 
 cerned, had been but a sentiment, chiefly based on the more romantic 
 associations of our national history, and in a few rare instances on a 
 lingering attachment to the faith of our forefathers. The material 
 characteristics of the style had hitherto been examined neither in an 
 artistic nor a practical sense. Even the antiquaries had blundered in 
 their dates and definitions. Those who would form a just estimate of the 
 popular taste for old English Architecture, in the latter part of the last 
 century and in the beginning of the present, need only examine any of 
 the so-called Gothic buildings of that period to perceive the utter want 
 of discrimination which then existed, not only regarding what may be 
 called the unities of the style, but also regarding the use and just pro- 
 portion of its most accentuated features. In those days a pointed arch 
 was a pointed arch* The position of the centres from which it was 
 
134 Modern Gothic Sculpture. 
 
 struck, the profile of the mouldings by which it was enriched, the 
 depth of wall in which it was inserted, were matters of little moment. 
 In like manner the buttress and the pinnacle were introduced here and 
 there, with little reference to their structural service, and with certainly 
 no regard for their artistic form. One of the chief glories of old 
 northern buildings, as Mr. Ruskin has justly pointed out, had been the 
 high pitched roof. This was a feature which especially suffered in 
 treatment during the decline of Gothic in Tudor days, when its 
 angle was allowed to become more and more obtuse. In the earliest 
 days of the Revival it was held of no importance whatever, and was 
 frequently so flat as to be concealed by the parapet of the building 
 which it covered. 
 
 But in no particular was the Gothic of our grandfathers' time more 
 singularly deficient than in the character of its carved work and orna- 
 mental detail. A general impression seemed to exist that although the 
 decorative sculpture of the classic schools could be measured by some 
 standard of taste, and was suggestive of graceful form either animate or 
 conventional, Mediaeval sculpture on the contrary could aim at no such 
 ideal, but was expressly suited to embody the wildest conceptions of 
 definite ugliness. There is no more melancholy page in the history of 
 art than that which records the wretched attempts at Gothic carving 
 which were executed fifty or sixty years ago. Ignorance itself affords 
 no apology for such work. Incapacity can scarcely excuse it. The 
 bosses, the corbels, the niched figures, the gargoyles which in a 
 thousand varying forms testified in turn the sense of beauty, the vene- 
 ration, the love of nature and the ready wit of our ancestors, were still 
 in existence, and might have served as models but for the egregious 
 vanity of the diy. King George's loyal subjects thought they knew 
 better than those of King Edward. So they went to work and left 
 us specimens of their handicraft, the like of which civilised Christendom 
 never saw before, and it is to be devoutly trusted will never behold 
 again. Beautiful no one expected it to be. But it also was not 
 
Classification of Styles. 135 
 
 clever ; it was not interesting ; it was not life-like ; it was not humor- 
 ous ; it was not even ugly after a good honest fashion — it was deplor- 
 ably and hopelessly mean. 
 
 The truth is, that up to this period no one had made a special study 
 of the details of Gothic architecture because no one knew how to begin 
 to study them. Professional architects, with a few exceptions, would 
 have ridiculed the attempt. Amateurs who essayed found themselves 
 perplexed by apparent incongruities in the style. After a careful 
 perusal of the works of Chambers they could readily distinguish the 
 Doric order from the Ionic order, the Ionic from the Corinthian, but 
 when they explored our cathedrals, the gradual erection of which 
 extended over centuries of time, an endless variety of types presented 
 themselves in illustration of the same feature. Some columns were 
 round ; others were octagonal ; others were moulded. Some arches 
 were semicircular ; others were acutely pointed ; others were flat. 
 The groined roofs and porches, the window tracery and door- 
 mouldings, were continually differing in form, in character, and pro- 
 portion. How much of this variety was due to caprice or individual 
 taste, and how much to change of style ? What rules of art could be 
 applied to such architecture, and how was the student to trace its 
 progress and development ? 
 
 A solution to these questions was at length supplied by three men in 
 utterly distinct positions of life, who, without acting in concert, and indeed 
 without agreeing in points of detail, managed between them to lay the 
 foundation for a methodical study of Mediaeval buildings. One touch of 
 nature makes the whole world kin. One aim in art had enlisted the 
 contemporary services or. a Roman Catholic bishop, a professional 
 Quaker, and a Cambridge don. 
 
 The antiquaries and dilettanti of the day could perhaps learn but 
 little new from their researches, but the architects and the general public 
 could learn a great deal, and by degrees they learned it. For the 
 vague and, originally, contemptuous name of c Gothic,' the words 
 
136 Ecclcsiological Studies. 
 
 * Pointed Style ' were occasionally substituted. Amateurs began to 
 discriminate between early English, Decorated, and Tudor architecture ; 
 and the choir of Canterbury Cathedral, the nave of York, and Henry 
 the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster, each had its admirers. Attention 
 was for the first time called to the important and distinctive character 
 maintained by mouldings. The design of windows was studied with 
 more care, and it was ascertained by comparison how * plate ' tracery 
 had developed into geometrical patterns ; geometrical had been beguiled 
 into c flowing ' lines, and how the last had degenerated into * Perpen- 
 dicular.' 
 
 The various parts of a church, and the several uses to which they 
 were assigned, were recognised and explained. The tower, the porch, 
 the buttress, and the parapet, all afforded evidence in their general form 
 or decorative detail of the period when they had been designed. In- 
 ternally the groined vault and timber roof, the choir screen and sculp- 
 tured corbel, were examined not only for their artistic value, but as a 
 means of proving the date of the building to which they belonged. It 
 was gradually discovered that there was such a thing as a principle of 
 design in Gothic, that the quaint or graceful features which distin- 
 guished it were invented or fashioned with a purpose and were not the 
 mere picturesque inventions of a random fancy. 
 
 These researches and convictions soon led to a more scientific classifi- 
 cation of style than had hitherto prevailed. 
 
 Milner had been brought up as all amateurs of architecture then 
 were, with a faith in the Orders which he could not entirely abjure. 
 He did not indeed attempt, like Batty Langley, to modify the details 
 of Gothic architecture, so as to conform with this division, but he gave 
 his readers distinctly to understand that if there were three separate 
 types of classic column and entablature with their respective members, 
 ornaments, and proportions, so there existed among the buildings of the 
 Middle Ages a similar and easily recognisable division into first, second, 
 and third Pointed Styles. This division, which has long since been 
 
Proprieties of Design. 137 
 
 universally adopted in the art nomenclature of this country, was of great 
 service in helping designers at an early period of the Revival to avoid 
 anachronisms in the imitation of ancient work. But like all results of 
 antiquarian research, it has had its drawbacks as well as its advantages 
 in the development of modern taste. 
 
 For years afterwards a sort of chronological propriety hampered the 
 inventive faculties of men. As the study of ancient examples pro- 
 gressed, and architects became more and more accustomed to associate 
 certain features with a certain epoch, they came to believe less in the 
 spirit than in the letter of Gothic. They sat down to design a 
 f decorated ' church, because, perhaps, the windows of that style admit- 
 ted more light than the windows of an earlier period, but in doing so 
 they felt compelled to adopt in their tracery the meretricious faults of 
 the later style ; they hesitated to exchange the complex mouldings and 
 trivial foliage of the one for the bold arch-soffit and noble capitals of 
 the other, lest their work should be called incongruous. The so-called 
 Tudor style had many advantages for domestic buildings. It had also 
 some artistic and constructive defects. But because architects in that 
 age had adopted a weak form of arch, and an ugly type of dripstone, 
 the architects of the Gothic Revival reproduced both in their new 
 churches and manor-houses — out of pure respect for tradition. At 
 last it seemed necessary to find a precedent for every detail, and, to 
 quote the humorous hyperbole uttered by a well-known member of the 
 profession, no one was safe from critics, who knew to a nicety the 
 orthodox coiffure of a thirteenth-century angel, and who damned a 
 moulding that was half an hour too late. 
 
 Pugin himself designed furniture which was intended to be in keeping 
 with the later additions to Windsor Castle, but which he lived to 
 pronounce a mistake. He was, however, like a true genius, always in 
 advance of his age, and it may with truth be said, in spite of the dis- 
 paragement which has since been passed on his works, that if he had 
 lived to accomplish the reformation he so gallantly began, he would 
 
138 B lores Early Life. 
 
 have been reckoned among the foremost architects of the present 
 day. 
 
 There remains, however, a short period to consider before Pugin 
 became known to fame. In that period, many men who were either 
 his elders, or had better opportunities than himself to establish a prac- 
 tice, achieved a notoriety which, if less splendid, was more profitable 
 than his own. Among these was Edward Blore, who was born 
 towards the close of the last century. According to Britton, Mr. Blore 
 might date his knowledge of architecture from the year 1816, when he 
 made an elaborate section of the east end of Winchester Cathedral. 
 He had, however, no regular education as an architect, and was 
 about thirty years old before he began to practise. His father was 
 an antiquary of some note, and probably encouraged the taste for 
 drawing which young Blore, at an early age, began to evince. The 
 sketches of monuments, etc., which he made as a boy were carefully 
 outlined and shaded with Indian ink. In point of accuracy they have 
 been compared to photographs. He was apprenticed to an engraver, 
 and rapidly made progress in the art which he afterwards turned to 
 such good account. For some time he was actively employed as a 
 draughtsman, and an engraver of architectural drawings. About the 
 year 1822 the Rev. T. F. Dibdin published his c JEdes Althorpianas,' 
 for which Blore supplied the illustrations. It was probably this 
 accident which brought him into connection with the Spencer family, 
 and thus formed the basis of an acquaintance which proved eminently 
 useful to him in after life. 
 
 In 1823 he made an excursion into the North of England, for the 
 purpose of collecting materials for a work which he brought out in 
 parts, the whole volume being completed in 1826. It was entitled the 
 ' Monumental Remains of Noble and Eminent Persons,' comprising 
 the sepulchral antiquities of Great Britain, with historical and biogra- 
 phical illustrations, by the Rev. Philip Bliss, D.C.L. Mr. Blore was 
 by this time so well known as to be made a fellow of the Society of 
 
B lores 'Monumental Remains.' 139 
 
 Antiquaries. All the illustrations were drawn, and many of them 
 engraved, by himself. Le Keux undertook the rest. In point of 
 execution these engravings will bear comparison with any which have 
 been published in England, before or since. They are thirty in 
 number. The accompanying letterpress is, as the title set forth, rather 
 a biographical sketch of the heroes whom the monuments commemo- 
 rate, than a description of the monuments themselves. A flattering 
 notice of the first number appeared in the c Gentleman's Magazine ' for 
 1824, but the critic, evidently being under the impression that both 
 letterpress and illustrations were Mr. Blore's work, finds fault with 
 the memoir of the Black Prince, who is represented, by a common 
 error, to have derived his sobriquet from the colour of his armour. 
 
 The c Gentleman's Magazine ' spoke with authority on such points, 
 for in those days it was almost the only periodical in which the arts 
 were duly represented. It was the c Art Journal ' — the c Building 
 News ' — the c Notes and Queries ' of its time. It registered all the 
 metropolitan improvements — described the new churches — chronicled 
 all the archaeological discoveries — gave the latest literary gossip of the 
 day, and, though it was not blind to the merits of Classic art, it steadily 
 and faithfully recorded the progress of the Gothic Revival. The 
 critiques on public buildings are spiritedly written, and though their 
 phraseology betrays to modern ears an ignorance of technicalities, they 
 are often just and discriminating in theory. 
 
 In 1826 Mr. Blore was appointed surveyor to Westminster Abbey, 
 and shortly afterwards, in his professional capacity, discovered that the 
 roof of the case in which the wax figures of Queen Anne, the Earl of 
 Chatham, and the other effigies commonly known as the ' ragged regi- 
 ment ' were then placed, bore marks of ancient decoration. He had it 
 removed, and examined it carefully. It turned out to be one of the 
 rarest and most valuable specimens of early painting extant. Blore 
 had a double reason for protecting it. Westminster was not then, as 
 now, guarded by circumspect vergers, who are stimulated to additional 
 
140 B lores Professional Works. 
 
 vigilance by the sixpences of the faithful. There was scarce a monu- 
 ment in the place which had not suffered from ruthless violence, for at 
 that time or not long before the choristers made a playground of the 
 venerable abbey, and the Westminster scholars played at hockey in the 
 cloisters. In the following year Mr. Blore read a paper on the subject of 
 his discovery before the Society of Antiquaries. About this time, 
 through some mistake, he got the credit of having executed the exten- 
 sive repairs of Winchester Cathedral, which, however, were carried out 
 by Mr. Garbett, a local architect, who designed the episcopal throne 
 there among other fittings. The design of the organ case had been 
 entrusted to Mr. Blore in 1824. In 1827 we find the latter gentleman 
 alluded to as * the eminent architect,' and engaged to furnish plans for 
 the chancel fittings of Peterborough. Shortly afterwards he was em- 
 ployed to restore Lambeth Palace, then in a state of semi-ruin. It had 
 been three times destroyed and rebuilt. Mr. Blore found it necessary to 
 remove some of the walls, which had literally decayed from age, but 
 one of the principal roofs — that which now spans the dining-room — was 
 preserved. The chamber known as Old Juxon's Hall was converted 
 into a library, the old library having been pulled down. The * new ' 
 palace extends eastward from the tower, which joins the chapel, and is 
 for the most part on the site of the old building. Near the hall (or 
 new library), and over a modern gateway, was constructed a fire-proof 
 room for the preservation of manuscripts and archives. 
 
 Among Mr. Blore's other works were an Elizabethan Town Hall at 
 Warminster ; Goodrich Court, on the Wye, for Mr. Samuel Meyrick ; 
 Crewe Hall ; Pull Court, Gloucestershire ; the Chapel of Marlborough 
 College, Wilts ; Worsley Hall, for Lord Ellesmere ; and Moreton 
 Hall. He also designed churches at Stratford and Leytonstone, the 
 Pitt Press at Cambridge, and additions to Merton College, Oxford. 
 The repairs of Glasgow Cathedral were likewise carried out under his 
 superintendence, as well as certain improvements at Windsor Castle ; 
 and, before Sir Charles Barry was employed at Cauford (near Win- 
 
y antes Savage. 141 
 
 bourne), the works there were entrusted to Mr. Blore. His restora- 
 tions at Westminster Abbey, though wanting in life and vigour, abound 
 in careful detail. This was, in short, his great forte. He had studied 
 and drawn detail so long and zealously that its design came quite 
 naturally to him, and in this respect he was incomparably superior to his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 As a typical building of the prae-Puginesque period, St. Luke's 
 Church at Chelsea, designed by Savage in 1824, must not be forgotten. 
 Indeed, its cost, its size, and construction place it in the foremost rank 
 of contemporary Gothic examples. It was raised at an outlay of 40,000/. 
 to accommodate a congregation of 2,500 persons, and it was probably 
 the only church of its time in which the main roof was groined through- 
 out in stone. The plan, arranged with that rigid formality which was 
 the fashion of the day, consists of a lofty nave with clerestory and 
 triforium niches, north and south aisles, a western tower and narthex, 
 and a low square vestry which projects from the east end. The general 
 style of the design is Perpendicular, though the groining and certain 
 details have an earlier character. The window heads are rilled with 
 tracery and enclosed within a four-centred arch of somewhat ungainly 
 curve. The tower has octagonal turrets at each angle, which termi- 
 nate in pinnacles of open stonework. The porch, which extends the 
 whole width of the west front, is divided by piers and arches into five 
 bays, of which two are on either side of the tower, while the fifth and 
 central one is formed by the lowest story of the tower itself, vaulted 
 over inside, and decorated externally by a cusped and crocketed 
 canopy. Flying buttresses, to resist the thrust of the groining, span 
 the aisles on either side, and divide them externally into a series 
 of bays. 
 
 In examining such a structure as this, which includes in its design 
 every feature necessary and usual for its purpose ; which is ample 
 in its dimensions and sound in its workmanship ; on which an excep- 
 tionally large sum of money was expended, but which is, nevertheless, 
 
142 St. Lukes Church, Chelsea. 
 
 mean and uninteresting in its general effect, it is well to put oneself in 
 the position of an intelligent amateur, who, feeling it to be a failure 
 from an artistic point of view, desires to know what special faults have 
 contributed to this result, and why, individually, they should be con- 
 sidered faults at all. To such an enquiry, it may be briefly answered 
 that the prominent blunders in this design are an unfortunate lack of 
 proportion, a culpable clumsiness of detail, and a foolish, overstrained 
 balance of parts. 
 
 The want of proportion is eminently noticeable in the lanky arches 
 of the west porch, "with their abrupt ogival hood moulding ; in the 
 buttresses, which are divided by their c set-offs ' into two long and 
 equal heights ; in the windows, which are identical in general outline 
 throughout the church ; in the octagonal turrets of the tower, where 
 the nine string courses occur at scrupulously regular intervals all the 
 way up; and, finally, in the masonry of the walls, where large blocks 
 of stone are used in uninterrupted courses, scarcely varying in height 
 from base to parapet. 
 
 All these accidents combine not only to deprive the building of 
 scale, but to give it a cold and machine made look. In a far different 
 spirit the Mediaeval designers worked. Their buttresses were stepped in 
 unequal lengths, the set-offs becoming more frequent and more accen- 
 tuated towards the foundation. Their string courses were introduced as 
 leading lines in the design, and were not ruled in with the accuracy of 
 an account book ; their windows were large or small as best befitted the 
 requirements of internal lighting ; their walls were coursed irregularly, 
 the smaller stones being used for broad surfaces, and the larger ones 
 reserved for quoins and the jambs of doors and windows. 
 
 It is less easy to define in words the crude vulgarity of detail 
 which pervades this church, but no one who examines with attention the 
 character — if character it may be called — of the carved work, can fail 
 to perceive the absence of vitality it exhibits in the crockets and finials 
 which are supposed to adorn its walls. No educated stone carver 
 
Formality of Design. 143 
 
 employed on decorative features would care to reproduce the actual 
 forms of natural vegetation for such a purpose, but in his conventional 
 representation of such forms he would take pains to suggest the vigour 
 and individuality of his model. Fifty years ago this principle was 
 almost ignored. There was naturalistic carving, and there was 
 ornamental carving ; but the noble abstractive treatment which should 
 find a middle place between them, and which was one of the glories of 
 ancient art, had still to be revived. 
 
 The third and perhaps the most flagrant fault in this building — a 
 fault which Savage as a designer shared with many of his contem- 
 poraries — is the cold formality of its arrangement. It seems astonishing 
 that one of the essential graces of Mediaeval architecture, that uneven 
 distribution of parts which is at once necessary to convenience, and the 
 cause of picturesque composition, should have been so studiously 
 avoided at this time. Whether it resulted from mere want of inventive 
 faculty in design, or from an unfortunate adherence to the grim pro- 
 prieties of a pseudo- classic taste for which eurythmia is indispensable in 
 
 places where 
 
 each alley has a brother, 
 
 And half the platform just reflects the other, 
 
 can scarcely be determined. But certain it is that nine-tenths of the 
 so-called Gothic buildings raised before Pugin's days were designed on 
 this plan, and that an architect would no more have thought of intro- 
 ducing a porch on the south aisle which had not its counterpart on the 
 north, than he would have dared to wear a coat of which the right 
 sleeve was longer than the left. 
 
 There are, however, some redeeming points about St. Luke's Church. 
 The upper part of the tower, though foolishly over-panelled, is good 
 in its general proportions. The same may be said of the octagonal 
 turrets at the east end. The groining of the nave is really excellent, 
 for its time, and is all the more remarkable, when we remember the 
 wretched shams by which such work was then too frequently bur- 
 
144 Redeeming Points. 
 
 lesqued. The reredos, though designed on a principle which would 
 render it unsuitable for the present requirements of church architecture, 
 is, for its date, by no means contemptible ; and as for the galleries — 
 fatal as they are to any attempt at internal effect — and redundant as 
 everyone but the mere utilitarian will consider them — we must remem- 
 ber that many churches of later date, and far more pretentious in 
 character, have maintained such features with far less excuse and under 
 more enlightened conditions. 
 
A. N. IVelby Pugiu. 145 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OWEVER much we may be indebted to those ancient sup- 
 porters of Pointed Architecture who, faithfully adhering to 
 its traditions at a period when the style fell into general dis- 
 use, strove earnestly, and in some instances ably, to preserve its cha- 
 racter ; whatever value in the cause we may attach to the crude and 
 isolated examples of Gothic which belong to the eighteenth century, or 
 to the efforts of such men as Nash and Wyatt, there can be little doubt 
 that the revival of Mediaeval design received its chief impulse in our 
 own day from the energy and talents of one architect whose name 
 marks an epoch in the history of British art, which, while art exists at 
 all, can never be forgotten. 
 
 Augustus Northmore Welby Pugin was born on March 1, 18 12, at 
 a house in Store Street, Bedford Square. His father, as is well known, 
 had been a French refugee, who, during the horrors of the revolution 
 in his own country, escaped to England, and obtained employment in 
 the office of Mr. Nash, then one of the most celebrated and successful 
 architects of his day. Nash was not slow to perceive the bent of his 
 assistant's talents, and advised the young Frenchman to begin a series 
 of studies illustrative of English Gothic — with a view to publication. 
 Some of these sketches were picturesquely treated, and of sufficient 
 merit to cause Pugin's election as a member of the old Water Colour 
 Society, in 1808. But it was by his later and more strictly professional 
 works that the elder Pugin first established a reputation. His ' Speci- 
 mens of Gothic Architecture ' in England and his c Antiquities of Nor- 
 mandy ' have been already mentioned. In addition to these, he pub- 
 
 L 
 
146 Pugiris Early Life. 
 
 lished ' The Edifices of London,' in two volumes ; ' Examples of Gothic 
 Architecture,' quarto, 1831 ; 'Ornamental Timber Gables,' &c. 
 
 Of professional practice the elder Pugin had very little, and it is 
 remarkable that, of his many pupils, but few have followed the profes- 
 sion for which they were intended. There were, however, some excep- 
 tions, among whom may be mentioned Sir James Pennethorne, late 
 Surveyor to the Office of Works, Talbot Bury, and B. Ferrey, who 
 was destined to become the biographer of the younger and more famous 
 Pugin. The latter was educated at Christ's Hospital, where he 
 showed at an early age great aptitude for learning. Even as 
 a child, we are told, he was quick in all that he attempted, and ex- 
 pressed his opinions with a confidence which certainly did not abate in 
 later life. After leaving school, young Pugin entered his father's office, 
 where the natural facility of his hand for sketching soon declared itself. 
 He passed through the usual elementary course of study in his pro- 
 fession, learnt perspective, and at once began to make drawings in 
 Westminster Abbey. 
 
 About the year 1825, the elder Pugin went with some of his pupils 
 to Paris, for the purpose of preparing a series of views illustrative of 
 that city. His son, then a mere boy, accompanied him, and made such 
 good use of his pencil that he was of real service to his father. In 
 July, 1826, young Pugin and Mr. B. Ferrey visited Rochester, where 
 they made many sketches of the Castle — the former carrying his re- 
 searches so far as to take an accurate survey of the foundations. In 
 the prosecution of this work he was more ardent than discreet, and 
 twice narrowly escaped with life the consequences of his temerity. 
 
 In 1827, he again accompanied his father on a professional tour in 
 France, and gratified his now rapidly developing taste for Mediaeval 
 art by visiting the splendid Churches of Normandy. Up to this time 
 his dislike to sedentary pursuits, and the dry routine of an architect's 
 office, had prevented his entering on any practical work. The first 
 employment which he received independent of his father appears to 
 
Pugin's Theatrical Tastes. 147 
 
 have been from Messrs. Rundell and Bridge, the well-known gold- 
 smiths. A member of that firm, while engaged in examining some 
 ancient designs for plate in the British Museum, had observed young 
 Pugin copying a print from Albert Durer, and soon became aware of 
 his taste for Mediaeval art. The lad's services were secured forthwith, 
 and some clever designs resulted from the commission. Shortly after- 
 wards Messrs. Morel and Seddon, the King's upholsterers, applied to 
 Mr. Pugin for his professional assistance in preparing drawings for the 
 new furniture at Windsor Castle, which had been entrusted to their 
 care, and which it was determined should partake of the ancient cha- 
 racter of that building. This was an excellent opportunity for the 
 display of young Pugin's abilities, and, though he afterwards frankly 
 admitted the errors of his youthful effort, it is probable that at the 
 time the designs were made, no better could have been procured. 
 
 During the progress of the works at Windsor, Pugin formed the 
 acquaintance of Mr. George Dayes, a son of the artist of that name. 
 This man occupied a humble position in the management of the scenery 
 at Covent Garden Theatre. To a boy of fifteen who had never yet 
 seen a play, the description of stage effects and scenery offered great 
 attractions. At last his curiosity was gratified. He was introduced to 
 the mysterious littk world beyond the footlights — learned the art of 
 distemper painting, and when the new opera of c Kenilworth ' was 
 produced in 1831, and it was required to produce something like a 
 faithful representation of Mediaeval architecture, young Pugin designed 
 the scenes. During the period of this connection, and partly to aid 
 him in his study of effect, he fitted up a model theatre at his father's 
 house, where all the tricks and appliances of the real stage were in- 
 geniously mimicked. 
 
 His tastes in this direction were but transient, and he was next 
 possessed by an extraordinary passion for a- maritime life. To the 
 great distress of his father he actually commanded for a short while a 
 small merchant schooner which traded between this country and Hol- 
 
 L 2 
 
148 Commercial Ventures. 
 
 land. In addition to the little freight, for the convoy of which 
 Pugin was responsible, he managed to bring over some interesting 
 specimens of old furniture and carving from Flanders, which afterwards 
 helped to fill his museum at Ramsgate. In one of these cruises he was 
 wrecked on the Scotch coast near Leith — a temporary misfortune, 
 which he had no reason to regret, for it brought him into contact with 
 Mr. Gillespie Graham, an Edinburgh architect of some repute, who, 
 doubtless knowing his father's name, and perceiving the ability of 
 young Pugin, recommended him to give up his seafaring hobby and 
 stick to his profession — a piece of sound advice, which the young man 
 had good sense enough to follow. 
 
 At this time, though many architects had adopted Mediaeval archi- 
 tecture in their designs, few were acquainted with Gothic detail, and 
 young Pugin's studies in that direction thus rendered him extremely 
 useful to many who were glad to avail themselves of his services. Not 
 content, however, with this secondhand employment, he embarked in 
 sundry speculations by which he undertook to supply carved work in 
 stone and wood to those who required it for the ornamental portion of 
 their works. But his inexperience in the varying price of labour and 
 material soon brought him into pecuniary difficulties, and, but for the 
 assistance of his relations, he would have been imprisoned for debt. 
 This failure showed him the importance of adhering exclusively to the 
 profession for which he had been educated, and to which thenceforth he 
 turned his serious attention. That he must have realised some money 
 by its practice is pretty evident from the fact that, while still a minor, 
 he married in 1831 Miss Garnet, a grand niece of Dayes, the artist, 
 who has been already mentioned. His first wife (for he married three 
 times) unfortunately died in childbirth, and a few years afterwards 
 Pugin built himself a house near Salisbury, in the style to which he was 
 so much attached. It was, however, far inferior to his later works, and 
 he had not yet learned the art of combining a picturesque exterior with 
 the ordinary comforts of an English home. 
 
Scarisbyick Hall. 149 
 
 It was during his residence at St. Marie's Grange that he began to 
 inveigh so bitterly against the barbarisms which were still practised by 
 the introduction of hideous pagan monuments into our noble cathedrals 
 and churches, and which he afterwards exposed more systematically in 
 his published works. He made a tour for the purpose of inspecting the 
 principal examples of Mediaeval architecture in the west, and improved 
 his taste by constant study. In the meantime he had married again. 
 His second wife does not appear to have been pleased with his resi- 
 dence. At all events, Pugin, who had expended upwards of 2,000/. 
 on the house, made up his mind to sell it at a great sacrifice. It 
 only fetched 500/. He had now a gradually increasing practice, his 
 principal work at the time being Scarisbrick Hall, Lancashire, an 
 interesting example of domestic Gothic, in which the lofty clock-tower 
 forms a graceful and picturesque feature. 
 
 Pugin's father and mother died in 1832-3, and by their death he 
 succeeded to some property which had belonged to his aunt, Miss 
 Welby. His secession from the Church of England had meanwhile 
 been an important event in his life. The causes which led to a 
 change of his religious convictions, and the controversies which then 
 arose, not only between members of the Anglican and Roman 
 branches of the Church Catholic, but among those who belonged to 
 the communion he embraced, have been amply discussed elsewhere. 
 That he was sincere in his change of faith, and that it was the result 
 of more serious considerations than those associated with the art which 
 he practised, no one can, charitably, doubt. On the other hand, it must 
 be admitted that the importance then attached to certain proprieties 
 of ecclesiastical furniture and decorations has been vastly overrated on 
 both sides. 
 
 In 1836 Pugin published his celebrated f Contrasts,' a pungent satire 
 on modern architecture as compared with that of the Middle Ages. 
 The illustrations which accompanied it were drawn and etched by him- 
 self, and afford evidence not only of great artistic power, but of a 
 
150 Pugin's Literary Works. 
 
 keen sense of humour. To the circulation of this work — coloured 
 though it may be by a strong theological bias — we may attribute the 
 care and jealousy with which our ancient churches and cathedrals have 
 since been protected and kept in repair. For such a result, who would 
 not overlook many faults, which, after all, had no worse origin than in 
 the earnest zeal of a convert ? 
 
 In 1832, Pugin had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of 
 the Earl of Shrewsbury, who, not only from his high rank, but from 
 his attachment to the Church of Rome, and to Pugin's own views re- 
 garding art, proved to him a most valuable patron. This nobleman at 
 once employed him in the alterations and additions to his residence — 
 Alton Towers, which subsequently led to many other commissions. 
 
 The success attending Pugin's publication of the * Contrasts ' induced 
 him, in 1 841, to bring out his * True Principles of Gothic Architecture,' 
 the title of which has since passed almost into a proverb among the 
 friends of that style. c An Apology for the Revival of Christian Archi- 
 tecture in England,' followed in 1843, an< ^ m J ^44 appeared c The 
 Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume,' compiled and 
 illustrated from ancient authorities and examples. The influence of 
 this work, as Mr. Ferrey truly remarks, upon polychromatic decoration 
 in our churches has been immense. Among Pugin's other literary 
 productions are ' The present state of Ecclesiastical Architecture in 
 England,' reprinted from the f Dublin Review,' 1843; 'Floriated 
 Ornament, a series of thirty-one designs,' 1849; 'Some Remarks on 
 the Articles which have recently appeared in the " Rambler," relative to 
 Ecclesiastical Architecture and Decoration,' 1850. In the same year he 
 published ' The Present State of Public Worship among the Roman 
 Catholics,' by a Roman Catholic; and in 185 1 appeared his 'Treatise 
 on Chancel Screens and Rood Lofts, their antiquity, use, and symbolic 
 signification,' a work in which certain theories were advanced that called 
 forth much warm discussion among ecclesiologists. 
 
 In 1841 Pugin left Salisbury and came to London, where he resided 
 
Pugin' s Tony in Italy. 151 
 
 for some time at Cheyne Walk, Chelsea ; but having previously pur- 
 chased ground at the West Cliff", Ramsgate, he not only built for 
 himself a large and commodious house on that site, but began at his own 
 expense a church, which advanced from time to time, as he could 
 best spare the means from his yearly income. In 1844 he became 
 again a widower. His wife was buried at St. Chads, Birmingham, a 
 church which he had himself designed. Lord Shrewsbury showed his 
 respect and affection for Pugin by attending the funeral. This severe 
 loss was all the more to be deplored, because Pugin had at this time 
 reached the zenith of his professional fame. After remaining a widower 
 for five years, he married lastly Miss Knill, a lady of good family. 
 
 In 1847 ne ma de a tour in Italy, and his antipathy to Italian Archi- 
 tecture was in no wise lessened by his visit to Rome, from which place 
 he wrote home in utter disgust with St. Peter's — with the Sistine 
 Chapel — with the Scala Regia, and most of the architectural ( lions ' 
 which the ordinary traveller feels bound to admire. The Mediaeval 
 art of North Italy, however, rilled him with admiration, and confirms 
 the general opinion that, had he lived to see the present aspect of the 
 Gothic Revival, he would have gone with the stream in regard to 
 the character of his design. 
 
 In estimating the effect which Pugin's efforts, both as an artist and 
 an author produced on the Gothic Revival, the only danger lies in the 
 possibility of overrating their worth. The man whose name was for at 
 least a quarter of a century a household word in every house where 
 ancient art was loved and appreciated — who fanned into a flame the 
 smouldering fire of ecclesiastical sentiment which had been slowlv 
 kindled in this country — whose very faith was pledged to Mediaeval 
 tradition — such a writer and such an architect will not easily be forgotten, 
 so long as the aesthetic principles which he advocated are recognised 
 and maintained. 
 
 But it must not be overlooked that the tone cf his literary work is 
 biassed throughout, and to some extent weakened, first by an absolute 
 
152 Character of Pugin's Designs. 
 
 assumption on the part of its author that the moral and social condi- 
 tion of England was infinitely superior in the Middle Ages to that of 
 the present, and secondly that a good architect ought to inaugurate his 
 professional career by adopting the faith of the Roman Catholic 
 Church. Such convictions as these are excusable in the mind of a 
 zealous convert, but they have no legitimate place in the polemics 
 of art. 
 
 Again, as a practical architect, it can scarcely be said that Pugin 
 always followed in the spirit of his work the principles which he was 
 never tired of reiterating in print. If there is one characteristic more 
 apparent than auther in the buildings of our ancestors it is the ample 
 and generous m inner in which they dealt with constructive materials. 
 But Pugin's church walls are often miserably slight, his roof timbers 
 thin, his mouldings poor and wiry. It may be urged — and, indeed, 
 was more than once urged by himself — that the restriction of cost had 
 often affected to considerable disadvantage the execution of his design. 
 
 To this it must be answered that stability of workmanship is a 
 primary condition of architectural excellence, and that in the same 
 churches which exhibit these defects there is an unnecessary and even 
 profuse display of ornament. The money lavished on elaborate carving 
 in wood and stone, on painting and gilding work which had better 
 in many instances have been left without this adventitious mode of - 
 enrichment, would often have been more advantageously spent in adding a 
 foot to the thickness of his walls and doubling the width of his rafters. 
 The fact is, that the very nature of Pugin's chief ability tended to 
 lead him into many errors. Of constructive science he probably knew 
 but little. His strength as an artist lay in the design of ornamental 
 detail. The facility with which he invented patterns for mural diapers, 
 and every kind of surface decoration, was extraordinary. Those deco- 
 rative features which with many an architect are the result of thoughtful 
 study were co.iceivtd and drawn by him with a rapidity which as- 
 tonished his professional friends. During the erection of the Houses of 
 
Pugiris Facility of Invention. 153 
 
 Parliament, and while his services were engaged to assist Mr. Barry, 
 he dashed off, with a ready fancy and dexterous pencil, hundreds of 
 sketches which were frequently wanted on the spot, and at a short 
 notice, for the guidance of workmen. Indeed, even his more important 
 designs were remarkable for their hasty execution, and were rarely 
 finished after the fashion of an ordinary f working drawing.' To 
 record on paper his notion of a church tower, or the plan of a new con- 
 vent, was with him — if a labour at all — a labour of love.* But the 
 production of ornament he treated as mere child's play. 
 
 It is, therefore, no wonder that his artistic genius should have been 
 often beguiled into an elaboration of details of which his memory 
 supplied an inexhaustible store, and which his hand was ever ready to 
 delineate. The carver, the cabinet maker, the silversmith who sought 
 his assistance, or whose work he was called on to superintend, might 
 reckon with safety on the rich fertility of his inventive power, and in 
 truth Pugin's influence on the progress of art manufacture may be 
 described as more remarkable than his skill as an architect. For the 
 revival of Mediaeval taste in stained glass and metal work we are 
 indebted to his association with Messrs. Hardman. The attention 
 which he bestowed on ecclesiastical furniture has been the means of 
 reviving the arts of wood-carving and embroidery — of improving the 
 public taste in the choice of carpets and paper-hangings. Those 
 establishments which are known in London as c ecclesiastical warehouses ' 
 owe their existence and their source of profit to Pugin's exertions in the 
 cause of rubrical propriety. 
 
 His labours in that cause, and the strictures which he ventured to 
 utter in connection with the subject, were not confined to the Anglican 
 community. He found much that was irregular and contrary to tradi- 
 tion in the appointment and ceremonies of the church which he had 
 
 * Many of the etchings which he prepared for the illustration of his books were executed 
 when he was afloat on some yachting expedition. He was very fond of the sea, and 
 would certainly have been a sailor if he had not been an architect. 
 
154 St. Giles s Church, Cheadle. 
 
 entered, and he did his best to reform what he considered to be a 
 degeneracy from ancient custom, and from the true principles of 
 design. In his essay on the c Present State of Ecclesiastical Architec- 
 ture in England,' he lays down, with great care and minute attention to 
 detail, the orthodox plan and internal arrangements of a Roman 
 Catholic Church. He describes the proper position and purpose of 
 the chancel screen, rood and rood loft ; the plan and number of the 
 sedilia ; the use of the sacrarium and revestry ; the shape and furniture 
 of the altar. These are matters upon which at the present time the 
 clergy of neither church would require much information ; but it 
 must be remembered that before Pugin began to write, ecclesiastical 
 sentiment was rare, and artistic taste was rarer. The Roman Catholics 
 had perverted the forms and ceremonies which pertained to the ancient 
 faith. The Anglicans had almost forgotten them. 
 
 But a change was at hand : a new impulse was received from an 
 unexpected quarter, which turned the tide of popular interest towards 
 these matters. Whether the cause of religion has gained or lost by 
 this movement need not here be discussed, but that it has been 
 advantageous on the whole to national art there can be no question. 
 
 One of the most successful of Pugin's churches was that of St. Giles, 
 at Cheadle. The arrangement of its short compact plan, the propor- 
 tions of its tower and spire, and the elaborate fittings and decoration 
 of the interior, make it as attractive an example of Pugin's skill as 
 could be quoted. Its chancel will certainly bear a favourable com- 
 parison with that of St. Mary at Uttoxeter, or that of St. Alban, 
 Macclesfield. Indeed, in the latter church the flat pitch of the chancel 
 roof, and the reedy > attenuated look of the nave piers are very unsatis- 
 factory, nor does the introduction of a clerestory (a feature which, from 
 either choice or necessity, was omitted from many of Pugin's churches) 
 help in any great degree to give scale and proportion to the interior. 
 
 In London, the most important work which Pugin executed was the 
 pro-cathedral in St. George's Fields, Westminster. The fact that the 
 
St. Georges Cathedral, Westminster. 155 
 
 upper portion of the tower and spire of this church has never been 
 completed, and the subsequent addition of buildings at the east end, 
 not contemplated in the original design, make it difficult to judge of 
 the exterior as a composition. But it may fairly be doubted whether, 
 under any conditions, it would convey to the eye that sense of grandeur 
 and dignity which one might reasonably expect from a structure of 
 such size. In the first place, the common yellow brick used for the 
 walls is the meanest and most uninteresting of building materials, and 
 in London, where it is chiefly used, speedily acquires a dingy appear- 
 ance. But independently of this drawback, there is a want of vitality 
 about the building. The pinnacles which crown the buttresses are 
 cold and heavy. The carved work, though executed with care and 
 even delicacy here and there, is spiritless, except in the treatment of 
 animal form. Crockets and ball-flower ornaments are needlessly 
 multiplied. The tracery of the windows is correct and aims at variety ; 
 and the doorways are arched with orthodox mouldings, but there is 
 scarcely a single feature in the exterior which arrests attention by the 
 beauty of its form or the aptness of its place. 
 
 Internally the nave is divided into eight bays, with an aisle on either 
 side, carried to nearly the same height as the nave. There is, conse- 
 quently, no clerestory. The nave arches reach at their apex to with- 
 in a few feet of the roof, and the great height thus given to the thinly 
 moulded piers (unintersected as they are by any horizontal string courses, 
 which at once lend scale and apparent strength to a shaft) is a defect 
 which becomes apparent at first sight. The aisle walls are singularly 
 slight for so large a church, and one looks in vain for the bold splay 
 and deep reveal which are characteristic of old fenestration. 
 
 Still there are features in the interior which reflect no small credit on 
 the architect when one remembers the date of its erection (1843). 
 The double chancel screen, with its graceful arches and light tracery, 
 though suggestive of wood-work rather than stone in design, is pic- 
 turesque, and is effectively relieved against the dimly-lighted chancel 
 
156 5/. Chad's C/utrch, Birmingham. 
 
 behind. The chancel itself was said to have been well studied from 
 ancient models. Architects of the present day may smile at the sim- 
 plicity of its reredos, a row of ten narrow niches be-pinnacled, and 
 canopied, and crocketed, each containing a small figure, flanked by two 
 broader and higher niches of the same design, each containing a larger 
 figure. But here again one must bear in mind that these details were 
 designed and executed at a time when such design and such execution 
 rose to the level of high artistic excellence beside contemporary work. 
 Pugin had with the greatest patience trained the artisans whom he 
 employed, and whatever may be said of the aim of their efforts, no one 
 can doubt its refinement. We have far more accomplished architects in 
 1871 than we had thirty years ago, but it may be doubted whether we 
 have more skilful workmen. 
 
 The church of St. Chad, at Birmingham, may fairly be ranked 
 among Pugin's most important works. In plan it presents no great 
 peculiarity, but the sloping line of the ground on which it stands, the 
 lofty height of its nave, the towers which flank its western front, and 
 the sculpture with which it is enriched, combine to give a character 
 to its exterior which is wanting in many of Pugin's churches. The 
 general effect indicates some tendency on the part of the designer to a 
 taste for German Gothic, without, however, any careful reproduction of 
 its noblest features. Indeed, a glance at the details reveals at once the 
 period of its erection — that period in which after long disuse the tradi- 
 tions of Mediaeval art were revived in the letter rather than the spirit. 
 Its slate-roofed spires are c broached ' at an abrupt and ungraceful 
 angle. Its buttresses are long and lean, with f set-offs ' at rare intervals, 
 and coarsely accentuated. Its walls of brick — once red, but now toned 
 down by time and the noxious smoke of Birmingham to dingy brown — 
 have a mean impoverished look about them, which is scarcely redeemed 
 by the freestone tracery of its windows, or the canopied and really 
 cleverly-carved figures which adorn its western portal. 
 
 Internally the building displays evidence of Pugin's strength and 
 
S/ dined Glass in St. Chad's. 157 
 
 weakness in an eminent degree. The chancel fittings, the rood screen 
 with its sacred burden, the altar tombs — in a word, the furniture of the 
 church — are, if we accept the motive of the style in which they are 
 designed, as correct in form as any antiquary could wish, and are 
 wrought with marvellous refinement. But in general effect the interior 
 is far from satisfactory. The attenuated and lanky nave piers rise to 
 such a disproportionate height as scarcely to leave room for the arches 
 which surmount them. The walls are thin and poor, the roof timbers 
 slight and weak looking. There is no clerestory, and the aisle roofs 
 follow that of the nave in one continuous slope. The aisles are more- 
 over extraordinarily high in proportion to their width. An English poet 
 has described to us the beauties of the < long-drawn aisle,' but here the 
 aisles appear to have been drawn out the wrong way. The chancel is 
 of far better proportions, and with its elaborate rood screen richly gilt 
 and painted, its oak fittings and bishop's throne, its canopied reredos 
 and mural decoration, is decidedly the feature par excellence of this church.* 
 The rest of the interior is plain, and depends for its effect on the 
 stained glass used in the windows. Much of this glass is well designed 
 so far as the drawing of figures and character of ornament are concerned, 
 but it has the all-important defect which distinguished most of the glass 
 of this period, viz. — a crude and inharmonious association of colour. 
 This is especially noticeable in the windows of a chapel in the north 
 aisle, where the tints used are peculiarly harsh and offensive. 
 
 In no department of decorative art have the works of the Middle 
 Ages been until recently so hopelessly misunderstood and so cruelly 
 burlesqued as in the design of stained glass. In the last century the 
 inventions of Reynolds, of West, and others plainly indicate the pre- 
 vailing belief that a painted window should be a transparent picture ; 
 
 * In the north aisle is an altar tomb of Caen stone with an elaborately carved ogival 
 canopy in the style of late decorated examples. It is cleverly designed, and executed with 
 great refinement of detail and astonishing delicacy of workmanship. This tomb was 
 erected in 1852. It had been previously sent to the Great Exhibition of 185 1. 
 
158 Character of Ancient Glass. 
 
 and when Sir Joshua filled the west end of New College Chapel at 
 Oxford with work of this description, he probably conceived that it 
 was a great advance on the style of old glass — fifteenth- century glass — 
 specimens of which may still be seen by its side. How far this notion 
 was correct may be judged by any intelligent amateur who will compare 
 the two works. The effect of Sir Joshua's window, with its simpering 
 nymphs who have stepped on pedestals in order to personate the Virtues, 
 is cold and lifeless, while the old glass, quaint and conventional though it 
 may be in its abstractive treatment of natural form, glows with generous 
 colour, which acquires double value from the fact that it is broken up 
 into a thousand various shapes by the intersecting lines of lead as it 
 crosses the glass at every conceivable angle. 
 
 The glass stainers of Pugin's time did not indeed fall into the error 
 of supposing that they could treat the design of windows after the same 
 fashion as an easel picture. But it is evident that they and their suc- 
 cessors for years after gave less attention to the question of colour than 
 to the drawing and grouping of their figures. The saints and angels 
 of old glass are, it must be admitted, neither very saintly nor angelic in 
 their action, if we are to regard them in the light of pictorial represen- 
 tations. But we may be sure that neither the most profound hagio- 
 logist, nor the sincerest devotee, nor the most enlightened amateur who 
 has visited the cathedrals of York and Exeter, has regretted this fact 
 in the very slightest degree. As well might a connoisseur of ( six mark ' 
 China deplore the want of probability in every incident portrayed on a 
 Nankin vase, or an admirer of old textile art object to the nondescript 
 forms which pass for leaves and flowers on a Turkey carpet ! 
 
 The truth is that in the apparent imperfections of some arts lies the 
 real secret of their excellence. The superior quality of colour which 
 long distinguished old glass from new was due in a great measure to its 
 streakyness and irregularity of tint. In the early days of the Revival 
 this was regarded as a defect, while the quaint and angular forms by 
 which, in old work, the human figure was typified or suggested, rather 
 than represented, were deemed barbarous and ungraceful. 
 
Defects of Modern Glass. 159 
 
 So our enlightened art reformers of the nineteenth century set to 
 work to remedy these faults. They produced a glass without blemish ; 
 their figures were drawn and shaded with academical propriety. But 
 this was not all. It occurred to them that by using larger pieces of 
 glass they might dispense with half the dull heavy lines of lead which 
 meandered over the old windows. Finally, they determined that the 
 odd-looking patches of white or slightly tinted glass which they found 
 in ancient work should be replaced in their designs by glass as brilliant 
 as the rest. 
 
 Whatever may have been the contemporary opinion of these sup- 
 posed ' improvements,'* the modern critic can scarcely fail to regard 
 them as thorough blunders. 
 
 Every one now admits that the conditions of design in a painted 
 window belong to decorative, not to imitative art. It was with a wise 
 purpose — or at least with a sound instinct, that the old craftsman 
 shaped those awkward heroes and graceless saints in his window — 
 crossed their forms with abrupt black lines of lead, and left broad 
 spaces of delicate grisaille to relieve the more positive colours of their 
 robes. The advantage of such treatment will be best measured by 
 those who take the trouble to compare it with the blaze of ill-associated 
 colour and dull propriety of outline which distinguish the glass manu- 
 factured some forty years ago. In our own time, indeed, accomplished 
 designers like Mr. Burne Jones and Mr. Holiday have aimed at com- 
 bining a certain abstract grace of form with beauty of colour, but the 
 instances of such success are rare, and even when they occur it may be 
 doubted whether such designs would not have been doubly admirable if 
 employed for mural decoration. 
 
 The Church of St. Wilfrid, in Manchester (built externally of red 
 
 * In a letter signed 'Philotechnicos,' which appears in the 'Civil Engineers' Journal' for 
 1837, the following passage occurs : — 
 
 * Many persons have an extraordinary idea that the art of painting on glass is lost. Lost 
 forsooth! why'the idea is the most fallacious that ever existed; and so far is it from the fact, 
 that the present state of excellence was never before equalled.' (!) 
 
160 Chunk of St. IVilfrid, Manchester. 
 
 brick), exhibits in the design of its nave arcade a more refined sense of 
 proportion than is observable in many of Pugin's larger works. Here 
 the piers are (comparatively) short, and the arches which they support 
 are acutely pointed. The aisle windows are narrow, and, indeed, would, 
 no doubt, have been insufficient for light, but for those of the clerestory 
 with which the church is provided. The rood screen — that indispen- 
 sable feature in Pugin's churches, and one which subsequently became the 
 subject of much controversy, is richly painted. The treatment of the 
 altar and reredos is extremely simple, but far more dignified than the 
 fussy elaboration of those objects in some examples of later work. 
 One of the most interesting features in the church is the stone pulpit, 
 which does not stand isolated, but is corbelled out from the wall on the 
 south side of the chancel arch. 
 
 One of the main objections which were raised against the revival 
 of Gothic for Church Architecture at this time was the additional 
 expense which it involved when compared with the soi-disant classic style 
 which had been so long in vogue. Pugin determined that St. Wilfrid's, 
 which was erected in 1842, should prove, both in its design and execu- 
 tion the fallacy of this notion. How far he succeeded in this en- 
 deavour may be inferred from the fact that the entire cost of the church 
 (which will hold a congregation of about 800 persons) and of the priest's 
 house attached to it, did not exceed 5,000/. Although Pugin was thus 
 not unwilling to enter the lists with utilitarians in a financial sense, he 
 strongly objected to be led by their arguments in matters which affected 
 his artistic views. The chancel of St. Wilfrid's was found to be very 
 dark, and some time after its erection enquiry was made of him, as the 
 architect of the church, whether there would be any objection to intro- 
 duce a small skylight in its roof, just behind the chancel arch, where it 
 would be serviceable without obtruding on the design. Pugin sternly 
 refused to sanction — even on these conciliatory terms — the adoption of 
 any such plan, which he declared would have the effect of reducing his 
 sanctuary to the level of a Manchester warehouse. 
 
Si. Maries Church % Liverpool. 161 
 
 St. Marie's Church, Liverpool, is an early and interesting example of 
 Pugin's skill. It is built of local red sandstone, and displays in the 
 mouldings of its door jambs and fashion of its window tracery consider- 
 able refinement of detail. It has no chancel in the proper sense of the 
 word, but the easternmost part of the nave serves for that purpose. 
 The nave arches are acutely pointed, and their mouldings die into an 
 octagonal block just above the impost moulding of the pier. The 
 peculiarity of this treatment is the more remarkable when we remember 
 the stereotyped appearance which a nave arcade of this date (1838) 
 usually presented, and the narrow license which was then accorded to 
 inventive taste in the design of such features. 
 
 St. Marie's, in its plan as well as in the general character of its com- 
 position, is essentially a town church. It is now, and probably always 
 was, surrounded by lofty warehouses of gaunt and dismal exterior, but 
 stored inside, no doubt, with ample fruits of human labour and com- 
 mercial industry. It is curious to turn aside from the narrow, dirty, 
 bustling streets in which these buildings stand, and find oneself at once 
 so suddenly and so thoroughly removed from the noise and turmoil 
 of the outside world in this fair, quiet, modest house of prayer. It has 
 no claim to architectural grandeur. It was built at a melancholy period 
 of British art. Its structural features just do their duty and nothing 
 more. The nave, which is of great length, has been left plain and un- 
 derrated. But on the f wall-veil ' and altar fittings at the east end of 
 the church both architect and workman have lavished their utmost 
 skill. The reredos of the high altar is extremely simple in general 
 form but exhibits great refinement of detail. That of the Lady Chapel 
 is most elaborate in design and workmanship. Figures, niches, canopies, 
 pinnacles, crockets, and finials crowd into a sumptuous group — worthy 
 of the best workmanship in the latter part of the fourteenth century. 
 Modern critics urge with reason that that period affords by no means 
 the best type of Mediaeval art for our imitation. The revived taste for 
 Gothic, which in our own day at first manifested itself in a reproduction 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Excess of Decoration. 
 
 of Tudor mansions and churches of the Perpendicular style, has been 
 gradually attracted towards earlier — and still earlier — types. But we 
 must remember that in Pugin's time late Decorated work was still 
 admired as the most perfect development of Pointed Architecture, and 
 he certainly did his best to maintain its popularity. The altar and 
 reredos in the Lady Chapel of St. Marie are real gems in their way, 
 and may be cited as specimens not only of Pugin's thorough know- 
 ledge of detail, but also of the success with which in a very few years 
 he had managed to educate up to a standard of excellence, not realised 
 during many previous generations, the art-workmen whom he entrusted 
 to execute his designs. 
 
 Whether such excessive elaboration was judicious in a town church 
 so dimly lighted as St. Marie's — whether it was even justifiable in a 
 building whose structural features are certainly on no generous scale of 
 stability, may be questioned. It has frequently been affirmed, and with 
 some show of reason, that Pugin enriched his churches at a sacrifice of 
 their strength — that he starved his roof-tree to gild his altar. It is 
 only fair, however, to point out that in many instances where this 
 apparent inconsistency has been observed, although the buildings were 
 commenced with but slender funds, subscriptions or bequests were 
 added just as the works approached completion, and that the architect was 
 thus called upon to spend in mere decoration money which, if it had been 
 available earlier, he would gladly have devoted to a worthier purpose. 
 
 It is certain that in the one work which he carried out completely to 
 his own satisfaction, because he was in this case — to use his own words 
 « paymaster, architect, and builder,' there is no stint of solidity in con- 
 struction. For that reason the church of St. Augustine, which he founded 
 at Ramsgate, may be regarded as one of his most successful achieve- 
 ments. Its plan, which is singularly ingenious and unconventional in 
 arrangement, consists of a chancel about thirty-five feet long, and divided 
 into two bays, with a Lady Chapel on its south side, a central tower 
 and south transept only, a nave and south aisle. The outer bay of 
 
Church of St. Augustine, Ramsgate. 
 
 The late A. II'. Pugin, Architect, 1S42. 
 
St. Augustine's, Ramsgate. 163 
 
 the south transept is divided from the rest of the church by a richly- 
 carved oak screen, and forms the c Pugin Chantry Chapel.' The 
 annexed view is taken from under the tower looking south. It shows 
 the screen of the Pugin Chantry, the arch in front of the Lady Chapel, 
 and a portion of the rood screen. 
 
 The whole church is lined internally with ashlar stone of a warm 
 grey colour, the woodwork of the screen, stalls, &c, being of dark 
 oak. The general tone of the interior, lighted as it is by stained glass 
 windows (executed by Hardman, and very fair for their time), is most 
 agreeable and wonderfully suggestive of old work. The roofs of the 
 chancel, Lady Chapel, and transept are panelled ; those of the nave 
 and aisles are open timbered, but all are executed in oak. The altars 
 and font are of Caen stone, richly sculptured. On them, as well as on 
 the rood screen and choir stalls, Pugin has bestowed that careful study 
 of detail for which, in his time, he stood unrivalled.* The exterior of 
 the church is simple but picturesque in outline. As a composition it 
 can scarcely be considered complete in its present state, seeing that 
 Pugin intended to carry up the tower a storey higher than it is at 
 present, and to roof it with a slate spire. f The walls are of cut flint, 
 with string-courses and dressings of dark yellow stone. No student 
 or lover of old English Architecture can examine this interesting little 
 church without perceiving the thoughtful, earnest care with which it has 
 been designed and executed, down to the minutest detail. It is evident 
 that Pugin strove to invest the building with local traditions of style. 
 This is shown in its general arrangement, the single transept and other 
 peculiarities of plan being characteristic of Kent. 
 
 * A lofty wooden canopy over the font was exhibited in the Mediaeval Court of the 
 Crystal Palace in 1851 and attracted much attention. 
 
 f It seems a great pity that this feature, which would add so much to the external 
 appearance of the church, should be left unfinished nearly twenty years after Pugin's death. 
 Surely some of the numerous art manufacturers who profited so largely by Pugin's genius 
 might now subscribe between them the small sum (probably about 50c/.) required for this 
 purpose, and thus do honour to his memory by completing his favourite work. 
 
 m 2 
 
164 Pugin House at Ramsgate. 
 
 Close to the west end of St. Augustine's Church is Pugin's house, 
 externally a very simple and unpretending brick building with a square 
 embattled tower of no great height, a steep roof, and mullioned 
 windows. The internal plan is one which no doubt was convenient and 
 pleasing to Pugin himself, but which would hardly meet the modern 
 requirements of an ordinary home. The principal entrance (from a 
 paved courtyard at the back of the house) opens at once on a hall 
 which is carried up to the entire height of the building. Two sides of 
 this hall are occupied by a staircase ; the other two, wooden galleries 
 are bracketed out, and give access to the bedrooms above. This 
 is a picturesque arrangement, but open to objection, inasmuch as 
 it would appear impossible for inmates to pass from one reception 
 room to another, or to reach the rooms above, without coming 
 within sight of the entrance door. The drawing rooms (on the 
 right of the hall) are fitted with carved stone mantel-pieces and 
 panelled ceilings of mahogany — a wood which Pugin seems to have 
 liked very much — the centre of each panel being painted with some 
 conventional ornament. 
 
 The dining room, which is opposite the entrance doorway, is a well 
 proportioned apartment, depending chiefly on panelled work for its 
 decoration. Here may be seen some of the quaint furniture which 
 Pugin so cleverly and readily designed. The walls are papered with 
 the armorial bearings of the Pugin family — a black martlet with the 
 motto t En avant.' The windows throughout the house are fitted with 
 casements, the modern sash being among the owner's peculiar aversions. 
 Plate glass was permitted in those windows which command a sea view, 
 but small c quarried ' glazing is chiefly adopted for the others.* 
 
 Attached to the house is a small but well-proportioned private 
 chapel, the interior of which is very effective in design. 
 
 * In Scarisbrick Hall, when Pugin was employed as architect, the leadwork of the 
 windows in front of the house was gilded. The effect, as may be supposed, is very rich 
 and beautiful. 
 
Pugin's other I Forks. 165 
 
 The list of Pugin's works is a long one, including churches, besides 
 those already mentioned, at Derby, Kenilworth, Cambridge, Stockton- 
 on-Tees, Nevvcastle-on-Tyne, Preston, Rugby, Northampton, Ponte- 
 fract, Nottingham, Woolwich, and a host of other places. Bilton 
 Grange, erected for Captain W. Hibbert, Warwick ; Lord Dun- 
 raven's seat at Adare, in Ireland (since remodelled by Mr. P. C. Hard- 
 wick), Scarisbrick Hall, St. John's Hospital, Alton, and the restora- 
 tion at Chirk Castle, Denbighshire, may be mentioned among his works 
 in domestic architecture. But notwithstanding the size and importance 
 of some of these buildings, it must be confessed that in his house and 
 the church^at Ramsgate one recognises more thorough and genuine 
 examples of Pugin's genius and strongly marked predilections for 
 Mediaeval architecture than elsewhere. With one great national un- 
 dertaking, indeed, his name has been intimately associated. But this 
 marks so important a stage in the history of the Gothic Revival, that 
 it must be reserved for another chapter. 
 
 * m 3 
 
1 66 The late Sir Charles Barry. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 HE development of modern art in most countries may be 
 generally assigned to one and sometimes in succession to 
 each of three causes : individual genius, public sentiment, 
 and State patronage. We have seen that the two first were not 
 wanting in England to promote the cause of Gothic architecture. An 
 event was now at hand which helped to secure for it the last, and in its 
 day the most important impetus. The incidents which attended the 
 selection of Mr. Charles Barry's design for the Houses of Parliament 
 are among the most interesting in the history of the Revival. His 
 earliest efforts in the direction of Mediaeval design were creditable 
 for their time, but by no means extraordinary. As a student he 
 had given little or no attention to the style. In his first Continental 
 tour he had turned aside from the magnificent west front of Rouen 
 Cathedral to sketch a modern classic church. In Paris, Notre-Dame 
 and the Sainte Chapelle had but small attractions for him. But 
 the Italian palaces filled him with genuine admiration and afforded 
 models for his imitation in many a London club-house and private 
 English mansion, whose merits having been fully acknowledged and 
 described elsewhere it will be unnecessary to mention in these pages, 
 further than by remarking that they contributed for some years, and 
 indeed still tend, to divide public taste on the question of national 
 style — at least so far as the modern buildings of this metropolis are 
 concerned. 
 
 It is curious, however, that the first works of any importance 
 entrusted to him were two churches — one at Prestwich and the other 
 
Barry s early IVorks. 167 
 
 at Campficld, Manchester. They were designed in a style which no 
 doubt at the time (1822) passed for very satisfactory Gothic, though 
 in after life he looked back with no small amusement at these early 
 efforts. St. Peter's Church, Brighton — the commission for which he 
 gained in competition soon after — was a more important building, 
 and though far from realising the genuine spirit of Mediaeval archi- 
 tecture was probably not surpassed by any contemporary architect — 
 Rickman alone excepted. In 1826 he was employed by the Rev. 
 D. Wilson, Rector of Islington,* to design three churches : one at 
 Holloway, another at Ball's Pond, and another in Cloudesley Square. 
 It would be fruitless to enter upon any description of these and many 
 other similar structures which, under the general name of Gothic, were 
 erected in England about this time. In spite of the large sums which 
 in many instances were spent on their execution, it can scarcely be 
 denied that they fail to realise in any important degree even the general 
 forms — still less the decorative details of ancient work. The cause of 
 this deficiency must not be ascribed to mere ignorance. It is true that 
 up to this time the buildings of the Middle Ages had been but 
 imperfectly studied. But a man of Barry's zeal and artistic ability 
 might soon have overcome this obstacle. The venerable parish 
 churches of England were open to his inspection, and would have 
 served him for models as excellent in their way as the palaces of 
 Florence and of Venice, which, by the aid of his dexterous pencil, as 
 with a magic wand, he had summoned to Pall Mall. The truth is 
 he did not imitate the ancient types of Ecclesiastical Architecture, 
 partly because he had not studied them, but chiefly because he did not 
 care to do so. In the interesting Life of Sir Charles which has 
 recently been published, his opinions on this point are clearly and 
 definitely expressed : — 
 
 He himself felt strongly that the forms of Mediaeval art, beautiful as they are, 
 do not always adapt themselves thoroughly to the needs of a service which is 
 
 * Afterwards Bishop of Calcutta. 
 
1 68 Barry s Views of Church Architecture. 
 
 essentially one of ' Common Prayer.' Deep chancels, high rood screens, and (in 
 less degree) pillared aisles, seemed to him to belong to the worship and institutions 
 of the past rather than the present. Time-honoured as they were, he would have 
 in some degree put them aside, and accepting Gothic as the style for Church 
 Architecture he would have preferred those forms of it which secured uninter- 
 rupted space, and gave a perfect sense of unity in the congregation, even at the 
 cost of sacrificing features beautiful in themselves, and perhaps of interfering 
 with the ' dim religious light ' of impressiveness and solemnity. 
 
 It is probable that these views would find but little favour among 
 professional admirers of Gothic at the present day, and by some indeed 
 they would be accounted as flat heresy. But when Barry was a young 
 man ecclesiastical sentiment was at a discount. Those extreme forms 
 of ceremonial in public worship, which, whether rightly or wrongly, 
 are described as a revival of ancient Anglican usage, were almost 
 unknown and were certainly unadopted. Forty years ago a cross on 
 the gable of a church or on the back of a prayer-book would have 
 seemed like rank popery in the eyes of many honest folks who have 
 lived to see the English Communion Service gradually assimilated to 
 the Roman Mass. 
 
 But if Barry had little sympathy with the revival of Church 
 Architecture modelled on Mediaeval plans, he certainly deserves credit 
 for the attention which, in spite of his Italian proclivities, he gave to 
 the study of domestic Gothic. His design for King Edward VI. 's 
 School at Birmingham exhibits a remarkable advance in the knowledge 
 of that late development of the style which is generally described as 
 Perpendicular ' work, and it may safely be assumed that at the time 
 the building was commenced (1833) no contemporary architect could 
 have achieved a more satisfactory result. Those who examine 
 the facade towards High Street (and the conditions of the site were 
 such as to admit only of a street front) cannot fail to recognise 
 many peculiarities of detail which were afterwards reproduced in 
 the Houses of Parliament. And this fact may be especially 
 
Destruction of the Old Houses of Parliament. 169 
 
 recommended to the attention of critics who have ventured to question 
 the authorship of the latter design with which his name has been chiefly- 
 associated. 
 
 It was on the night of October 16, 1834, that Mr. Barry, as we are 
 informed by his biographer, was returning to London on the Brighton 
 coach, when a red glare of light illumining the horizon warned him of 
 that memorable fire which caused the destruction of the old Palace 
 of Westminster, and was the indirect means of raising him to fame and 
 fortune. The history of the professional competition in which this 
 able and industrious architect won the great prize of his life, has been 
 in one form or another frequently narrated, and is probably familiar to 
 all who take an interest in the fact itself or in the various circumstances 
 by which it is surrounded. That the rapidly developing taste for 
 ancient English architecture had by this time assumed a national and 
 definite character may be assumed from the fact that a Parliamentary 
 Committee, in drawing up the terms of the competition, stipulated that 
 the design for the new buildings should be either Gothic or Elizabethan. 
 This condition, indeed, left a wide range of choice open to the com- 
 petitors. Pointed architecture had passed through many distinct 
 phases of style from the time of the Plantagenets to that of the Tudor 
 line. There was the Early English type, with its dignified simplicity 
 of outline, its noble conventionalism of sculptured forms, its stout, 
 bold buttresses, and pure arch contour. There was the Fourteenth 
 Century type, with its maturer development of decorative features, its 
 foliated window tracery, its enriched mouldings, its elaborate niches 
 and canopies. And, thirdly, there was the Perpendicular type which, 
 deficient in many of the characteristic graces of its predecessors, 
 debased in general form, vulgarised in ornamental detail, and de- 
 generate in constructive principles, still retained enough of the old 
 traditional element of design to justify its title to nationality. 
 But whatever may have been the standard of taste in days when King's 
 College Chapel was regarded as the crowning glory of Gothic, it 
 
1 70 The House of Parliament Competition. 
 
 requires no great discernment on the part of modern critics to perceive 
 both in the Tudor and in the Elizabethan styles abundant evidences of 
 a fallen art. Roman Doric is not more essentially inferior to Greek 
 Doric : the age of Valerian does not exhibit a greater decline from the 
 age of Augustus : the school of Carlo Dolce is not further removed 
 from the School of Mantegna : than English architecture in the days 
 of the last Henry ranks below that in the reign of the first Edward. 
 
 It is perhaps not surprising that in the earliest period of the Revival, 
 professional designers should have sought their inspiration among those 
 examples of Pointed work which were — so to speak — freshest from the 
 hands of the mason, and therefore more complete and more numerous 
 than earlier specimens. To take up the thread of traditional art where 
 it had been dropped was, if not the wisest, at least the most obvious 
 and the most natural course. But the clue, if it was to lead to excel- 
 lence, could only lead in one direction, and that was backwards. Un- 
 fortunately this fact was not at first perceived. With a few rare 
 exceptions, all architects interested in the Revival devoted themselves to 
 the study of Perpendicular work, and there their devotion ended. The 
 designs of Reginald Bray and John Hylmer were preferred to those of 
 Bertram of Salisbury and Eversolt of St. Albans. Bath Abbey and 
 St. George's Chapel, Windsor, were considered finer things in their 
 way than Lincoln Cathedral or the choir of Canterbury. 
 
 It was while public taste in England remained under such delusions 
 as these that the competition for the New Houses of Parliament was 
 announced. Into that competition ninety-seven candidates entered. 
 The total number of drawings prepared was fourteen hundred. The 
 Committee of the House of Lords had previously decided that not 
 more than five designs, and not less than three, should be submitted to 
 the King for approval. The author of the first in order of merit was 
 to receive an award of 1,500/., and unless there were grave reasons 
 to the contrary, was to be appointed architect to the new buildings. 
 The rest were to be recompensed by a prize of 500/. each. The 
 
Barry s Design Selected. 171 
 
 Commissioners selected four designs : first, that of Mr. Charles Barry ; 
 second, that of Mr. John Chessel Buckler ; third, that of Mr. David 
 Hamilton (of Glasgow) ; and, fourth, that of Mr. E. Kempthorne. 
 That this decision was followed by some dissatisfaction among the out- 
 siders may be, as a matter of course, assumed. The time and labour 
 required for the preparation of the drawings were considerable, and 
 could scarcely have been spent to no purpose without creating a strong 
 disposition to chagrin among the unsuccessful. But, on the whole, 
 a good feeling prevailed. A meeting of the competitors was held at 
 the c Thatched House Tavern,' and a resolution was passed declaring 
 that, in the opinion of those present, the competition had been 
 1 alike honourable and beneficial to the architects of this country,' 
 and expressing a belief that the Commissioners had made their 
 selection with c ability, judgment, and impartiality.' The resolution 
 concluded by recommending a public exhibition of all the designs 
 submitted. 
 
 In course of time this suggestion was carried out, and was attended 
 by a very good result. Hundreds of amateurs, who had had no 
 patience to wade through antiquarian discourses on the origin of the 
 Pointed arch, and to weigh the merits of Mediaeval art, saw for the first 
 time, side by side, the designs of men who had made that art, with more 
 or less success, their study. They heard them compared, criticised, and 
 in turn lauded or condemned. And the criticism of that day was 
 certainly more in advance of professional skill than is the criticism of 
 the present day. We have indeed more accomplished designers now 
 than then, but public opinion on such subjects is neither so readily 
 offered nor comparatively so valuable as it once was. 
 
 To those who had thought seriously on the terms of the competition, 
 the words c Gothic or Elizabethan ' seemed somewhat unsatisfactory. 
 Britton, in a paper read before the Institute of British Architects (then 
 just established), protested against them as undefined. f Elizabethan,' 
 he urged, might mean anything from Tudor to Renaissance. His 
 
172 The Unsuccessful Designs. 
 
 objections, as it turned out, were not without foundation. Some of 
 the competitors actually submitted Italian designs. The majority of 
 them, however, complied with the spirit as well as the letter of their 
 instructions, and prepared designs which were at least in aim either 
 Gothic or Elizabethan. 
 
 As might have been anticipated, the knowledge of either style dis- 
 played was in many cases not profound. One candidate proposed as the 
 central feature of his design an enormous octagonal dome, apparently 
 magnified from one of the turrets of Henry VII.'s Chapel, which was 
 to be supported by flying buttresses of gigantic size. Another described 
 his invention as ' an example of the pure English of Edward III.'s 
 time.' In reality it was an exaggerated medley of features, almost ex- 
 clusively ecclesiastical in character, and borrowed from the cathedrals of 
 England. The west front of York Minster was (after decapitation) in- 
 troduced in the group. Exeter, Lincoln, and Canterbury, were laid 
 under contribution. St. Stephen's Chapel was not only preserved, but 
 reproduced in duplicate at the opposite angle of Westminster Hall, in 
 order to give uniformity to the composition. 
 
 A third design was likened at the time to a union workhouse, and 
 was only redeemed from the charge of being commonplace by bring- 
 ing Westminster Abbey into the perspective view, and raising over its 
 crux a central spire, to which the chief objection was that it could never 
 have been erected. A fourth was described as a sort of Brobdignag 
 church, with a transept in the centre, and octagonal towers at the 
 extremities. But perhaps the most original idea was that of a gentle- 
 man who had devised as the leading feature in his design a colossal 
 circular tower, on which l statues of monarchs and patriots, flying 
 buttresses, pinnacles, and pierced windows, raise up in regular gradations 
 a vast and ornamental object, distinguishable from all parts of the 
 metropolis, about the size of the Castel St. Angelo in Rome.' 
 
 Extravagances of this kind were, it is needless to say, avoided by 
 those who took the foremost rank in the award. The especial merit 
 
St. Stephen's Chapel. 173 
 
 of Buckler's design — second only to that of Barry in the opinion of the 
 judges — was that it avoided the multiplication of detail and of those 
 features which are more rightly employed in ecclesiastical than in 
 domestic or palatial types of Gothic. He adopted what was then 
 familiarly known as a pyramidal line for the general effect of his 
 composition, the central feature of which was a lofty tower with 
 angle turrets. In this design, St. Stephen's Chapel, restored, formed 
 a conspicuous object. The plan in general arrangement was considered 
 picturesque, and, so far as the relative position of the tvvo Houses was 
 concerned, convenient. Mr. Buckler obtained credit for the purity of 
 his ornamental details, which, if they exhibited no striking originality of 
 design, were at least well selected. Among the outsiders whose plans 
 found favour may be mentioned Rhind, who had apparently borrowed 
 his details from the architecture of Hatfield ; and Salvin, whose towers 
 were suggestive of Heriot's Hospital. Opinions were divided as to 
 what proportion of the ancient buildings should be preserved. Many 
 of the competitors desired to retain St. Stephen's Chapel. Cottingham 
 exhibited a model for its restoration. Wyatt and Goodridge were for 
 lengthening it. Some considered that the Painted Chamber might still 
 be kept intact ; while a few still more conservative admirers of Mediaeval 
 art proposed that every vestige of the old Palace which was not abso- 
 lutely in a ruinous state should be repaired and incorporated with the 
 new structure. 
 
 Barry, as a practical man, took a middle course. He had found 
 St. Stephen's Chapel not exactly in ruins, but in such a condition that 
 its preservation was impossible, while to restore it with anything like 
 accuracy would have been a hazardous undertaking. Such, at least, was 
 the opinion of Sir R. Smirke, of Wilkins, of Laing, and other con- 
 temporary architects of repute, who were consulted on the subject. 
 From this opinion Cottingham and Savage differed. But those gentle- 
 men had been competitors, and no doubt felt pledged to the views 
 which, in that capacity, they had maintained. The idea of restoring 
 
174 Westminster Hall. 
 
 the chapel was abandoned, but the crypt, part of which had been 
 degraded to the uses of a scullery, was preserved.* 
 
 The case of Westminster Hall was different. Any scheme which 
 had failed to provide for the retention of this venerable structure — 
 intimately associated as it is with many an incident in our national his- 
 tory — would have been at once rejected, not only by the Govern- 
 ment, but by public opinion. Even the common rabble of the town, 
 when they assembled on the banks of the Thames to watch the pro- 
 gress of the fire which destroyed the old buildings, had raised a cry of 
 genuine dismay when for a short while the roof of the Hall appeared 
 in danger. To save it from the flames was perhaps an easier task than 
 to settle how to deal with it afterwards. Left in its original con- 
 dition, it would have been an interesting relic of antiquity, but it would 
 have been useless and even inconvenient in its relation to the plan of 
 the new buildings. On the other hand, to disturb its integrity for 
 the sake of modern improvements and mere notions of convenience 
 seemed little short of sacrilege. It was reserved for Barry's ingenuity 
 to devise a plan which satisfied — as far as they could be reasonably 
 satisfied — these opposite considerations of utility and antiquarian 
 conservatism. 
 
 He determined to make Westminster Hall the main public entrance 
 to the New Palace, and for this purpose he recommended ' that a hand- 
 some porch with a flight of steps should be added to the south end of 
 the Hall, from which the approach should be continued' through 
 St. Stephen's Hall (proposed to be erected on the site of St. Stephen's 
 Chapel) into a central lobby of great size, and lighted by an octagonal 
 lantern midway between the two Houses, and in immediate connection 
 with the public lobbies attached to each, and with the Committee Rooms. 
 The practical effect of this arrangement was to add some twenty or thirty 
 feet to the length of the Hall. It has been argued that this interfered 
 
 * The restoration of this interesting relic of Mediaeval art was subsequently carried out 
 by Mr. E. M. Barry, R.A., the well-known architect, and a son of Sir Charles. 
 
Ingenuity of Barry s Plan. 1 75 
 
 with the proportions of the interior as originally designed, and it may 
 have been on that ground that Barry at one time proposed to raise to a 
 greater height the roof itself. This suggestion was, however, never 
 carried out, and indeed the present aspect of the Hall is .such as may 
 well satisfy the most fastidious critic, when it is remembered with what 
 practical difficulties and conflicting opinions the scheme for its alteration 
 was beset. 
 
 The site itself was by no means an easy one to deal with, and many 
 a plea might have been raised on artistic grounds for erecting the New 
 Palace in a more elevated and commanding site in the metropolis. 
 But historical associations presented an overwhelming argument in 
 favour of that part of Westminster which was in the immediate neigh- 
 bourhood of the great Hall and the Abbey, and it was an argument 
 which happily prevailed. If anything could reconcile to this decision 
 those who considered mere architectural effect of paramount import- 
 ance, it was the opportunity given for a noble river front to the New 
 Palace. Barry at once saw the necessity of securing this feature in his 
 design. He recommended that the building should be kept close to 
 the Thames, and only separated from it by a terrace, the line of which 
 was to be as nearly as possible at right angles to Westminster Bridge. 
 Such a. facade, it was true, would not be exactly parallel to Westminster 
 Hall, and this must affect the position of the grand corridor which led 
 from the south end of the Hall to the central vestibule. But by 
 making the latter octagonal in plan, and by altering the line of embank- 
 ment, this discrepancy was reduced to a minimum, and in execution 
 is scarcely noticeable.* The result was an elevation which, if we 
 accept the aim of its design, is eminently successful in effect. Many a 
 critic, in pointing out the faults of the building as a whole, has admitted 
 the excellence of its river front. 
 
 * A reference to the plan of the new Houses of Parliament, published in the inter- 
 esting Life of Sir Charles Barry by his son, Dr. Barry, will best explain the ingenuity of 
 this arrangement. 
 
176 Opposition to Barry s Scheme. 
 
 Before the building was actually begun, Barry had to encounter two 
 distinct kinds of opposition to his scheme. There were those who 
 objected on various grounds to the employment of Gothic altogether. 
 There were those who objected on antiquarian grounds to the particular 
 type of Gothic which he selected, and to his mode of dealing with the 
 old buildings. The best answer which could be given to the latter class 
 of opponents was simply this, that whatever defects might be perceived, 
 whether in the nature of his scheme or the quality of his art, no one, 
 in an open competition, had on the whole surpassed him. It was easy 
 to talk of restoring St. Stephen's Chapel and the Painted Chamber, of 
 leaving Westminster Hall absolutely intact and of preserving every relic 
 of the ancient palace. The question really came to be how far these 
 proposals were compatible with the main object in view, viz. the design 
 of the New Houses of Parliament, in which convenience of plan was 
 a first necessity. That there might have been found among the com- 
 petitors men whose knowledge of Gothic detail was more advanced 
 than his own is probable. But no one had so successfully united that 
 knowledge with the practical requirements of the case. 
 
 The arguments which were brought to bear against the adoption of 
 Gothic altogether as the style of the new buildings seemed plausible to 
 the ignorant or prejudiced, but were to a great extent founded in error, 
 and were certainly ill-timed. Protests of such a kind should have been 
 
 made not after the result of the competition, but when its conditions 
 
 were first announced. That which attracted most notice at the time 
 was embodied in letters addressed by Mr. W. R. Hamilton to the 
 Earl of Elgin in 1836-37. Hamilton was a scholar and a dilettante, 
 but his literary tastes and his antiquarian researches had been turned in 
 one direction only. He saw in classic art an expression of intellectual 
 refinement and of ideal beauty, compared with which the science and 
 the exuberant fancy of the Mediaeval architect and sculptor were as 
 things of nought. He regarded the temples of Greece and Rome 
 as the noblest achievements of human invention. He associated 
 
Mr. Hamilton's Letters. 177 
 
 the monuments of the Middle Ages with ideas of gloom, of supersti- 
 tion and barbarous extravagance. Whole volumes might be written 
 to prove that he was right and to prove that he was wrong. To the 
 end of time men will probably be divided in opinion as to whether the 
 Parthenon or Chartres Cathedral represents the more exalted phase 
 of architectural taste, or gratifies the purer sense of mental pleasure. 
 The real question at issue was whether Gothic should or should not be 
 adopted for the New Houses of Parliament. Hamilton brought the 
 whole force of his scholarship and literary ability to prove that the 
 adoption of Gothic would be a mistake. His letters developed into 
 essays, which would have been more interesting if they had been less 
 prolix in matter and less diffuse in style. He quoted Pindar, he 
 quoted Cicero, he quoted Aristotle, he quoted Plutarch, he quoted 
 Plato. He quoted Bacon, Hume, Winckelman, Hallam, Coleridge, 
 Fresnoy, and Sir James Mackintosh. That the sentiments of each 
 and all of these eminent authors, in their several ways, and at different 
 periods of the world's history, have been a source of pleasure or 
 instruction to mankind no one will deny, but that their opinions could 
 have much influence in determining the style of the New Palace of 
 Westminster may be doubted. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton's arguments, like those of many an able pleader, 
 occasionally proved too much. Thus, in his first letter he says : 
 
 It is notorious to all who have attended to the history of Architecture, that 
 every age and every country have progressively formed to themselves each its 
 own peculiar style and character, and, excluding from the question those cases 
 where there may have been a self-evident decline from good to bad, from the 
 beautiful to the deformed, from simplicity to meretricious ornament, from culti- 
 vated to barbarous periods, it seems right that each age and each country ought 
 to hold fast to that style which, whether foreign or indigenous, circumstances 
 and improved knowledge have introduced into general practice. 
 
 It is difficult to see how the force of this reasoning can be admitted 
 without coming to a conclusion that Italian architecture ought never 
 
 N 
 
i y8 Mr. Ha mi It oiis Arguments. 
 
 to have been introduced into this country at all ; that Englishmen 
 ought to have held fast to their Tudor, which, in the fifteenth century, 
 was a thoroughly national style, and certainly superior to that by 
 which it was at first replaced. 
 
 Mr. Hamilton pointed out with truth that, at the time he wrote, the 
 larger portion of public buildings erected in Great Britain during the 
 past half century had been of a classic character ; but when he went on 
 to say that this was due to ' the good sense of the British public,' 
 which ' could not be borne down by the fancies of individuals,' he 
 must have been laughing in his sleeve. It would be curious to specu- 
 late to what depth of absurdity and degradation the condition of 
 national art might in course of time descend in this country but for 
 the influence of private taste and individual genius. A fair evidence 
 of the architectural effects which have been secured by the good sense 
 of the British public, when completely unfettered, may be noticed in 
 Gower Street and in Russell Square. 
 
 It seems to have been assumed by Mr. Hamilton and other anti- 
 Gothic critics of his day, that because pictorial art had made but little 
 advance in England during the Middle Ages, the efforts of modern 
 painters would have been incompatible with the conditions of Mediaeval 
 Architecture. If this were really so, the best hope to express would 
 have been, not for the extinction of Gothic, but for the rise of better 
 painters. The Padua Chapel sufficed for Giotto ; the Orvieto Ca- 
 thedral for Luca Signorelli ; the Gothic palaces at Siena and Venice for 
 Spinello and Tintoret. It might well have been urged that if the 
 artists who were to be employed on the decoration of the Houses of 
 Parliament approached the old Italian masters in excellence there would 
 be no great reason for complaint. 
 
 The arguments which Mr. Hamilton endeavoured to base upon 
 a quasi-religious ground, were such as could scarcely impose upon the 
 most bigoted Puritan of his time. It is of course open to any writer 
 to comment on the licentious vagaries and irreverent shapes of 
 Mediaeval sculpture, but when he proceeds to remark that our ancient 
 
Anti-MedicBval Prejudices. 179 
 
 churches and cathedrals were built to give the mass of the people a false 
 impression of religious awe, and to instil a respect and terror for those 
 who presided in them, he ought to remember that both charges cannot 
 be well maintained side by side. It is impossible to inspire respect by- 
 licentiousness, or religious awe by irreverence. No one can be openly 
 profane and pretend to piety at one and the same time. The truth is 
 that these Mediaeval folks were neither quite so bad nor quite so good 
 as modern critics by turn would have us believe. The ecclesiastic of 
 the Dark Ages has been frequently portrayed as an ill-favoured fanatic, 
 with a countenance in which evil passions are scarcely masked by 
 hypocrisy, and with a pocketful of indulgences, which he is ready to 
 grant for the commission of any crime that is well paid for. Or he is 
 described as an angel in sackcloth — a model of wisdom, of self-denial, 
 of benevolence, and of purity. The knight-errant of romance is either 
 a lawless marauder, eager for spoil and reckless of every principle of 
 morality ; or he is a gallant gentleman, who derives his sole means of 
 livelihood from the pleasant, but scarcely profitable, occupation of 
 rescuing damsels in distress. 
 
 Fallacies of a like kind are promulgated by those who have en- 
 deavoured to prove on the one hand that art in the Middle Ages was 
 wilfully turned to superstitious and even vicious purposes, and on the 
 other that every missal painter and sculptor of saintly effigies was 
 himself a saint. 
 
 The bigotry of the first presumption is only equalled by the folly of 
 the second. It would be manifestly unfair to measure by a modern 
 standard of refinement the rude expression of humour, or the coarse 
 symbolisms of vice and its punishments, which found embodiment in 
 Mediaeval Art. Every one knows that many a joke which passed 
 current in polite society three centuries ago, would scarcely bear 
 repetition among modern schoolboys ; yet it by no means follows that 
 the dames and cavaliers of Queen Elizabeth's Court were less virtuous 
 than our modern world of fashion. 
 
 N 2 
 
180 Pseudo-Moral Objections. 
 
 On the other hand, to presume that what may be called the religious 
 aspect of ancient art resulted from the specially religious life of those 
 who practised it, is a piece of sentimentalism which is founded neither 
 in philosophy nor in fact. If experience teaches us anything on such 
 a point, it teaches us that constant familiarity with the material 
 adjuncts of an outward form of faith is likely to beget, not an increase, 
 but rather a diminution of reverence for such objects. It is probable 
 that, except in a few rare instances, the monks who sat down to 
 illuminate a breviary, and the sculptors who were engaged in the 
 carving of a reredos, regarded their work with the interest of skilful 
 craftsmen rather than with the enthusiasm of earnest devotees. In 
 modern days we have unconsciously drawn a distinction between re- 
 ligious art and popular art. In the Middle Ages they were thoroughly 
 blended, so that while the incidents of sacred history frequently found 
 illustration in the decorative features of domestic architecture, the 
 details of carved work in many a church and cathedral exhibit a mere 
 expression of humour, and humour of not always the most elevated kind. 
 
 A considerable portion of Mr. Hamilton's letters is occupied by the 
 utterance of sentiments in the truth of which the world has been long 
 agreed. That Greek Architecture is grand and simple in its general 
 character ; that the invention of printing opened the mind of man ; 
 that we have not yet succeeded in rivalling the sculpture of Phidias ; 
 that genius may be occasionally led astray by public taste ; and that the 
 principles of good art, when more understood, will present a more 
 enlightened standard, are as true as that Shakespeare was a great poet, 
 or that gunpowder was unknown to the ancient Britons. But the 
 assertion of such abstract propositions, even expressed as they were in 
 unexceptionable English, and amplified by endless illustrations from the 
 classics, did not throw much new light on the question as to what style 
 of design was best suited for the Houses of Parliament. Stripped of 
 rhetoric, of dissertations on the age of Pericles, and prejudiced de- 
 nunciations of Medievalism, Mr. Hamilton's arguments merely went to 
 
Colonel Jackson's Reply. 181 
 
 prove this : that he had an artistic taste of his own, and that the Govern- 
 ment as well as the nation were bound to follow it. On the score of 
 convenience he adduced scarcely a single reason for the rejection of 
 Gothic which might not have been applied with equal force to the 
 rejection of Greek architecture, presuming that the latter had been 
 adopted in all the primitive severity of its present type.* The fact is 
 that neither style could be adopted without considerable departure from 
 ancient precedent, and, if both must undergo the modification necessary 
 for modern requirements, it was surely more reasonable to modify and 
 accept a style, once at least eminently national in its characteristics, than 
 to revert to one which belonged neither to the age nor to the country 
 for which it was proposed. 
 
 It was one of Hamilton's arguments that the revival of Gothic for 
 the New Houses of Parliament would confound time and usages. On 
 this point Colonel Jackson, who published a pamphlet in reply, very 
 sensibly expressed himself: 
 
 I think time is less confounded by constructing an edifice in a style of nearly 
 similar date with the institution of the assembly for whose purpose it is intended, 
 than by building it in any other style. At all events, it must be allowed that, 
 adapting to a British House of Parliament, under the Christian reign of William 
 IV., the style of architecture adopted in heathen Greece in the time of Pericles, 
 some twenty-three centuries before, is a much greater confounding of time 
 than any which can result from the employment of Gothic. As to usages 
 that will be confounded by a Gothic House of Parliament, I am not aware that 
 any precise usage has ever obtained in these matters : they have generally de- 
 pended upon the fashion of the times or the taste of the reigning prince. If, 
 however, anything like constancy has ever prevailed in this country, it has 
 unquestionably been in favour of Gothic Architecture. 
 
 It would be fruitless to review the countless arguments which were put 
 forward, on both sides of this much-vexed question, in pamphlets, maga- 
 
 * That this was what Mr. Hamilton really desired is apparent from his second letter. 
 The adoption of Italian Architecture was a compromise which he might have tolerated, 
 but would never have approved. 
 
1 82 Commencement of the Work. 
 
 zine articles, and letters to the public press, before the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment were actually begun. Those arguments have been since renewed 
 from time to time, under different circumstances, and in a variety of forms, 
 with more or less enthusiasm. For upwards of a quarter of century, 
 the Battle of the Styles was carried on, and, if it has ceased at the present 
 day to rage with its old violence, it is probably because the weapons 
 used in that prolonged warfare have become blunted and worn out. 
 Everything that could be said in favour or disparagement of Gothic 
 has been said. Mutual concessions have since been made ; old pre- 
 judices have disappeared; misunderstandings have been cleared up; 
 but the event which first raised the controversy into national importance 
 was undoubtedly the decision that Gothic should be adopted for the 
 Palace of Westminster. 
 
 The first stone of the new building (after the river-wall and founda- 
 tion had been completed) was laid, without ceremony, on April 27, 
 1840.* The practical and constructive difficulties which Barry had to 
 encounter at the outset of his work were great, but they sank into in- 
 significance compared with the annoyances to which, in his professional 
 capacity, he was subjected from a variety of causes — some no doubt in- 
 separable from the external management of so great an undertaking, 
 but others that might well have been avoided. These, however, were 
 in time met, and in a great measure dispelled, by the tact and ability 
 which formed part of Barry's character, and which contributed so 
 largely to his success. 
 
 From the original design as submitted in competition, several im- 
 portant alterations were made. The Victoria Tower was reduced in 
 the dimensions of its plan, but carried to a far greater height than had 
 at first been intended. The roof of the House of Lords was raised. 
 The Central Hall — in consequence of the conditions proposed by 
 
 * Such is the date given in the ' Life of Sir Charles Barry.' But according to the ' Civil 
 Engineers' and Architects' Journal' the first stone was laid on March 5, 1839. Possibly 
 this was for some portion of the substructure. 
 
Character of Barry s Design. 183 
 
 Dr. Reid, for a scheme of ventilation (afterwards abandoned) — was 
 lowered. The House of Commons was again and again remodelled in 
 the endeavour to effect a compromise between requirements based in 
 turn upon considerations of convenience, acoustic principles, and 
 architectural effect. The extraordinary increase which, during the pro- 
 gress of the building, occurred in the business of Parliamentary Com- 
 mittees, necessitated considerable modifications. All these facts ought 
 to be remembered in estimating the effect of a design whose execution 
 extended over a far longer period of time than was originally contem- 
 plated, and must have been subject to a number of internal influences, 
 of which the public take small account, but which no architect would 
 find it possible to disregard. 
 
 Much of the artistic criticism which was passed on Barry's design at 
 first, and during the progress of the building, was undoubtedly just. 
 
 The strong tendency to long unbroken horizontal lines in com- 
 position, was the natural fault of an architect the bent of whose taste 
 was confessedly in favour of the Italian School. c Tudor details on a 
 classic body ! ' Pugin is said to have exclaimed to a friend as they 
 passed down the river in a steamboat. And unfortunately the Tudor 
 details were needlessly multiplied. There are general principles of 
 taste which may be safely accepted independently of the question of 
 style, and among these is that one which requires for elaborate ornament 
 a proportionate area of blank wall-space. Barry utterly ignored, and 
 possibly disputed, this principle. As the eye wanders over every com- 
 partment of every front in this building, it seeks in vain for a quiet rest- 
 ing-place. Panels moulded and cusped — carved work in high and low 
 relief — niches statued and canopied — pinnacles bossed and crocketed — ■ 
 spandrelled window-heads — battlemented parapets — fretted turrets, and 
 enriched string-courses — succeed each other with the endless iteration of 
 a recurring decimal. It is hardly too much to say that, if half the 
 decorative features of this building had been omitted, its general 
 effect would have been enhanced in a twofold degree. One of the 
 
r 84 Effect on the Revival. 
 
 peculiar failings exhibited by Gothic architects of the day seems to 
 have been the incapacity to regulate the character of design by 
 the scale on which it was to be applied. The extraordinary size 
 of the Victoria Tower required in its general outline and surface 
 decoration a very different treatment from that of the building which 
 lay at its base. In this case, Barry contented himself with magnifying 
 small features into large ones. The result has proved to be that while 
 the tower individually loses in apparent grandeur by reason of its 
 elaborated detail, when seen in connection with the main body of the 
 building, it has the unfortunate effect of dwarfing the proportions of 
 the latter by reason of its own overwhelming bulk. 
 
 In spite of these and other defects which critics have not failed to 
 point out (without considering the long lapse of time that ensued 
 between the first conception of Barry's design and the completion of 
 his work), it must be admitted that, taken as a whole, the Palace of 
 Westminster was eminently creditable to its author, and probably equal, 
 if not superior, to any structure which might have been devised and 
 carried out in the same style and under similar conditions by the most 
 skilful of his competitors. Thirty years have made a vast difference 
 in the professional study of Mediaeval Architecture, and in public 
 appreciation of its merits. Qualities of design which were once con- 
 sidered essential to artistic grace are now ignored and even condemned, 
 while the so-called faults which the last generation of architects strove 
 to avoid have risen to the level of confessed excellence. 
 
 It is easy to say that if these Houses of Parliament had been begun 
 in 1865 instead of 1835, a nobler type of Gothic would have been 
 adopted in the design. Who knows how far the taste for Mediaeval 
 Art might have been developed at all but for this timely patronage of 
 the State ? Is it not rather true that the decision of the Government 
 as to the style of the new buildings gave an impulse to the Revival 
 which could have been created in no other way — an impulse that has 
 kept this country advanced before others in the earnestness with 
 
Influence on Art Manufacture. 185 
 
 which ancient types of national Architecture are studied and imitated by- 
 professional men ? * 
 
 In the department of Art Manufacture it would be impossible to 
 overrate the influence brought to bear upon decorative sculpture, 
 upon ceramic decoration, ornamental metal-work, and glass staining, by 
 the encouragement given to those arts during the progress of the 
 works at Westminster. In the design of such details Pugin's aid was, 
 at the time, invaluable. It was frankly sought and freely rendered. 
 Hardman's painted windows and brass fittings, Minton's encaustic tiles, 
 and Crace's mural decoration, bear evidence of his skill and industry. f 
 They may be rivalled and surpassed in design and execution at the 
 present day ; but to Pugin, and to the architect who had the good 
 sense to secure his services, we shall ever be indebted for the rapid 
 advance made in these several departments of Art during the first half 
 of the present century. 
 
 Nor must we overlook the important step gained in connection with 
 this work by the appointment of a Fine Arts Commission in 1841. 
 To assert that the statues and paintings which now decorate the Houses 
 of Parliament are all that could be desired in point of style or ex- 
 ecution, would be very far from the truth. But before they were 
 undertaken, no public encouragement worth mentioning had for some 
 time past been given either to painters or sculptors. They were now 
 associated in the completion of a grand national work. The Pictorial 
 Art Competition, and display of prize cartoons in Westminster Hall, 
 had the effect of bringing under public notice the talents of many an 
 artist who might otherwise have long remained in obscurity. The 
 technical details of fresco painting, which for centuries had been for- 
 
 * In the literature of the Gothic Revival we are, however, far behind the French. No 
 work has been produced in England which can compare, in amount of research and use- 
 fulness, with M. Viollet le Due's admirable ' Dictionnaire Raisonnee.' 
 
 t For the execution of the decorative sculpture, Mr. Thomas (acting of course under 
 the direction of Sir Charles Barry) was alone responsible, and probably at the time no one 
 was better qualified to undertake it. 
 
1 86 The Modern Gothic School. 
 
 gotten in this country, received scientific attention ; and if the issue has 
 not been altogether satisfactory, it is from no want of pains or extent of 
 research. 
 
 If it be argued that these results could have been equally attained by 
 the adoption of any other style of architecture for the Houses of 
 Parliament, the answer is that no other style would have served so well 
 to preserve — at least in aim — the unities of a School of Art. Before the 
 commencement of this work, many public buildings were erected in the 
 pseudo-Greek and revived Italian fashion of the day, but the accessories 
 with which they were invested had by long sufferance been allowed to 
 remain deficient in the character and consonance of design. 
 
 The Classic Renaissance, even in its palmy days, had failed to 
 inspire that sort of uniformity which should mark the return to a 
 former style of art. Fashionable portrait-painters who in the seven- 
 teenth century had depicted their royal patron as a Roman warrior in 
 a full-bottomed wig, were not more inconsistent than many a con- 
 temporary architect, who suffered the most incongruous modernisms to 
 intrude in the interior and fittings of a palace which was professedly 
 classic in taste. 
 
 In the Houses of Parliament it was Barry's endeavour to maintain, 
 down to the minutest article of furniture, the proprieties of that style 
 which the voice of the nation had selected for his design. How carefully 
 and thoroughly he did this, the work itself testifies in every detail. It 
 may not belong to the highest class of art. But, of its kind, it is 
 genuine, well studied, and complete. 
 
Revival of C Jut ych Architecture. 187 
 
 CHJPTER XL 
 
 HILE the adoption of Mediaeval design for civic, and thus 
 indirectly for domestic, buildings was encouraged by the 
 decision of Government that the New Houses of Parliament 
 should be Gothic, the revival of ancient Church Architecture received a 
 fresh and no less powerful impetus from the rapidly increasing taste for 
 ecclesiology, which had by this time begun to develop itself in Eng- 
 land. The origin of this taste may be traced to two causes. First to 
 the necessity of providing additional churches of some kind — a necessity 
 which had been already recognised by the State — and, secondly, to that 
 remarkable change which was gradually taking place in the religious 
 convictions of English Churchmen, and which resulted in a movement 
 known under various names at different periods of its progress, but 
 really representing a tendency to invest the Church with higher spiritual 
 functions, and to secure for it a more symbolical and imposing form of 
 worship than had for many generations past been claimed or maintained. 
 So early as 1818 an Act of Parliament had been passed for building 
 and promoting the building of additional churches, and a Royal Com- 
 mission had been appointed for carrying the Act into execution. The 
 Reports issued by this Commission during some twenty or thirty years 
 after their appointment afford curious statistics as to the gradual change 
 in architectural taste. In the tabulated statement of the first Report 
 (1821), it was not even considered necessary to name the style of the 
 new churches in course of erection. In later Reports this deficiency is 
 supplied, and c Gothic with Tower and Spire ' is found alternately with 
 1 Roman of the Tuscan Order,' or < Grecian Doric with Cupola.' The 
 
1 88 The ' Incorporated Society! 
 
 western and northern counties seem to have been the first to return to 
 the ancient type, but in London and the east of England the classic 
 element still predominated. For some years York and Lancashire dis- 
 tanced other provinces in the number of their new churches, and for 
 their steady adhesion to a style of design which can only be called 
 f Mediaeval ' because it can be called nothing else. With a few 
 notable exceptions, some of which have been mentioned, these build- 
 ings were erected at small expense, and therefore were not designed 
 with any aim at architectural effect. The walls were as slight as struc- 
 tural safety would permit. The roofs were of low pitch and ceiled 
 internally. The porches were small and meagre. As for the chancel 
 — a feature now considered almost indispensable to every village church 
 — it was either omitted altogether or reduced to the condition of a 
 shallow recess, just large enough to contain the communion table. The 
 great object was to secure as many sittings as possible, consistently 
 with the maintenance of that thoroughly modern institution, the family 
 pew. And here religious zeal clashed with notions of personal comfort. 
 For the high- backed, luxuriously cushioned and carpeted pew occupied 
 of necessity a great deal of room, and, on the other hand, to sit on 
 uncovered wooden benches as congregations do now in half the modern 
 churches of London — to make, in short, no distinction between the rich 
 and poor assembled in common worship — would have been considered 
 something altogether incompatible with the requirements of a genteel 
 congregation. In this dilemma it was obvious that the only expedient 
 by which a certain number of sittings could be obtained without 
 doubling the size and cost of the church was the erection of galleries, 
 and these were freely adopted, without the slightest reference either to 
 ancient precedent or to architectural effect. 
 
 The suggestions published about this time of the Incorporated 
 Society for Promoting the Enlargement, Building, and Repairing of 
 Churches and Chapels, plainly indicate the spirit in which such works 
 were then undertaken. Durability and convenience were the qualities 
 
Commissioners Churches! 189 
 
 mainly insisted on. The site was to be central, dry, and sufficiently 
 distant from factories and noisy thoroughfares ; a paved open area was 
 to be made round the church. If vaulted underneath, the crypt was to 
 be made available for the reception of coals or the parish fire-engine. 
 Every care was to be taken to render chimneys safe from fire, but side 
 by side with this excellent counsel was a suggestion that they might be 
 concealed in 'pinnacles I The windows, it was naively remarked, c ought 
 not to resemble modern sashes ; but whether Grecian or Gothic the 
 glass should be in small panes and not costly.' The most favourable 
 position for the c minister ' was stated to be f near an end wall, or in a 
 semicircular recess under a half- dome.' It was indeed stipulated that 
 the pulpit should not intercept a view of the altar, but the sine qua non 
 was that all the seats should be placed so as to face the preacher. 
 Pillars of cast iron were recommended for supporting the gallery of 
 a chapel, though it was hinted that c in large churches they might want 
 grandeur.' Ornament was to be c neat and simple,' yet f venerable ' in 
 character. The Society even went so far as to recommend Gothic ; 
 but in order to satisfy another class of taste, it was added that c the 
 Grecian Doric is also eligible.' 
 
 Such were the structures which, under the half contemptuous name 
 of c Commissioners' Churches,' began to spring up in various districts 
 throughout England in the second and third decades of the present 
 century. Within a dozen years after the Act had been passed, one 
 hundred and thirty-four had been completed, and fifty more were in 
 course of erection. In Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, and Leeds, 
 in Stockport, Sheffield, Leicester, Bolton, and Huddersfield, besides a 
 host of smaller towns, may still be found examples — and, in some cases, 
 many examples — of this phase of the Revival. They possess, as a rule, 
 little or no merit in the way of architectural design, having been chiefly 
 built for the sole purpose of providing as speedily and as cheaply as 
 possible church accommodation for manufacturing districts, which of 
 late years were rapidly increasing in population. Had the church 
 
i go ' Evangelical ' Scruples. 
 
 building movement been confined to this object and to such districts, 
 spiritual instruction of a certain kind might indeed have been secured 
 where it was obviously necessary, but much of the zeal and interest 
 which has since been awakened among laymen would have been lost, 
 while Architecture as an art would have suffered to an incalculable 
 extent. 
 
 Concurrently, however, with this public and praiseworthy endeavour 
 to build what may at least be called houses of prayer, a strong desire 
 began to manifest itself in this country for a return not only to the 
 ancient type of national church, but to a more decent and attractive 
 form of service. The tendency of religious thought in England, after 
 combatting the scepticism of the seventeenth century, and rallying from 
 the indolence of the Hanoverian period, had drifted almost unconsciously 
 into that condition of doctrine which is commonly named, or as some 
 think misnamed, ' Evangelical.' 
 
 That in their time and in their own way the followers of this school 
 did excellent work in the Church has since been admitted by all who 
 are not prejudiced to the extent of bigotry. But whatever may have 
 been their claim to Evangelical functions in a spiritual sense, they 
 certainly brought no good message to the cause of Art. The sym- 
 bolism, the ceremonies, the sacred imagery, the decorative adjuncts of 
 a material church, they regarded not only with indifference, but with 
 pious horror. No service could be too simple, no chapel could be too 
 plain, no priest too unsacerdotal for the exigencies of their creed. To 
 what purpose, they asked, had the Reformers worked and suffered if 
 we were to revive in the nineteenth century the ecclesiastical architecture, 
 the idolatrous gewgaws, the superstitious forms and ceremonies which 
 had prevailed in the Middle Ages ? Whether a congregation of 
 Christians assembled for public worship in a cathedral or a barn their 
 prayers would be equally acceptable. The best form for a church, 
 they reasoned, was surely that which was the simplest — in which all 
 could see the preacher and hear his words. For the plan, a mere 
 
Utilitarian Objections. 191 
 
 parallelogram would suffice. The chancel, with its Popish rood screen, 
 its credence table and sedilia, was but a relic of the Dark Ages, and 
 totally unsuited to the requirements of a Protestant community. 
 Crosses, whether on the reredos or the gable-top, were to be avoided as 
 objects of superstitious reverence. Ornamental carved work, decorative 
 painting, encaustic tiles, and stained glass were foolish vanities which 
 lead the heart astray. The very name of. the altar was a scandal and a 
 stumbling-block to the right-minded. 
 
 Such were some of the objections raised against a revival of Ancient 
 Church Architecture by those who conceived that they recognised in it 
 a source of immediate danger to the Reformed faith. But there were 
 others whose arguments took a more practical form. In their opinion, 
 a refined type of structure and ecclesiastical decoration was to be 
 avoided, not so much because it might be spiritually dangerous, but 
 because it was decidedly expensive. For the cost of one stone church 
 with a groined roof, or even an open timbered roof, two might be built 
 in brick with plaster ceilings ; and who could dare to say that worship 
 in the plainer building would be less devout or sincere than that which 
 was offered in the other ? 
 
 Apologists were not wanting for this economical scheme of church 
 extension — a scheme which combined in its purpose the distinct but 
 not opposed virtues of benevolence and frugality, and which thus 
 awakened the consciences while it guarded the pockets of the faith- 
 ful. A notable little book was published for the express purpose 
 of showing for what small sums of money some modern churches 
 had, and others might be, built. The designs were indeed not of 
 that order of taste which would have commended itself to the 
 Wykehams and the Waynfletes of past ages, or to the Streets and 
 Butterfields of our own day. But, on the other hand, the most jealous 
 critic would have frankly pronounced them free from any semblance 
 of superstitious symbolism— from those artistic attractions in which 
 one section at least of the religious public saw at that time a pitfall 
 
192 Ecclesiastical Economy. 
 
 and a snare. They were, in short, very Protestant, and what was then 
 equally important, they were very cheap. The ingenious author took 
 a pride in carrying his suggestions into matters of detail. He narrated 
 how in one church a neat portable font had been purchased for the sum 
 of 14J. This did not indeed include the price of a pedestal, but when 
 required for use it might be placed on the communion table, in which 
 position he (a clergyman in the Church of England) recommended that 
 it might be used for the service of baptism. Again it was sheer extra- 
 vagance to employ gold or silver for the sacramental plate, when a 
 perfectly serviceable chalice, salver, and flagon (of Britannia metal) 
 could be bought in Sheffield for 3/. 19J. 
 
 The economy thus suggested was, no doubt, a well-purposed economy. 
 Money saved in such a manner might have been applied to many 
 excellent purposes, and among others to that of parochial relief. But 
 it is impossible to contemplate the intention without calling to mind 
 another instance of benevolent thrift, proposed and authoritatively 
 rebuked in the earliest history of Christianity — when, to do honour to 
 her Master, the woman of Bethany broke her box of precious ointment, 
 and the people murmured at its cost. 
 
 There is a sanguine maxim in physics, as in every-day philosophy, 
 that when things are at their worst we may hope for amendment. To 
 what contemptible level the utilitarian spirit which prevailed some 
 forty years ago might have dragged the Church of England it is 
 difficult to say, if a strong and steady influence had not been exercised 
 in an opposite direction. English antiquarians, as we have seen, had 
 laboured to maintain the traditions of Mediaeval Art at a time when 
 popular taste had declared for an exotic style of Architecture. The 
 time had now come when that taste was on the wane. The most im- 
 portant public building yet raised in modern England was being erected, 
 at the suggestion of Government, after a Gothic fashion, at least in 
 details. The revival of a still earlier style of design for our churches 
 was due to the ecclesiological interest and researches which were the 
 result of a reaction from previous apathy and ignorant prejudice. 
 
Secular Apathy. 1 93 
 
 Just as the decision of the Synod of Dort had, in the seventeenth 
 century, indirectly helped to encourage Arminian doctrines under the 
 Stuarts, so the intolerant Puritanism that prevailed in this country half 
 a century ago by degrees engendered an ecclesiastical sentiment, the 
 character of which was half artistic and half doctrinal. 
 
 Of course there was a large body of f outsiders ' to whom points 
 of taste and points of doctrine were matters of equal indifference. 
 Against them the chief charge which could be brought — and it is a 
 sufficiently grave one — was this : that they had allowed church fabrics 
 to fall into decay, and church services to lapse into slovenliness. The 
 modern generation, with its trim village churches carefully repaired, 
 decently appointed, and bedecked with flowers on festivals ; or its town 
 churches, rich in marble, in tapestries and decorative painting, with a 
 daily service all the year round, and a full choir every Sunday — the 
 orthodox modern church- building generation can form but little notion 
 of the carelessness, the irreverence and ignorance which prevailed in 
 regard to matters ecclesiastical half a century ago. Children were 
 allowed to grow up utterly uninformed as to the nature and signifi- 
 cance of the English Liturgy and the Sacraments. Baptism was a mere 
 ceremony frequently performed— in polite life — under the parental roof. 
 Confirmation was in most cases dispensed with altogether. Many an 
 undergraduate learnt for the first time at his University the difference 
 between Lent and Advent. The observance of Saints' Days was 
 confined to the denizens of the Cathedral close and to a few fanatics 
 
 beyond it. 
 
 In country districts a bad road or a rainy day sufficed to keep half 
 the congregation away, even from Sunday services. Of those who 
 attended, two-thirds left the responses to the parish clerk. The rest 
 carefully repeated the Exhortation and Absolution after the clergyman. 
 Cracked fiddles and grunting violoncellos frequently supplied the place 
 of the church organ. The village choir — of male and female per- 
 formers—assembled in the western gallery. When they began to sing, 
 
 o 
 
194 Condition of Church Service. 
 
 the whole congregation faced about to look at them ; but to turn 
 towards the east during the recitation of the Creed, or to rise when the 
 clergy entered the church, would have been considered an instance of 
 abject superstition. No one thought of kneeling during the longer 
 prayers. Sometimes the Litany was interrupted by thwacks from the 
 beadle's cane, as it descended on the shoulders of parish schoolboys, 
 who devoted themselves to clandestine amusement during that portion 
 of the service. When the sermon began, all, except the very devout, 
 settled themselves comfortably to sleep. The parson preached in a 
 black gown, and not unfrequently read the Communion Service from 
 his pulpit. 
 
 Cathedral services were celebrated with a little more decorum, but with 
 scarcely less apathy. The buildings themselves, from being neglected 
 altogether, were now preserved by shutting out the people. The 
 author of c The Broad Stone of Honour,' writing in 1824, thus speaks 
 of their condition : 
 
 What would have been the feelings of Johnson if he had lived to see a 
 cathedral in England closed upon Sundays, with the exception of a small part of 
 the choir ; the nave and the great body of the building converted to all intents 
 and purposes into a museum, to afford amusement to the curious and emolu- 
 ment to the vergers j and an order recognised and established which decreed 
 that they should never be entered as a place of worship and for the purpose of 
 devotion ? Yet such is the regulation which now exists in the interior of the 
 most celebrated of our ecclesiastical structures. 
 
 It is melancholy to think that many of the abuses thus recognised 
 and deplored should still linger in our system of Cathedral economy ; 
 that the elements of beadledom and vergerism should yet remain to be 
 eradicated from the ecclesiastical polity of many a Chapter in the 
 United Kingdom. But, on the other hand, a great change has since 
 taken place in the mode and management of ordinary Church services. 
 The study of ecclesiology, of Mediaeval Architecture, of sacred music, 
 and of rubrical usages, has by degrees transformed a conventional and 
 
The Cambridge Camden Society. 195 
 
 sometimes scarcely reverent ceremony into a picturesque and interesting 
 rite. Various influences combined to originate this change. It is not, 
 however, too much to say that they would have been practically value- 
 less but for the exertions and combined action of certain Churchmen, 
 who, when the cause which they had at heart was still unpopular and 
 misunderstood, strove zealously and disinterestedly to teach and main- 
 tain its fundamental principles. 
 
 For some years previous to the period which our History has now 
 reached, there existed an £ Architectural Society ' at the University of 
 Oxford, and an * Antiquarian Society ' at Cambridge ; but the former 
 only timidly and the latter only incidentally engaged in those re- 
 searches which were afterwards called ecclesiological. In 1839 two 
 undergraduates of Trinity College at the latter University conceived 
 the idea of founding a Society for the Study of Church Architecture in 
 connection with ritual arrangements. One of these young men was Mr. 
 (afterwards the Rev.) J. M. Neale, now dead, whose name as an author 
 is well known. The other, Mr. Benjamin Webb, is the present in- 
 cumbent of St. Andrew's Church, Wells Street. They communicated 
 their proposal to their college tutor, the Rev. T. Thorp (now Arch- 
 deacon of Bristol), who received it favourably, and after some discussion 
 the Cambridge Camden Society was formed. Their corporate name 
 was perhaps not very well chosen. It was intended to commemorate 
 that of the famous antiquary, but it had already been adopted by a 
 literary Society in London. 
 
 Mr. Thorp became the first president. Several senior members of 
 the University gave the Society a condescending rather than zealous 
 support ; but as time went on they cautiously withdrew their patronage, 
 with one exception. This was Dr. Mill, the Regius Professor of Hebrew, 
 who from first to last remained true to the cause. At first the Camden 
 had naturally to depend on the exertions of young men — the under- 
 graduates and B.A.'s of Cambridge. Among its earliest members were 
 many who have been since distinguished in life. One (Mr. H. Goodwin) 
 
 o 2 
 
196 Publication of the l Ecclesiologist! 
 
 became Dean of Ely, and is now Bishop of Carlisle ; another (Mr. P. 
 Freeman) is the present Archdeacon of Exeter ; a third (Mr. J. S. 
 Howson) was in time preferred to the Deanery of Chester ; a fourth 
 (Mr. E. Venables) obtained a stall at Lincoln. To this list the names 
 of F. A. Paley, a distinguished scholar, and S. N. Stokes, now an in- 
 spector of schools, must be added, and lastly, though by no means 
 least, that of Mr. Beresford Hope, M.P., who, by his taste, his zeal, 
 and his liberality, has perhaps done more to promote the revival of 
 Mediaeval Church Architecture than any layman in our time. 
 
 By degrees the Society systematised its efforts and fell into efficient 
 working order. It held general meetings : it delegated special commit- 
 tees. It held periodical ' field days,' when the principal churches in the 
 neighbourhood were visited, and every remarkable feature in their 
 design became the subject of discussion and research. It published a 
 series of pamphlets, among which Neale's f Few Words to Church- 
 wardens' attracted much attention, and laid the foundation for a thorough 
 reform, then sorely needed, in the care and management of ancient 
 ecclesiastical structures. This brochure went through several editions, 
 enlarged and adapted to certain special requirements, and was followed 
 by the c History of Pews,' an ingenious, exhaustive, and scholarlike 
 little treatise. At length, in 1841, the Society founded a magazine of 
 its own. This was no other than the c Ecclesiologist,' which has since 
 taken its place in the art literature of its day, but the very name of 
 which was at that time a novelty, and to some an enigma. 
 
 On May 9, 1840, the Committee of the Cambridge Camden Society 
 issued their first annual Report — not without satisfaction to themselves, 
 as may be inferred from the fact that within the space of twelve 
 months the number of members enrolled had increased from eight to 
 one hundred and eighty. Four distinct methods were recommended, 
 by which the aim of the Society might be fulfilled. First, the restora- 
 tion of mutilated architectural remains ; secondly, the description of 
 all churches visited ; thirdly, the execution of drawings illustrative of 
 
General Objects of the Society. 197 
 
 ecclesiastical architecture ; and, fourthly, the collection of brass-rubbings. 
 Patience, zeal, and scrupulous care were insisted on as virtues indis- 
 pensable to the antiquary, and while a modest ' balance in hand ' 
 testified the prudence of financial administration, promoters of the 
 good cause were urged to contribute to its resources with a liberal 
 hand. 
 
 A systematic plan was devised for obtaining necessary information 
 as to the original design and modern condition of ancient churches 
 throughout the kingdom. Blank forms were printed and issued to 
 members of the Society, suggesting, under several heads, the details 
 required for description. These forms were rapidly filled up and 
 returned. In course of time they formed a stock of ecclesiological lore, 
 which has since become most useful not only to amateurs, but to pro- 
 fessed students of Mediaeval Art. 
 
 Of course the objects which the Society kept in view and plainly 
 announced could not long be dissociated from questions of doctrine 
 among the clergy and congregations to whom it especially directed its 
 appeal. In some quarters the movement in favour of church resto- 
 ration and ancient rubrical usage excited distrust and even repugnance. 
 It was the peculiar merit of Mr. Neale's pamphlets to unite, in the 
 advice which they contained, the zeal of an enthusiastic Churchman, the 
 knowledge of a skilled antiquary, and that cautious tact which was 
 essential in an endeavour to enlist the sympathies of the general public, 
 without offending prejudices rooted sometimes in religious principle 
 and more frequently in sheer ignorance. 
 
 No one who attends church at all, and still less the churchwardens, 
 on whom the care of the sacred building itself should devolve, can 
 venture to dispute the proposition that it is as much the duty of a 
 parish to preserve its church in decent condition as it is the duty of 
 the civic authorities to keep a town hall in good order, or of a house- 
 holder to maintain the stability and cleanliness of his dwelling. Yet it 
 was a patent fact thirty years ago that many a church, both in town 
 
198 Ncales ' Hints to Churchwardens. 1 
 
 and country, had fallen into shameful and even dangerous neglect. 
 This was the first point to which Mr. Neale drew urgent attention. 
 Why, he asked, while private houses were kept clean and comfortable, 
 should the House of God be suffered to decay or be patched up in a 
 manner which would disgrace the poorest cottage whose inmates could 
 afford its repair ? With what conscience could the country squire 
 leave his spruce and well-appointed mansion to attend Divine service 
 in a building where the windows were broken or boarded over, the 
 walls mouldy with damp, the rotting roof rudely plastered out of sight, 
 the floor ill-paved, the ancient decorative features replaced by the 
 meanest substitutes ? 
 
 These are questions which, if needed at all in the present day, would 
 find an obvious and ready answer. But there was a time, and within 
 the memory of many Churchmen, when they seemed to take the general 
 public by surprise. Many of Mr. Neale's suggestions towards a much- 
 needed reform were of a practical kind. He detailed the best means 
 of preserving churches from damp, of keeping them clean and well 
 ventilated. But he also went on to describe what many of his readers 
 must have learned from him for the first time, viz. : the plan and 
 purpose of an ancient parish church, the uses of its several parts, the 
 significance and symbolism of its internal arrangement. To this he 
 added many excellent hints on the subject of restoration and refitting 
 of naves and chancels. The subject of rubrical reform was cautiously 
 approached, and the author endeavoured to give weight to his sugges- 
 tions by appealing to the piety and good sense of intelligent laymen 
 rather than by any direct reference to questions of doctrine. 
 
 The first number of the ( Ecclesiologist ' * appeared in November 
 1 84 1, and its publication was hailed as an important step in the revival 
 of Church Architecture. Its primary object was to keep those members 
 
 * It is to be observed that the words ' Ecclesiology ' and ' Ecclesiologist,' though now 
 commonly adopted, were originally invented and first used by the Cambridge Camden 
 Society. 
 
Opposition to the Camden Society. 199 
 
 of the Cambridge Camden Society who resided at a distance from the 
 University regularly informed as to the Society's transactions. But it 
 was also proposed to conduct the magazine in such a manner as to 
 afford means of inter-communication on the subjects of church building, 
 restorations, and antiquarian lore. Its pages were to be open to all 
 enquirers on points of architectural taste, rubrical propriety, or disputed 
 ecclesiastical usages. By these means it was hoped to establish a bond 
 of union between the Cambridge Camden, and Oxford, and other Archi- 
 tectural Societies, and to maintain a common field of labour in which 
 the clergy, professed architects, and zealous amateurs might work 
 together with the advantage of mutual assistance. 
 
 The whole career of the Society at Cambridge was an eventful and 
 exciting one. Inaugurated by a small coterie of college friends, it 
 rapidly extended its relations in all parts of the kingdom. It received 
 patronage and support from some of the highest dignitaries of the 
 English Church. Beneficed clergy, University dons, distinguished 
 laymen in every condition of life, wealthy amateurs, as well as many 
 an architect and artist of note, were enrolled among its members. 
 With many of these the principles of reform, whether aesthetic or 
 ecclesiastical, which it advocated, were extremely popular. But by 
 many outsiders they were regarded with suspicion and positive dislike. 
 Among the latter, Mr. Close (the present Dean of Carlisle) proved a 
 determined though not very formidable antagonist. His famous c Fifth 
 of November ' sermon was confessedly an attack on the Society. It was 
 preached in the parish church, Cheltenham, and was afterwards pub- 
 lished under a preposterous title which, no doubt, the reverend author 
 has long since wished to forget.* 
 
 Unanimity did not alwaysprevail among members of the Society itself, 
 especially when questions of doctrine were involved in the official censor- 
 ship which its acting committee occasionally assumed. The first num- 
 ber of the t Ecclesiologist ' contained a somewhat severe criticism on a 
 * ' The Restoration of Churches is the Restoration of" Popery,' &c. 
 
2oo Restoration of the Temple Church. 
 
 church then recently erected at New Town, Cambridge. Some of the 
 University dons took alarm at what no doubt they conceived to be a 
 sacrifice of Protestant principles to antiquarian orthodoxy. They drew 
 up and addressed to the committee a remonstrance, in which they 
 expressed a fear that there existed c in some quarters a desire to convert 
 the Society into an engine of polemic theology instead of an instrument 
 for promoting the study and practice of Ecclesiastical Architecture.' 
 This remonstrance met with a conciliatory reply. The first number of 
 the magazine was republished, and the article was remodelled in such a 
 manner as to avoid cause of offence. As a rule the notices of new 
 churches and of restorations published by the Society were doubly 
 valuable, inasmuch as they not only conveyed intelligence of such works 
 to the amateur, but by degrees established a standard of architectural 
 taste and propriety in the planning and arrangement of churches to 
 which even professional designers paid deference. 
 
 The restoration of the Temple Church, one of the first events chron- 
 icled in the pages of the ' Ecclesiologist,' was certainly an important 
 one at this stage of the Revival. That pure and beautiful specimen of 
 Early English Architecture, sharing a common fate with many other 
 relics of mediaeval art, had suffered severely from neglect and modern 
 innovations. Its chancel was blocked out from the nave. The nave 
 was filled with pews which rivalled a jury box in size. The walls were 
 wainscoted. The floor was raised by an accumulation of rubbish to a 
 height of some feet above its original level. A hideous altar screen 
 rich in pagan symbols, and a pulpit such as Gulliver might have sat 
 under if he had attended Divine Service in Brobdignag, had been 
 erected. The mural decorations of the interior had been allowed to 
 perish or were obscured by monumental tablets of execrable taste. How 
 far the Templars themselves were individually or collectively responsible 
 for this desecration it is impossible to say. But a day arrived when 
 they awoke to a sense of shame and to a memory of those early archi- 
 tectural traditions which had once been associated with their Order. It 
 
TJie Ecclesiological Society. 201 
 
 was decided that the Temple Church should be restored. The work 
 necessarily extended over many years, and more than one architect was 
 employed in its supervision. It would of course be invidious to com- 
 pare the earlier portion of the repairs executed with the later and more 
 scholarlike renovations by Mr. St. Aubyn. At the present day when 
 half the cathedrals of England are undergoing similar treatment after 
 the advantage of a whole generation of ecclesiological study it would be 
 surprising indeed if any obvious mistake were made in reproducing the 
 original design. But considering that this work was begun thirty years 
 ago, the world of art may be thankful for the general success with which 
 it has been carried out. 
 
 It is to be noted that although the Cambridge Camden Society 
 reckoned among its members many architects of high repute, whose 
 advice and assistance were always available, and freely rendered, it 
 selected its working committee entirely from amateurs. By this rule, 
 which from first to last was strictly maintained, the infringement of 
 professional etiquette was avoided. 
 
 The committee was for years charged with all the active functions of 
 the Society; but as time went on and many of its members left the 
 University, it became obvious that the local ' Camden ' must either 
 remove to London or be dissolved. Luckily the former course was 
 adopted, and in 1846 it took the name of the 'Ecclesiological (late 
 Cambridge Camden) Society.'* With this change its special connection 
 with the University ceased, and it elected on its committee amateurs 
 distinguished for their architectural and antiquarian taste, whether Cam- 
 bridge men or not. Among those who took a prominent position .in 
 the Society during its second phase, and in addition to its earlier mem- 
 bers, were Sir Stephen Glynne, Sir C. Anderson, Mr. F. H. Dickinson 
 (late M.P.), Messrs. J. D. Chambers, J. F. France, T. Gambier Parry 
 (whose name, as well as that of his colleague the late H. S. Le Strange, 
 has been since most notably associated with the theory and practice of 
 
 * The words 'late Cambridge Camden' were afterwards dropped. 
 
202 Dr. Chandler. 
 
 decorative art), the Rev. G. H. Hodson, the Rev. T. Helmore, and 
 the Rev. G. Williams. 
 
 The meeting at which it was decided that the Society should change 
 its name was held in the school-room of Dr. Chandler, the Dean of 
 Chichester, who by this time had joined the Society, and was one of its 
 most zealous supporters. The encouragement which this dignitary, a 
 representative of the old school of English High Church clergy, gave to 
 the Revival of Church Architecture deserves notice. By opening his 
 cathedral — as no cathedral had been previously opened — to the erection 
 of memorial windows, he created a new and valuable impulse to the 
 art of glass-painting. The architectural restoration of the building he 
 entrusted to the late Mr. R. C. Carpenter, whose name stands foremost 
 among professional designers for his accurate knowledge of ancient 
 work, his inventive power, and his refined treatment of decorative 
 details. Through Dr. Chandler's exertions a new church (from Car- 
 penter's design) was built at Chichester, and he afterwards became the 
 founder of St. Andrew's, Wells Street — the first church erected under 
 Peel's Act, and the earliest district church in London which was on 
 completion fitted up in accordance with ancient and correct usage, as 
 regards its chancel, stalls, &c* 
 
 The appointment of Dr. Peacock to the Deanery of Ely, and the 
 great works carried out in that cathedral under his authority, were coin- 
 cident with the establishment and early history of the { Cambridge 
 Camden Society ; ' and although he never enrolled himself among its 
 members, yet the interest which he felt in the Revival and the practical 
 character of his efforts were of signal value to the cause. 
 
 After the Society had moved to London it became the custom to 
 invite the attendance at its committee meetings of architects and 
 decorative artists for the purpose of exhibiting and discussing their 
 designs and productions, which by common consent were afterwards 
 reviewed in the c Ecclesiologist.' In the pages of that journal, and 
 * Further mention of this structure will be made in Chapter XTII. 
 
The Oxford Society. 203 
 
 during the second phase of its existence, the Society found a sufficient 
 record of its opinions and transactions. But it also published a 
 useful and matterful c Handbook of English Ecclesiology,' based to 
 some extent on a previously issued pamphlet, but now rewritten 
 chiefly by Sir S. Glynne and Mr. Neale. In 1 847 appeared the first 
 series of c Instruments Ecclesiastica,' a collection of designs for church 
 fittings, &c, partly original and partly illustrative of old examples. 
 This was compiled by an architect whose early ability had won for him 
 a confidence which has since been well sustained. Among the host of 
 modern churches which have been raised in England during the last 
 twenty years there are none which bear the stamp of originality and 
 thoughtful work in a more eminent degree than those designed by 
 Mr. Butterfield. 
 
 Nearly contemporary in origin and almost identical in object with 
 the < Cambridge Camden ' was the f Oxford Society for promoting 
 the Study of Gothic Architecture,' established under the patronage of 
 the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of the Diocese. Its 
 first president was the President of Magdalen College. Among its 
 earliest members were many eminent clergymen and others whose 
 names have since become famous in the several departments of art, 
 literature, and science.* By means of donations it soon formed the 
 nucleus of a useful library and an interesting collection of drawings and 
 casts from the details of mediaeval remains. 
 
 If not quite so fervent as the Camden in its zeal for the revival of 
 Gothic, the Oxford Society showed from the first a wise and discrimi- 
 nating judgment on the question of c restorations,' which had the effect 
 of tempering a policy that elsewhere might have sacrificed to considera- 
 
 * As, for instance, the late Dr. Buckland, afterwards Dean of Westminster, the Rev. 
 S. J. Rigaud, afterwards Bishop of Antigua ; the Earl of Athlone, the Earl of Dunraven, 
 Lord Courtenay, Lord Dungannon, Chevalier Bunsen, Sir Henry Ellis, Sir Francis Pal- 
 grave, and Mr. Ruskin, besides Messrs. E. Blore, B. Ferrey, J. Plowman, W.J. Underwood, 
 A. Salvin, and other architects of note. 
 
204 Paper by the Rev. H. G. Liddell. 
 
 tions of style many a relic of past times deficient indeed in the highest 
 qualities of architectural grace, but deserving on other grounds the in- 
 terest and protection of posterity. A paper read before the Society in 
 i 841 by the Rev. H. G. Liddell (the present Dean of Christchurch) 
 contains a remarkable passage bearing on this point. 
 
 Societies, no less than individuals, when much interested in one object, are 
 apt to become either microscopic or one-sided in their views ; both these ten- 
 dencies are a kind of pedantry, a fault to which all persons are liable who confine 
 their views too much to one object, and against which it may be useful to warn 
 this and other similar Societies. We must remember how liable every man's 
 mind is to be biassed and warped by systems of exclusive study, and that anti- 
 quarians are peculiarly open to this failing. Let us therefore take warning, and 
 not set our affections on one style only, or on absolute uniformity in each style. 
 This is the pedantry of architecture j this is the one-sidedness we must guard 
 against. Many people, who, to avoid offence, may be called not pedants but 
 purists, seeing a fine old church disfigured, as they would say, by alterations, 
 would begin sweeping all such disfigurements clean away, and restoring the 
 church just as it stood when built. But the alterations of old buildings are in 
 great part their history, and however much you may restore, you cannot recover 
 the original work ; and so you may be removing what is of the highest possible 
 interest, to make room for work, correct indeed as a copy, but in itself of little 
 or no value. 
 
 The practical value of these remarks is enhanced when we remember 
 that they were uttered thirty years ago, when the Revival of Mediaeval 
 art had all the charm of novelty to amateurs, many of whom took up 
 the cause with more enthusiasm than discretion, and who were inclined 
 to make short work of anv relics which did not exactly fulfil their notions 
 of architectural propriety. 
 
 In 1841 the Oxford Society published a list of old English bridges 
 for which pontage-charters had been granted, together with a set of 
 printed queries as to the modern condition of these and other ancient 
 structures. By such means much useful information was acquired, and 
 the Society learned by degrees in what direction their aid or interference 
 might be made available. In 1842 they purchased the entire collection 
 
Effect of the University Societies. 205 
 
 of architectural sketches, nearly 2,000 in number, made by Rickman in 
 England and on the Continent. They had evidently been intended to 
 form a chronological series of examples, and though the author did not 
 live to complete his project, the drawings, especially those which illus- 
 trated the progress of window tracery, were extremely useful for refer- 
 ence at a time when but few architects had troubled themselves to 
 study with anything like accuracy the monuments of the Middle Ages. 
 Ecclesiastical furniture and fittings received, in due course, special at- 
 tention, at first from amateurs, and afterwards from architects and 
 manufacturers. Monumental brasses were sedulously hunted up, and a 
 collection of heel-ball rubbings was formed to record their design and 
 inscriptions. Encaustic tiles were carefully reproduced from ancient 
 models. Wood carvers were encouraged to imitate as closely as possible 
 the bosses and bench-ends which, full of vigour in fancy and execution, 
 had remained for centuries neglected in many a country church. The 
 history and art of glass-painting were studied with enthusiasm. For 
 practical attention to this subject, as well as to many others allied by 
 association or aesthetic conditions with Mediaeval architecture, the world 
 of art was indebted during many years of the Revival to the labours of 
 amateurs. 
 
 After making due allowance for the occasional over-fussiness of 
 antiquarianism, and the excess of ecclesiastical sentiment which was 
 inevitably imported into the movement by its connection with the 
 Universities, there can be no doubt that the Architectural Societies 
 at Oxford and Cambridge did immense service in popularising the 
 Gothic cause among men of refinement and education, who were young 
 enough to acquire a taste, and had leisure to cultivate it without 
 seriously encroaching on the business hours or professional duties 
 of life. 
 
 In no other way could the seeds of this taste have been scattered so 
 widely throughout the land. Graduates who left their college rooms 
 for curates' quarters in remote parishes, or to settle down as doctors and 
 
206 Mr. Beresford Hope. 
 
 attorneys in many a country town, carried away with them a pleasant 
 recollection of the friendly meetings at Hutts' and Wyatts', the cheerful 
 field days and church explorations, the interesting papers and lively 
 discussions by which they had profited as boys. By degrees the 
 Mediaeval furore began to localise itself in various parts of England. 
 At Bristol, Exeter, York, Lichfield, and many other cathedral towns 
 ( Diocesan ' or Archaeological Societies were formed for the definite 
 purpose of encouraging the Revival, of elucidating the principles of 
 Gothic design, and of applying them to the building and restoration of 
 churches. 
 
 It is certain that these societies, besides doing much practical good by 
 the direct intervention and agency of their members, became the means 
 of eliciting and turning to advantage a great deal of literary ability. 
 Thus Markland's well known and ably written little work on English 
 Churches had its origin in a letter addressed to and published by the 
 Oxford Society under the title of c Remarks on the Sepulchral Memorials 
 of Past and Present Times,' &c. Numerous papers descriptive of ancient 
 churches were read both at Oxford and Cambridge, and were after- 
 wards printed among the Transactions of each Society, and illustrated 
 with careful woodcuts by Jewitt. In like manner some useful essays 
 prepared for the various diocesan societies gained a popularity and 
 exercised an influence which would have been wanting if they had 
 appeared under the author's name alone.* 
 
 But results of a more immediate and practical kind soon ensued from 
 these associations. It was while Mr. Beresford Hope was an under- 
 graduate at Cambridge, and a member of the Cambridge Camden 
 Society in 1840, that he determined to rescue from the ranks of the 
 commonplace in modern ecclesiastical architecture the village church of 
 
 * Among these may be mentioned ' An Essay on Cathedral Worship,' by the Rev. H. 
 Dudley Ryder ; ' Remarks upon Wayside Chapels,' by the Messrs. Buckler; 'A Guide 
 to the Architectural Antiquities in the neighbourhood of Oxford ; ' ' A Paper on Monu- 
 ments,' by the Rev. John Armstrong; and 'The Pue System,' by the Rev. W. Gillmorj 
 besides numerous descriptions of churches which stood in need of restoration. 
 
Kilndown CJiurch, Kent. 207 
 
 Kilndown in Mid Kent, which had been commenced by his kinsman 
 Viscount Beresford and other subscribers in the previous year. He 
 began by instructing Mr. Salvin to design a solid stone altar copied from 
 the (Third Pointed) altar tomb of William of Wykeham at Winchester, 
 and raised by three steps above the floor of the church. Acting under 
 the advice of Mr. Whewell, he ordered from the royal works at 
 Munich stained glass for all the lancet windows. The eastern triplets 
 were filled with the figures of the Virgin and Child, St. Peter and St. 
 Paul. In the south aisle windows were St. Cyprian, St. Ambrose, St. 
 Jerome, St. Augustine, and St. Gregory the Great. The north aisle 
 was devoted to British saints, viz. : St. Alban, St. Augustine of Can- 
 terbury, St. David, the Venerable Bede, St. Edward the Confessor, and 
 King Charles the Martyr. In quality and general treatment these 
 windows are much superior to what is ordinarily known as Munich glass. 
 
 Mr. Hope's next work at Kilndown was to improve the fittings of 
 the church, which had previously been of a very poor description. It 
 had been planned without a chancel, but a space 1 5 feet in depth was 
 now set apart at the east end of the nave to serve as a sanctuary. A 
 handsome chancel screen designed by Carpenter (a young architect then 
 rising into notice), and decorated by Willement, was erected. Stone 
 sedilia and oak stalls were added, and a pulpit of the Beaulieu type 
 corbelled out from the south wall of the nave formed a picturesque and 
 at that time novel feature in the interior. A brass lectern and two 
 coronae designed by Butterfield were placed in the chancel. 
 
 Externally the low pitch of the roof was concealed by a stone 
 parapet pierced with trefoils. In after years various other alterations 
 and additions were made. A stone lych-gate gave access to the church- 
 yard. An unsightly gallery was removed from the west end of the 
 church, and a richly sculptured reredos was presented by Mr. Hope, in 
 1869. On the south side of the church the late Lord Beresford erected 
 a handsome canopied monument * over the family vault, in which he 
 
 * In memory of his wife the Viscountess Beresford (Mr. B:resford Hope's mother). 
 
2o8 Progress of Public Taste. 
 
 himself was afterwards buried. The general form of this monument 
 was borrowed by Mr. Carpenter, who designed it, from that of Arch- 
 bishop Gray in York Cathedral, with certain modifications rendered 
 necessary by the external site and double tomb. 
 
 Thus enriched and altered from time to time, Christ Church, 
 Kilndown, without pretending to be a very complete or important 
 specimen of modern Gothic, is interesting in the evidence which it 
 affords of the gradual progress of the Revival during a quarter of a 
 century. Built at a moderate cost to meet the spiritual requirements 
 of a rural district, it will hereafter be associated with the memory of a 
 family to whom it owes its origin and gradual improvement, and whose 
 name has long been distinguished for their attachment to the English 
 Church and to the interests of art. 
 
 When its foundations were first laid, Mr. Beresford Hope was a 
 young but zealous member of a society pledged to the practical study 
 of ecclesiology. Twenty years later he was elected its president. 
 During that period great changes took place in the spirit of national 
 art, and in the tendency of religious sentiment in England. Taste in 
 architecture and painting reached a higher standard. Public worship 
 assumed a more imposing form. And the efforts of those who first 
 entered on the task of uniting the long dissevered elements of comeli- 
 ness and devotion may well be remembered with gratitude. 
 
A.D. 1840 to 1850. 209 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 HE year in which the foundation stone of the Parliament 
 Houses was laid may be taken as a turning point in the His- 
 tory of the Revival. In the decade of years preceding that 
 event, viz.: from 1830 to 1840, the names of many architects had 
 become more or less associated with the then modern efforts at Gothic 
 design. Of these the most notable (after Pugin, who was probably 
 the youngest) were Shaw, Poynter and Blore, Salvin, Ferrey and Scoles. 
 Others destined to be as intimately and in some instances more con- 
 spicuously identified with the movement, were already in practice ; but 
 it was not until after the year 1 840 that they were employed in works 
 of any importance, or indeed, that such works assumed the distinctive 
 character of a school. Previous to that period a great deal of Me- 
 diaeval sentiment had been engendered in the public mind, but it was a 
 sentiment easily satisfied ; and though a vast amount of erudition had 
 been brought to bear upon the examination of ancient buildings, upon 
 the analysis of styles, and the elucidation of principles, it does not seem 
 to have resulted in the erection of any structure which fulfilled the true 
 conditions of Pointed Architecture without incurring the charge of direct 
 plagiarism. 
 
 Between 1840 and 1850, however, though portions of old buildings 
 continued to be copied, they were reproduced with more intelligence and 
 with a better sense of adaptation. The pioneers of the Revival began 
 to design with greater confidence themselves, and were soon joined by 
 others who, profiting by their labours, advanced upon their taste, and 
 laid the foundation for a more scholarlike treatment of the style. 
 Among the new-comers were the late R. C. Carpenter, whose career 
 
 p 
 
2io Architects of the Revival. 
 
 was destined to be a short but brilliant one ; G. Gilbert Scott, the pre- 
 sent R.A., whose works would need a volume to describe ; M. E. Had- 
 field, of Sheffield, who for some years divided with Pugin the practice 
 which fell to the share of Roman Catholic architects in this country : 
 T. H. Wyatt, now President of the Royal Institute of British Architects, 
 who, on his own account as well as in conjunction with his partner, 
 Mr. D. Brandon, was largely employed in the restoration and erection 
 of country mansions ; J. L. Pearson, E. Christian, and R. Brandon, 
 the most important of whose works were executed after 1850; J. C. 
 Buckler, whose name has been already mentioned ; and E. Sharpe, of 
 Lancaster, who, as an antiquary and an author, as well as by his practice, 
 aided in no small degree the progress of the Revival. 
 
 These gentlemen, with the exception of Messrs. Wyatt and D. Bran- 
 don, devoted themselves almost entirely during their professional career 
 to the study and design of Gothic. But there were other contemporary 
 architects who, without pledging themselves to that, or indeed, to any 
 individual style of architecture, achieved success in that particular field. 
 Among these was the late Philip Hardwick, R.A., whose son, Mr. P. C. 
 Hard wick, superintended the design and execution of Lincoln's Inn Hall. 
 From the bizarre and feeble specimens of modern Gothic which were 
 raised in England between 1840 and 1845, an< ^ wm ^ e tne writings of 
 Pugin exercised their earliest influence, this building stands notably 
 apart. The Revival of any extinct school of art must necessarily de- 
 pend, in the first instance, on an imitation of the letter rather than on a 
 realisation of the spirit of ancient work. But the new theorists had yet 
 to learn what they should imitate. It is now generally admitted that 
 the types of English and French Architecture which prevailed between 
 the twelfth and fourteenth centuries are incomparably superior to those 
 which followed them. But the early champions who fought for the 
 Pointed Arch saw more beauty in King's College than in the Choir 
 of Lincoln or the nave of Canterbury, and, what was worse, they 
 could not in general distinguish between the merits and demerits of the 
 
Li ii col lis I mi Hall. 211 
 
 later style. The earlier portions of Hampton Court Palace, and Henry 
 the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster, both belong to what is generally 
 called the Tudor Period. Tested by a modern standard of educated 
 taste, neither the one nor the other seems to represent the real excellence 
 of Gothic architecture. But for a large public building of a secular 
 character, there can be little doubt which of these two types is capable of 
 being treated with the more becoming grandeur. We are now enabled 
 to compare their respective merits in modern work. In an artistic point 
 of view the selection of the style adopted for the Houses of Parliament 
 has been long since pronounced a mistake. Mr. Hardwick, with infinitely 
 less scope for display, and at a comparatively small outlay, designed 
 a building which will still bear comparison with many which have been 
 raised a quarter of a century later, with all the advantages of additional 
 study and maturer criticism. 
 
 In general arrangement the plan is exceedingly simple, but well con- 
 sidered both for effect and convenience. It consists of two main blocks, 
 viz. : the Great Hall, which extends from north to south, and the Li- 
 brary, which is at right angles to the Hall. These are connected by an 
 octagonal lobby, flanked by the Benchers' Room and Council Room, 
 while the kitchen and servants' offices occupy the ground floor and 
 basement stories. All the external walls are faced with a fine red brick, 
 chequered at intervals with black f headers ' distributed in ornamental 
 patterns, as in old buildings of this character : the quoins, oriels, window 
 dressings and arch mouldings, being of stone. An octagonal turret at the 
 north-west angle forms a picturesque and pretty feature in the main front, 
 and the general proportions of the whole design are excellent. As a rule, 
 the constructive features of this building are honestly introduced when 
 they are wanted ; and there is a careful avoidance of those scenic and 
 complicated shams which were unfortunately employed in many works 
 of the same date for the mere sake of effect. The south elevation is 
 boldly and broadly treated. It presents the gable end of the Great Hall, 
 flanked by two square towers, of which that on the east side is used, on 
 
 p 2 
 
212 Lin col lis Inn Hall. 
 
 the first floor level, as a porch. Much of the effect of this front depends 
 on the great simplicity of its masses : it is not cut up into meaningless 
 detail, nor overloaded with a profusion of ornament. On the contrary, 
 there is a good broad surface of wall for the eye to rest on, and there- 
 fore, where carving is introduced (as in the band of panels at the 
 summit of each tower) its artistic value is considerably enhanced. 
 
 The character of the carved work is somewhat in advance of its day, 
 but it lacks — especially in the treatment of animal form— the refinement, 
 while it scarcely imitates the vigour, of old work. A notion once pre- 
 vailed with the detractors, and even with some of the admirers of Gothic 
 art, that the conception of those quaint and extravagant monsters which 
 do duty for gurgoyles and corbels in many a Mediaeval building was due 
 to the old sculptors' utter disregard of anatomy. That such a notion 
 is altogether erroneous, will, however, be admitted by all who have 
 examined these grotesque examples with attention. On the contrary, 
 many of them exhibit a strong suggestion of muscular power. It is 
 certain that they possess a vitality of action which the modern artist 
 finds it difficult to realise in such objects, especially when he has to 
 work from a drawing by another hand. The old carver was his own 
 designer, and it was his rude unsophisticated interpretation of Nature, 
 not his wilful contempt of her pattern-book, which lent his handiwork 
 
 its charm. 
 
 The interior of the Great Hall is undoubtedly very imposing, and 
 is equal if not superior to anything of the kind which had then been 
 attempted in modern Gothic. Its open timber roof, well framed, and of 
 generous dimensions, is well suited, both in pitch and construction, to 
 the proportions of the Hall itself. At the south end of the Hall there is 
 a wooden gallery, picturesque in general arrangement, but open to criti- 
 cism in points of detail, the figures with which it is decorated being 
 somewhat large for their situation; and the carved foliage — like all 
 similar work of that date— being coldly though carefully executed. 
 The Hall is panelled all round the other sides to a height of about 
 
Lincoln's Inn Hall. 213 
 
 twelve feet, the upper parts of the north end having been since decorated 
 with the large and well-known fresco painting by Mr. G. F. Watts, 
 R.A. 
 
 The general design of the Library roof was apparently suggested 
 by that of Eltham Palace, but it is partially ceiled, and thus loses 
 the character of the original. The octagonal lobby, which connects 
 the Great Hall and Library, shares the fate of all vestibules designed 
 on a similar plan: internally, it is too lofty for its width; externally, 
 the octagon, which scarcely rises above the roofs around it, is insig- 
 nificant in height. 
 
 A terrace walk runs along the whole length of the building on the 
 east side. This feature, in addition to the gardens by which it is 
 surrounded, considerably enhances its effect ; and indeed, the situation, 
 in itself favourable, has been altogether most judiciously and success- 
 fully treated. The entrance gate-way, lodges, &c, were all carefully 
 designed in accordance with the character of the main block, and the 
 isolation of the whole group from surrounding buildings is very ad- 
 vantageous to its appearance. Considering that Lincoln's Inn Hall 
 was begun nearly thirty years ago, while the reproduction of Gothic was 
 still marked by the most flagrant solecisms, and hampered by the 
 grossest ignorance of those principles which are essential to the style, 
 this building may fairly be ranked, for its time, as one of the best 
 and most successful examples of the Revival. 
 
 The completion of any public structure in London or any populous 
 town does more to educate architectural taste than whole libraries full 
 of books and essays. But there was a large portion of provincial 
 England which had yet to be converted by other means, and apostles 
 willing to preach what they conceived to be a great artistic truth were 
 not wanting. 
 
 In 1842, the Rev. W. Drake delivered a series of lectures upon 
 Church Architecture in St. Mary's Hall, Coventry, which had con- 
 siderable effect on the local encouragement of Gothic. The lecturer 
 
214 Mr. Drakes Lectures. 
 
 insisted upon the importance of adhering to ancient types of ecclesias- 
 tical art, and deprecated the erection of cheap buildings. He drew 
 attention to the neglected state of many rural churches, gave some 
 useful information as to their proper appointments, and added his 
 testimony to the abuses of the pew system, which were now be- 
 ginning to be generally acknowledged by all who cared to think on 
 the subject. 
 
 In the same year Mr. A. Bartholomew published his essay c On the 
 Decline of Excellence in the Structure and Science of Modern English 
 Buildings.' This did good service to the Revival by showing the close 
 connection which existed between structural stability and architectural 
 grace in mediaeval designs. The authors of this time who wrote, 
 in defence of Gothic, had been generally content to base their recom- 
 mendation of the style on considerations of taste, convenience, historical 
 interest, or nationality. Its structural superiority from a scientific point 
 of view seems as a rule to have escaped notice. Pugin, indeed, had in 
 his f Contrasts ' endeavoured to draw attention to the judicious skill 
 displayed by the Mediaeval builders as compared with those of a modern 
 and degenerate age ; and Professor Willis, in his well-known essay on the 
 Vaulting of the Middle Ages (published by the Royal Institute of British 
 Architects, in 1842), had thrown considerable light on a subject con- 
 cerning which in this country at least much ignorance still prevailed. 
 But Pugin was too superficial, and Willis too deep, for the ordinary 
 professional reader. The average architect of thirty years ago was 
 neither an enthusiastic sentimentalist, nor a profound mathematician. 
 He regarded the art mainly in a practical light ; and, if he was to be 
 converted to theories respecting the advantage of one style over another, 
 it was necessary that he should be approached in a matter-of-fact and 
 practical manner. A handy book, or manual to assist architects in the 
 preparation of specifications, was much needed at this time, and Bar- 
 tholomew, himself a member of the profession, undertook to prepare 
 one. This portion of his work, though since superseded by another 
 
Bartholomew s Essay. 215 
 
 more suited to the requirements of the present day,* was very useful in 
 its time, but it was preceded by an essay which occupied nearly half 
 the volume and with which the author's name will be more permanently 
 associated. In this essay Bartholomew pointed out c the decline of 
 excellence in the structure and in the science of modern English 
 buildings,' and added ' a Proposal of remedies for those defects.' 
 Many of his comments and suggestions may seem superfluous to the 
 modern critic, but at the time they were made, and coming as they 
 did from a man of no narrow or bigoted views, their influence was 
 widely felt. In a lucid and perfectly impartial manner he demonstrated 
 the structural stability of the pointed arch, tha scie tific relations of 
 vaults and their abutments, the origin of form in flying buttresses, and 
 the use of pinnacles. He deplored the degeneracy, the flimsiness, the 
 alternate stint and waste of material in modern architecture : con- 
 demned the improper use of stucco, abused the medley of styles which 
 still found favour in his day, and was especially severe on c the gross 
 corruption of the kind of building called " Elizabethan." ' 
 
 Bartholomew, moreover, was probably the first to enunciate a 
 principle now generally accepted by writers on art, viz. : that the 
 conditions of true taste in architecture have always been intimately 
 associated with those of structural excellence, and that, whenever the 
 latter have been disregarded, the former have suffered in consequence. 
 His treatise abounds in sound and pertinent remarks on this and 
 many other branches of the subject. Here and there it may be verbose 
 — a fault which the literary style of the day no doubt helped to en- 
 courage — but it is always readable, and there was some excuse for 
 saying a great deal on matters which had so long escaped attention. 
 The essay is methodically divided into short chapters, which are sub- 
 divided into sections, illustrated (where necessary) by diagrams and 
 woodcuts. Nothing can be clearer than his explanations: nothing 
 more reasonable than his arguments. He wrote with no blind en- 
 
 * By Professor Donaldson, F.RJ.B.A., &c. 
 
216 Bartholomew's Essay. 
 
 thusiasm for Gothic — and indeed seems equally in favour of Classic 
 design — but he protests emphatically against the impositions, the faulty 
 construction and the pedantry of modern architecture, and is never 
 tired of repeating how widely it has departed from the principles of 
 ancient art. Occasionally, it is true, in matters of detail he advanced 
 opinions which the purist of our own day would condemn as heretical. 
 An architect who proposes to divide a stone mullion into two halves, 
 for the purpose of securing the advantage of a sash window in his 
 Gothic house, may justify the proposal by considerations of expediency, 
 but can scarcely defend it on practical grounds. It may be folly to 
 reject a modern ccnvenience for the sake of artistic effect. But if we 
 adopt it, we must adopt with it the external conditions which belong 
 to its use. A stone mullion shaped to receive a casement is an intel- 
 ligible and perfectly legitimate feature ; but two strips of stone shaped 
 to look like a solid mullion, and really concealing a hollow sash frame, 
 represent at best a clumsy compromise between traditional form and 
 present requirements in architecture. 
 
 Notwithstanding a few minor errors of this kind— errors which may 
 be the more readily excused when we remember that the study of the 
 style was still in its infancy — Bartholomew's essay may be described on 
 the whole as the work of a thoroughly practical man, who drew at- 
 tention to the scientific side of mediaeval architecture at a time when 
 most of its supporters talked of nothing but its sentimental or artistic 
 claims to adoption. 
 
 The antiquarian societies, however, on their part, did good service in 
 continuing their efforts to preserve as samples for study many a relic of 
 ancient art which had remained neglected in country districts where 
 Mediaeval sympathies were as yet unknown. Among these the British 
 Archaeological Association, formed c for the encouragement and prose- 
 cution of researches into the Early and Middle Ages, particularly in 
 England,' soon enrolled as its members some of the most eminent 
 architects, artists, and dilettanti of the day. An acting committee was 
 
Exhibition of Mcdiceval Art. 217 
 
 appointed, who put themselves in communication with similar societies 
 in the provinces and on the Continent ; held frequent meetings ; pro- 
 moted investigations with the aid of professional assistance ; interfered, 
 when possible, to preserve ruinous monuments from destruction ; col- 
 lected drawings illustrating such remains ; arranged for visits to the 
 most remarkable Cathedral towns, &c, in England, and published 
 reports of their proceedings for general information. 
 
 The choice of style of the Houses of Parliament was now a matter 
 beyond dispute ; but the nature of its internal decoration remained to 
 some extent an open question. For this reason, and with a view, no 
 doubt, to test the public taste in such matters, Her Majesty's Com- 
 missioners of Fine Arts decided on holding an exhibition at West- 
 minster of the designs, &c, which had been submitted for the fittings 
 and furniture of the New Palace. It included specimens of wood- 
 carving, stained glass, and metal work suggested for use in various 
 parts of the building. Being destined for this purpose, they naturally 
 aimed at a mediaeval character ; and, though probably few approached 
 the standard of excellence by which such objects were judged ten years 
 later, the exhibition was of undoubted value, as an incentive to industrial 
 art, and a means of educating public taste before the rage for Inter- 
 national Exhibitions had developed itself. 
 
 Meanwhile Pugin continued to issue volume after volume and pam- 
 phlet after pamphlet, not only in support of the Revival, but in abuse 
 of what he loved to call the Pagan styles, and not unfrequently in 
 severe criticism of Gothic designs by his professional contemporaries. 
 Among others, Mr. Scoles, himself a Catholic architect, who had 
 essayed — not very successfully, it must be confessed — to build a 
 Norman Church at Islington, was soundly rated by this merciless 
 censor, who published a view of the old parish Church of St. Mary, 
 Islington, which he declared (without sufficiently considering the con- 
 ditions of site) should have formed a model for the new building. 
 
 On the other hand, Pugin constantly exposed himself to reproof in 
 
2 1 8 Wilton Church and Cheltenham College. 
 
 the public press by his violent attacks not only on the art, but on the 
 faith of those who chanced to differ from his own convictions, as well 
 as by the injudicious manner in which he insisted on measuring every 
 modern institution and social custom by a Mediaeval standard. It re- 
 quired no great sagacity to perceive that requirements of life in the 
 nineteenth century could never possibly be met by reverting to the 
 habits of our ancestors four or five centuries ago ; and if this was to be 
 a necessary condition of the Revival, no one could be blamed for 
 declining to sacrifice the comforts of advanced civilization for the 
 sake of architectural taste. 
 
 The most important Anglican Church erected about this time (1843) 
 was undoubtedly that built, at Wilton, by the Hon. Sidney Herbert, 
 then Secretary to the Admiralty, from the design of Messrs. T. H. 
 Wyatt and D. Brandon. The Lombardic character of this structure 
 excludes it from the list of Gothic examples ; but the liberal munificence 
 of its founder, who spent 20,000/. upon the building, and the sump- 
 tuous nature of its decoration, exercised in course of time a great and 
 valuable influence on private patronage and public taste in architecture. 
 
 Among domestic buildings the Proprietary College at Cheltenham, 
 erected from designs by Mr. J. Wilson of Bath, may be mentioned as 
 a fair specimen of early modern Gothic. Its oriel windows, battle- 
 mented turrets, flying buttresses, and crocketed pinnacles do not 
 indeed realise the true spirit of Mediaeval design, but associated in a 
 facade some 250 feet in length, could scarcely fail to impress the un- 
 professional critic in favour of the style. 
 
 Up to this date architecture had no representative in the cheap 
 periodical journals of the day. The publication, therefore, of the 
 ' Builder,' in 1843, brought for the first time within the reach of art 
 workmen and students, an illustrated weekly record of professional 
 news. Without pretending to an exclusive devotion to Gothic, it 
 became the means as time went on of familiarising the general public 
 with many a relic of antiquity, which would otherwise have been 
 
Publication of ' The Builder! 219 
 
 known only to those who could afford to buy expensive works on 
 architecture. It published views of churches and manor houses, with 
 details drawn to a larger scale. These woodcuts, rudely as they at first 
 were executed, became very serviceable for reference and information. 
 
 A curious evidence of the gradual extension of ecclesiastical senti- 
 ment in connection with the Revival — even to our school girls — mav 
 be noted in the appearance of a little book, entitled f Aunt Elinor's 
 Lectures on Architecture,' published nearly thirty years ago. Its 
 object was to inform young ladies — and no doubt there were many 
 who wished to be informed — of the general history of the Pointed 
 Styles, the orthodox arrangement and fittings necessary in a church, the 
 names and use of its various parts and furniture. All this was very 
 skilfully and carefully explained by the authoress (now known to be 
 Miss M. Holmes), who supplemented her architectural teaching by 
 many hints and suggestions as to the manner in which her readers might 
 best employ their energies in the service of the Church, viz., not by 
 working slippers for their favourite curate, or by subscribing to pre- 
 sent him with a piece of plate, but by employing their needles in the 
 embroidery of altar-cloths, and by saving their pocket-money to pay 
 for a fald-stool or lectern. 
 
 Meanwhile the effect of the Cambridge Camden Society's exertions 
 had begun to manifest itself in various quarters throughout the United 
 Kingdom. At Llangorwen in Cardiganshire, a church was erected 
 about 1842, which was pronounced to be in point of style and internal 
 arrangements one of the most complete and successful imitations of 
 ancient models that had yet been produced. It had a stone altar, with 
 an arcaded reredos, a rood screen, a lectern, a Litany desk, and open 
 stalls of oak for the clergy and congregation. At Birmingham, 
 Kingston-on-Thames, Woking, Hanwell, and Shaftesbury, churches 
 were built about the same time from the designs of Mr. G. G. Scott, 
 whose ' Martyrs' Memorial ' at Oxford contributed in no small degree 
 to establish his reputation as a Gothic architect. These structures 
 
220 The Works of Scott and Fcrrey. 
 
 were freely criticised by the Society, who naturally objected to every 
 plan which departed in the least degree from ancient tradition in its 
 arrangement. The absence or curtailed proportions of the chancel 
 constituted a gravamen, to which attention was frequently called, and 
 at length with success. At the present day an architect would as soon 
 think of building a church without a chancel, as of building one without 
 a roof. 
 
 Mr. Ferrey's design for the Holy Trinity Chapel at Roehampton 
 was much admired at the time. He was one of the earliest, ablest, and 
 most zealous pioneers of the modern Gothic school. His architectural 
 taste was for years in steady advance of his generation, and as an 
 authority on church planning and general proportions he had scarcely 
 a rival. His work possessed the rare charm of simplicity, without 
 lacking interest. By the use of carefully studied mouldings and a 
 spare but judicious introduction of carved ornament, he managed to 
 secure for his buildings a grace that was deficient in many contem- 
 porary designs, which had been executed with far more elaborate 
 decoration and at greater cost. His country churches are especially 
 notable for this reticent quality of art, and in that respect recall in a 
 great measure the excellence of old examples. As a specimen of the 
 class (though erected at a later period), that of Chetwyndin Shropshire 
 may be cited : there is a picturesque and quiet dignity in its compo- 
 sition which is eminently suggestive of Old English Architecture. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of London no church of its time was con- 
 sidered in purer style or more orthodox in its arrangement than that 
 of St. Giles, Camberwell, designed by Mr. Scott in 1841. The nave 
 is divided into five bays by piers alternately round and octagonal in 
 plan, supporting acutely pointed arches, with plain chamfered edges 
 and a dripstone. The clerestory windows (of two lights each) are 
 spanned by arches which spring from attached columns corbelled from 
 the wall. The chancel is probably one of the earliest which during the 
 Revival was built of proper length ; is lighted on either side by t.iree 
 
Chunk of S. Mary, Chetwynde, Shropshire. 
 B. Ferry, Architect, 1S65. 
 
St. Giles s Church, Camberwcll. 221 
 
 windows, with a five-light window at the east end. The crux is 
 groined under the tower, which externally, with canopied niches at its 
 junction with the spire, presents a very picturesque feature. The nave, 
 chancel, and transepts have open timber roofs of a plain and un- 
 objectionable character, but the wood fittings generally are hardly 
 worthy of the rest. It is curious to observe in this and other churches 
 of the same date that the aisle galleries, in spite of archaeological and 
 antiquarian protests, continued to be retained as an indispensable 
 feature. That it was a feature inconsistent with a faithful reproduction 
 of ancient models could not, of course, be denied. But it was found 
 difficult to answer the plea in its favour put forward by utilitarians, 
 who argued that by means of a gallery a definite number of additional 
 sittings could be secured. It does not seem to have occurred to these 
 economists that their argument pushed to its limits would have reduced 
 the plan of every church to a simple parallelogram, would have 
 abolished the chancel, substituted iron columns for stone piers, and in 
 short, converted their church into a meeting-room. Few persons as 
 yet fully appreciated the absurdity of doubling the cost of a church by 
 the erection of a tower and spire, while the expense of its superficial 
 area was to be saved by piling the congregation on each other's heads. 
 Happily in the present day sanitary considerations have had their 
 weight in preventing the intrusion of galleries ; for, it is obvious that 
 unless the aisles of a church be heightened out of due proportion, the 
 difficulties of ventilation are increased by every gallery which is 
 introduced. 
 
 The decorative carving in the capitals, &c. of St. Giles's Church is 
 better in design than execution, being coarsely cut in parts. Yet in 
 these and other details the work showed a decided advance in operative 
 skill. The stained window at the west end, though open to objection 
 in the style of drawing, caught something of the tone of old glass. 
 The metal work and gas fittings (if contemporary with the church) 
 are very creditable for their date. Externally the building would have 
 
222 Mr. R. C. Carpenter. 
 
 gained in effect if the masonry had been carried up in courses less 
 uniform in depth, and if the roof had been covered with tiles or slates 
 of the ordinary size. Nevertheless, seen from the road, with its tower 
 and spire rising from the centre of a compact plan, it forms an excellent 
 and well-composed group invested with a certain charm of artistic 
 proportion, which the ordinary church architect of that day seldom or 
 never succeeded in realising. To give even a brief description of the 
 numerous works on which Mr. Scott at this early period of his life was 
 engaged, would be simply impossible. Even to catalogue those which 
 he has since undertaken would be an arduous task. Perhaps among 
 the admirers of his early skill there may be those who regret that his 
 practice should have been so extensive as to preclude that concen- 
 trated attention which every artist would gladly bestow on his work. 
 But in any case it must be remembered, that for years he was in the 
 van of the Revivalists : that for years he was facile princeps of de- 
 signers : that for years he laboured with his pen as with his pencil to 
 support the cause which he had at heart ; and that if the fashion of art 
 has undergone a change since he was young, in the Middle Ages 
 themselves it was subject to a like mutability. — 
 
 Credettc Cimabue, nella pittura, 
 
 Tener lo campo, ed ora ha Giotto il grido. 
 
 Mr. R. C. Carpenter's name has been already mentioned among the 
 group of English architects who between 1840 and 1850 distinguished 
 themselves and advanced the Gothic cause by their ability in the field 
 of design : and perhaps it is not too much to say that in that group his 
 name should have pre-eminence — if not for the extent of his works 
 — (though they were numerous for his unfortunately short life) — at 
 least for their careful and scholarlike treatment. No practitioner of 
 his day understood so thoroughly as Carpenter the grammar of his art. 
 From his earliest youth the study of Mediaeval Architecture had been 
 a passion with him ; and it is said that when only nineteen years of age 
 he had prepared the design for a ' First Pointed ' Church of a large and 
 
St. Stephen's and St. Andrew's^ Birmingham. 223 
 
 sumptuous character, which but for an accidental circumstance might 
 have been erected at Islington. As a pupil he appears to have given 
 remarkable attention to the character and application of mouldings, 
 and indeed the judicious use which he made of them and other details 
 bears ample testimony to the fact. A knowledge of the laws of pro- 
 portion, of the conditions of light and shade, and the effective employ- 
 ment of decorative features are arrived at by most architects gradually 
 and after a series of tentative experiments. Carpenter seems to have 
 acquired this knowledge very early in his career, so that even his first 
 works possess an artistic quality far in advance of their date, while 
 those which he executed in later years are regarded even now with 
 admiration by all who have endeavoured to maintain the integrity of 
 our old national styles. Whether, if Carpenter had lived, he would 
 have been influenced by the growing taste for Continental Gothic, 
 which for a while threatened to obliterate the traditions of English 
 architecture, may be doubted. It is certain that up to the time of his 
 death, which occurred in 1855, we find no trace of such an influence on 
 his designs. 
 
 His first church was that of St. Stephen at Birmingham, probably 
 commenced in 1841, about which time he became (through Pugin's 
 introduction) a member of the Ecclesiological Society. St. Andrew's 
 (also in Birmingham) was his next commission, for the execution of 
 which he deservedly obtained great credit. It is built of red sandstone, 
 and belongs in common with most of his works to the f Middle 
 Pointed ' period. The plan consists of a nave and rather short chancel, 
 with an engaged tower of three stages at the north-west angle. The 
 stone spire surmounting the tower is from a Rutlandshire model, and 
 far less elancee in its proportions than the ordinary modern spire of its 
 date (1844.) The interior is very plain, with a partially open roof over 
 the nave, which is five bays in length. The chancel roof is ceiled and 
 panelled. The window tracery partakes both of a geometrical and 
 flowing character, and is well studied. The arch mouldings of the 
 
224 The Works of R. C. Carpenter. 
 
 entrance porch and the weathering of the buttresses show a marked 
 improvement in the treatment of detail. 
 
 In the following year Mr. Carpenter began the Church of St. Paul 
 at Brighton, a well-known structure, remarkable not only for the great 
 advance which it indicates in the study of decorative features, but for 
 the peculiarities of plan which, owing to the conditions of its site, 
 became a matter of necessity. This was probably one of the first modern 
 country-town churches erected with a palpable recognition of those 
 changes of ritual which were now openly encouraged by a certain sec- 
 tion of the clergy and as certainly approved by a large body of laymen. 
 Among others erected from Mr. Carpenter's designs were those of 
 Cookham Dean ; St. James, Stubbing, in Berkshire ; St. Nicholas at 
 Kemerton in Gloucestershire ; St. Andrew at Monckton Wyld in Dor- 
 setshire ; St. Peter the Great at Chichester; St. Mary Magdalene, 
 in Munster Square, London (an excellent example of his skill) ; 
 Christchurch at Milton-on-Thames ; and St. John the Baptist at Bovey 
 Tracy in Devon. The restorations conducted under his superintend- 
 ence were very numerous — as were also the schools and parsonages 
 which he built in various parts of England. His most important 
 works, the Colleges of St. John, Hurstpierpoint, and of St. Nicholas, 
 Lancing, were designed at a later period, and unfortunately he did not 
 live to see the latter building executed. 
 
 The progress of the Gothic Revival during Carpenter's lifetime, and 
 
 while the style of design with which its name is associated was as yet 
 
 caviare to the multitude — received timely aid and encouragement from 
 the taste and munificence of private patrons whose antiquarian researches 
 and accurate connoisseurship raised them above the prejudices which 
 still lingered to the disadvantage of Mediaeval Art. Among these Mr. 
 Beresford Hope may be reckoned one of the most active and enthusiastic. 
 The instances in which this gentleman has exercised an influence, either 
 directly, or by means of his public position, to effect not only the 
 restoration and maintenance of Old English Architecture, but also the 
 
St. Augustine s Abbey, Canterbury. 225 
 
 reproduction of its beauties in modern work — are too well known to 
 need enumeration here. A notable example may, however, be men- 
 tioned in which he found a field for the twofold accomplishment of his 
 wishes. 
 
 St. Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury was one of the numerous mon- 
 astic buildings which were disestablished after the Reformation. It had 
 been originally founded by St. Augustine as the burial-place of the Kings 
 of Kent and of the Archbishops. The courts and buildings which 
 were once included within its walls, are said to have covered sixteen 
 acres of ground. Upon the dissolution of the Abbey its site and ruins 
 became Crown property, and it was in a mansion partly remodelled and 
 partly reconstructed on this spot that Charles I. first met his betrothed. 
 
 The venerable gateway, which once formed the entrance to the Abbey, 
 and which dates from the fourteenth or early part of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury, was standing in 1845, but had been preserved for an ignoble 
 purpose. The room within its upper portion, once the state bed- 
 chamber of the Abbey and Palace, had been converted into a brewer's 
 vat, having previously been used as a cockpit. The sacred precincts 
 of the Abbey itself were desecrated by the presence of a common 
 bcershop, raised on the site of the Guests' Hall. The Guests' Chapel 
 and the Abbey Church were in ruins. The enclosure, which once 
 echoed only the solemn tread of cloistered monks, or the peaceful ring- 
 ing of the Angelus, had come to resound with the low brawling of 
 skittle players, and a wall which stood under the shadow of the tower 
 raised by Scoland (the first Norman Abbot) was given up to target 
 practice. 
 
 Such was the condition of St. Augustine's Abbey at a period when 
 the sympathies of English Churchmen were being roused in favour of 
 Colonial Missions by the praiseworthy exertions of Edward Coleridge. 
 The property was put up for auction, and luckily, both for antiquarian 
 and ecclesiastical interests, it fell into good hands. Mr. Beresford Hope 
 — then M.P. for Maidstone, recognised in the time as well as in the 
 
 Q 
 
226 Sf. Augustine's College, Canterbury. 
 
 place, an excellent opportunity to serve at once the National Church and 
 the National architecture of England. The want of a Training College 
 for our Missionary Clergy had long been felt. If such an Institution 
 was to be established, what better site could be found for it than the 
 Archiepiscopal city of Canterbury ; and on what foundation could it be 
 more appropriately raised than on the ruins of a building rich in associa- 
 tions of ecclesiastical history, and dedicated to the first Apostle of Eng- 
 land ? Mr. Hope succeeded in purchasing — not without considerable 
 expense and trouble — the site and remains of the Abbey, and placed 
 them at the disposal of the Archbishop of Canterbury for this purpose ; 
 munificently supplementing his gift with funds towards its endow- 
 ment. The good work and its purpose excited public interest. 
 Friends of the Church came forward with donations in aid of the scheme. 
 Mr. Butterfield — even then one of the most accomplished architects of 
 his day — was engaged to restore such portions of the ancient structure 
 as might be restored, to rebuild where necessary, and to unite the 
 whole into a building worthy of its name. The result was St. Augus- 
 tine's College. 
 
 The general appearance of this work — like most of Mr. Butterfield's 
 domestic architecture — is remarkable for its extreme simplicity. On 
 entering the College through the ancient gateway which has been 
 already mentioned, the visitor finds himself in a spacious quadrangle, 
 three sides of which are occupied by buildings. To the left are the stu- 
 dents' quarters — a long range of rooms under one roof, raised on an 
 open cloister, and reached by two turret staircases, which form effective 
 features on the north side. The floor of these rooms is carried on 
 stone ribs, which span the cloister and abut on piers between the windows. 
 On the east side is the library, a noble and well-proportioned structure, 
 lighted by six pointed windows, for the tracery of which the architect 
 found an excellent and appropriate model in the ancient Archiepiscopal 
 Palace of Mayfield. The basement story of this building, vaulted with 
 brick groins and stone, forms an admirable work-room for the students, 
 
St. Augustine's College, Canterbury. 227 
 
 who there learn something of practical carpentry, and the details of such 
 other handicraft as may be useful in the Colonies. 
 
 An ample porch and picturesque flight of steps lead to the library ; which 
 has an open timber roof, simply but ingeniously framed, and exhibiting 
 a more thorough knowledge of construction than was common in Gothic 
 wood-work of the time. The west side of the quadrangle is occupied 
 by the chapel and refectory, standing at right angles to each other, the 
 former having been recently rebuilt, and the latter partly restored from 
 the old Guesten Hall. The chapel is fitted with stalls to the whole 
 length of both sides, each stall having its f miserere ' seat carved after a 
 different design. Every detail in this chapel, from the encaustic tiles 
 with which the floor is paved to the braced roof overhead, exhibits evi- 
 dence of careful study. The proportions of part to part are excellent, 
 the mouldings graceful and refined in character, and the decorative 
 features — which are but few — skilfully and effectively introduced. 
 
 The Warden's Lodge and other domestic buildings extend southwards 
 from the chapel. Externally, the walls of the whole College are chiefly 
 of flint, with stone dressings — the roofs being covered with tiles of light 
 red. These simple materials lend an air of homely rural beauty to the 
 architecture, which is in thorough unison with the dignified modesty of 
 the design. The task which Mr. Butterfield had to execute was not an 
 easy one. Of the ancient monastery there were not sufficient remains 
 left standing to justify what, in an antiquarian sense, would have been 
 a complete restoration. On the other hand, the venerable gateway, 
 though much mutilated, and portions of the block of buildings on its 
 right, were substantially sound, while the excavations on the site of the 
 library disclosed evidence of foundations which it would have been van- 
 dalism to disregard. The architect had to steer a middle course between 
 a reverence for the past and the necessities of the present age. How 
 admirably he succeeded, no one who examines St. Augustine's College 
 with attention can doubt. The entrance gateway was repaired just 
 sufficiently to arrest its decay and no further. The f under croft' of the 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 Mr. Butterficld. 
 
 old refectory was rebuilt, and served as a substructure for the new 
 library". The chapel and hall were carefully restored, with such modifi- 
 cations in regard to plan as were deemed necessary. The cloister and 
 students' rooms occupying the north side of the quadrangle are entirely 
 modern, but the character of their design is in perfect harmony with 
 those portions of the old building which served as a key-note for 
 architectural style. 
 
 A quarter of a century has elapsed since St. Augustine's was begun. 
 Mr. Butterfield's name has since been associated with larger and more 
 important commissions. But though his later works exhibit evidence 
 of maturer taste and a wider range of study, no architect of our time 
 has deviated so little from the principles of design which he adopted at 
 the outset of his professional career, and which, in this case, are abun- 
 dantly manifest. 
 
The Rev. J. L. Petit. 229 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 jpajMONG the difficulties which beset the consistent re-adoption 
 ml of Mediaeval Architecture in England at a time when the 
 
 expedience of its revival at all remained a vexed question, 
 was the perplexity in which both architects and their employers were 
 involved by the selection of style. For the generic term c Gothic ' was 
 itself but a vague appellation of several fashions of house-building and 
 church-building which had succeeded each other with more or less 
 continuity through four centuries. This left a wide range of choice, 
 even if, by common consent, the advocates of Mediaeval art had con- 
 fined themselves to English types. But as the facilities for foreign 
 travel increased, professional students and enthusiastic amateurs came 
 back from the Continent with notes and sketches in Belgium, France, 
 and Italy, which soon suggested a still wider field of taste. 
 
 The Rev. J. L. Petit, who died only recently, was a clergyman 
 of the Church of England, who throughout a long life devoted 
 himself to the study and illustration of architecture. He sketched with 
 rapidity and cleverness, and though his drawings were always too rough 
 and hastily executed to be useful for reference on matters of detail, 
 they conveyed an excellent notion of the general design of a building 
 judged simply as a picturesque composition. In 1841 he published 
 two volumes entitled c Remarks on Church Architecture,' profusely 
 illustrated with sketches, chiefly made on the Continent. In the selec- 
 tion of subjects he allowed himself free range. Romanesque, Tran- 
 sitional, and Flamboyant types of Gothic, the churches of Normandy 
 and the ruins of Rhineland, Lombardic belfries, Italian campanili, 
 Swiss bridges and Welsh chapels, became in turn studies for his pencil, 
 
230 Mr. E. A. Freeman. 
 
 and texts for his discourse. His remarks on the development of style 
 — on the analogies which exist between various types of architecture in 
 Europe, and the features which are characteristic of each — show that 
 he must have studied with close attention and with the advantage of an 
 excellent memory. But his taste was of too cosmopolitan an order to 
 be of practical service to the English Revival, and where it found 
 decided expression might fairly be challenged as questionable. A critic 
 who, after traversing Europe in search of architectural beauty, pro- 
 nounces Milan Cathedral the finest Continental church which he has 
 seen, and who considers that the introduction of the Perpendicular line 
 saved English Gothic from debasement, affords a signal proof of the 
 fact that even the most comprehensive study and the most accurate 
 archaeological information will not always suffice to educate an amateur 
 in the principles of structural excellence. 
 
 Petit was not the only champion of the Tudor arch. Mr. E. A. 
 Freeman, in a paper which he read before the Oxford Architectural 
 Society, c On the Development of Roman and Gothic Architecture, and 
 their Moral and Symbolical Teaching,' plainly expressed his preference 
 for both the earliest and latest types of Gothic to that which was then 
 and indeed is still designated as c Middle Pointed.' The author happened 
 to add some remarks respecting the prevalent taste of the day, which 
 seemed to be directed against the Cambridge Camden Society. This 
 was noticed in a short review of his essay which appeared in the f Ec- 
 clesiologist.' Mr. Freeman replied in a long and learned letter, de- 
 fending his principles, condemning the commonly accepted nomenclature 
 of the Pointed styles, and entering on a metaphysical dissertation as to 
 the nature of Proto-symbolism, which must certainly have awakened 
 some of the young architects of the day to a sense of the philosophy 
 of their art. But the subject was not allowed to drop here. The next 
 number of the c Ecclcsiologist ' contained an article, thirty-two pages in 
 length, in which the principles of Mediaeval architecture, the doctrines 
 of the Christian faith, and the minutiae of mystic symbolism, were 
 
Ecclesiological Symbolism. 231 
 
 considered in relation to each other. In following the lengthy argu- 
 ments of this and many similar essays of the day, the modern reader 
 will naturally feel surprised at the amount of time, of patience, and 
 of learning which was bestowed on the discussion of theories advanced 
 in the name of ecclesiology, but scarcely calculated to promote either 
 the encouragement of art or the interests of religion. That the out- 
 ward and visible form of Church Architecture was in the Middle Ages 
 influenced by theological creed there can be little doubt, but that this 
 influence extended to every detail of construction and ornament — that 
 it inspired the designers or workmen with anything more than an 
 ordinary respect for the traditions of their craft, or that as a rule they 
 allowed the principle of symbolism to interfere with more practical 
 considerations — it is impossible to believe, without rejecting the plainest 
 evidence of common sense. Take, for instance, the occasional deviation 
 of the chancel from the axial line of the nave, which has been supposed, 
 and with some probability, to have indicated the inclination of Our 
 Saviour's head on the Cross. Was such symbolism considered of value 
 or worth perpetuation in Mediaeval times ? If it were, we, in this 
 degenerate age, can only express our surprise that in ninety-nine cases 
 out of a hundred it was rejected as superfluous. Assuming that the 
 triplet window was intended to typify the doctrine of the Trinity, what 
 do the theologians say to a window of two lights, or of five ? 
 
 Again, we know that the arts of sculpture and of painting were fre- 
 quently employed in honour of the Christian virtues, and to cast shame 
 on every opposite vice. But there are instances of decorative detail in 
 many a church which point no moral and proclaim no truth beyond the 
 fact that art in any age may descend to obscenity. Are we to suppose 
 that the authors of such work as this pursued it with a pure and reve- 
 rential sense of duty to their faith ? Is it not more likely that they 
 wielded the brush and chisel — with a more skilful hand indeed, but 
 with no higher or moral purpose than any workmen of our own time ? 
 The experience of modern life teaches us that great artistic refinement 
 
232 The Symbolism of Durandus. 
 
 may be found occasionally associated with boorish manners and sensual 
 indulgence. And if this is possible in the nineteenth century, why 
 may it not have been so in the thirteenth ? The fashion of taste may 
 have changed, but not the morality of art. 
 
 Between the false sentiment and the redundant symbolism which 
 have been associated with Mediaeval architecture in turn by fanatical 
 devotees and over-zealous antiquaries, it is no wonder that men who do 
 not share the extreme views of either party should have become nau- 
 seated with the very name of Gothic. 
 
 In 1843 a translation of Durandus was published by two well-known 
 members of the Cambridge Camden Society. It is remarkable that 
 this work, which may be considered the fountain-head of ecclesiastical 
 symbolism, should contain so little evidence of these essentials in form 
 and number which, in the clerical mind, some thirty years ago, constituted 
 the chief grace of architectural design. But there are other difficulties 
 in the way. An earnest Churchman, who believes with the Bishop of 
 Mende, that c a church consisteth of four walls,' because it is built on 
 the doctrine of the Four Evangelists, cannot fairly complain that the 
 plan of a Methodist chapel is too simple in form. Durandus points to 
 the weathercock on the summit of a church as the appropriate symbol 
 of a watchful preacher. The writer of an epigram in the c Ecclesio- 
 logist ' calls it the symbol of a wavering mind, and applauds its re- 
 moval to make room for a cross. According to Durandus, c the 
 chancel (that is the head of the church) being lower than its body, 
 signifieth how great humility there should be in the clergy.' It 
 happens to be one of the peculiar points insisted on in the design of 
 every orthodox modern church, that the chancel shall be higher than 
 the nave. These inconsistencies are merely mentioned here to show 
 what little importance can be attached to the letter of symbolism 
 when studied as a science. Yet into defence of this symbolism the 
 * Ecclesiologist ' earnestly entered, and in accordance with its principles, 
 many an honest parson and clever architect, whose time might have 
 
Nomenclature of Styles. 233 
 
 been better employed, proceeded to ransack every church and rack his 
 brains with the hope of discovering some mysterious significance in 
 structural or decorative features of wood and stone, which owed their 
 origin, in most cases, to simple expedience or ingenious fancy. Du- 
 randus was soon outdone. Every curate who meddled in such matters 
 hit a fresh nail on the head as he examined the framing of his church 
 door. A new light illumined him when he looked up at the west 
 window. Enthusiastic amateurs took to counting the piers of the 
 nave and measuring the chancel floor, involved themselves in wonderful 
 calculations as to the ancient use of the mystic numbers 3 and 7, and, 
 figuratively speaking, when they wanted an inch they not unfrequently 
 took an ell. 
 
 Concurrently with the mania for symbolism, the vexed question as to 
 the nomenclature of styles was maintained with extraordinary vigour. 
 Into how many distinct periods Pointed Architecture could with pro- 
 priety be divided ; whether the first should receive the name of 
 f Lancet,' f Early English,' or c Complete ' ; whether the next should 
 be called c Second Pointed ' or c Decorated ' ; whether c Decorated ' 
 could be subdivided into ' Geometrical ' and f Flowing ' ; whether 
 1 Flowing ' meant the same thing as c Continuous ' ; whether there was 
 a ' Discontinuous ' style, and in what respect they all differed from 
 ' Flamboyant,' were matters under eternal discussion. And the more 
 they were discussed the more hopelessly confused the student became. 
 It required more than ordinary intelligence to remember off-hand 
 what a writer meant by such a complicated expression as c the early 
 days of Late Middle Pointed,' and this was simple and perspicuous 
 compared to some of the terms employed. The absurdity of attempt- 
 ing to form, except in the most general way, a system of terms which 
 should at once imply the date and fashion of every architectural struc- 
 ture without reference to the effect produced by local traditions, ma- 
 terial, and the accidents of individual caprice, or ability, can only be 
 fully realised if we suppose the same system applied to the historv of 
 
234 Sharpcs 'ArcJiitcctural Parallels! 
 
 any other art — that of Painting, for example. At present, the school 
 of Raffaele, the school of Padua, and the Eclectic schools, are terms 
 frequently employed and easily recognisable, inasmuch as they suggest, 
 respectively, the influence of a person, a locality, or a class of painters. 
 But if art critics spoke of the paulo-post-Peruginesque, or the Late 
 Middle Francian manner, we should be led to suspect first their in- 
 telligence and then their accuracy. No rational observer can suppose 
 that the Mediaeval builders were guided in their modifications of style 
 by any but practical or aesthetic considerations, induced sometimes by 
 the requirements of the work in hand, sometimes by the force of 
 example, and more frequently perhaps by that instinctive love of 
 change which is a universal law in the progress of art. One or more 
 of these causes was sure in course of time to affect the plan of a 
 window, the pitch of a roof, or the profile of a capital. But to sup- 
 pose that they evolved out of their inner architectural consciousness a 
 series of complete and irrefragable rules, which associated a certain form 
 of arch with a fixed character of moulding, .and set apart a certain 
 pinnacle of a particular buttress, after the manner of Sir William 
 Chambers and the Five Orders, would be to rob genuine Gothic of half 
 its interest. 
 
 While the antiquaries were disputing over dates and styles, and 
 ecclesiologists were divided as to whether symbolism should be alle- 
 gorical or anagogic, it is lucky that a few architects contributed by their 
 more practical studies many important additions to the Literature of the 
 Revival. Among these, Sharpe's c Architectural Parallels,' a work 
 illustrating the progress of Ecclesiastical Architecture through the twelfth 
 and thirteenth centuries, deserves especial mention. Though Britton and 
 others had devoted pen and pencil to the history and delineation of our 
 Cathedrals, though Willson and Pugin had measured and described 
 the most notable ' Pointed ' churches and examples of our old domestic 
 architecture, the ruins of those magnificent abbeys which are scattered 
 over Yorkshire and other parts of England were as yet little known to 
 
Mr. E. Sharpens PVorks. 235 
 
 the professional student. Mr. E. Sharpe, an architect who had already- 
 distinguished himself as a Cambridge graduate, set himself to repair 
 this deficiency. He published two folio volumes, the one devoted to 
 perspective views of the buildings as they stood, the other to geometrical 
 elevation and plans accurately figured, as well as detail drawings of those 
 parts which remained intact or could be safely Restored' in illustration. 
 A new mine of architectural interest was thus opened. 
 
 The simple grandeur of the remains at Fountains and Kirkstall, the 
 graceful fenestration of Tintern, the elegant proportion of Whitby and 
 Rievaulx, and the refined enrichment of Howden and Selby, were 
 now delineated, not with the hasty touch of a pictorial artist, but 
 with the careful accuracy of a draughtsman who understood the con- 
 struction and rationale of every feature which he saw. The student 
 who referred to the plates of detail found at a glance the section of every 
 moulding in these venerable structures drawn to scale and ranged side 
 by side. He could compare the piers of Furness nave with those of 
 Jervaulx, the window jambs of Bridlington with those of Guisborough. 
 Studies such as these are only appreciated by men who have made archi- 
 tecture a profession, and it is not too much to say that the publication 
 of Mr. Sharpe's works exercised a great influence on professional taste, 
 by drawing attention to older and purer examples of Gothic than had 
 yet been imitated. 
 
 As a designer, Mr. Sharpe had already won his spurs by the erection 
 of many churches in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Cheshire, the largest 
 of which was Trinity Church, Blackburn, planned to accommodate a con- 
 gregation of 1500 persons, with a lofty tower and spire — and the best, 
 perhaps, that of Knowsley, near Prescot, built for the late Lord Derby. 
 The churches at Lever Bridge, Bolton, and that of Piatt, near Man- 
 chester, by the same architect, were built completely of terra cotta. 
 The former is a small church with a west tower and a traceried spire 
 standing on an octagonal lantern. Here the whole of the window tracery, 
 as well as the pinnacles, finials, and other decorative features employed, 
 
236 Paley s ' Gothic Mouldings! 
 
 is of fire-clay. This was probably the first attempt to adapt that 
 material to the construction and enrichment of every part of a Gothic 
 Church, and it is satisfactory to know that for twenty years it has stood 
 the effects of Lancashire smoke and atmospheric influences without 
 being in the slightest degree injuriously affected. 
 
 The second example belongs, like the first, to that style which Mr. 
 Sharpe would call ' Curvilinear.' It has a nave, aisles, and chancel, with 
 a S.W. tower and spire, the latter being solid but crossed by bands of 
 tracery. In both churches the moulded work is rich and varied. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of Burnley, Preston, Knutsford, and Settle, 
 not to mention other places, are examples of Mr. Sharpe's design, 
 executed for the most part between the years 1836 and 1846. He also 
 erected a number of mansions, of which the most important were 
 Capernwray Hall, near Burton, and Hornby Castle, in Lancashire. 
 The instances are rare in which architects, at least of our own day, have 
 found time for contributing to the literature of their art during a pro- 
 fessional practice. But both by his books and his works, Mr. Sharpe 
 has identified himself with the cause of Mediaeval art, and we may be 
 sure that in years to come his name will be inseparably associated with 
 the Gothic Revival. 
 
 In 1845, Mr. F. A. Paley, then Honorary Secretary of the Cambridge 
 Camden Society, published a practical little treatise on Gothic Mouldings, 
 profusely illustrated with examples from the earliest to the latest types. 
 This was followed by c A Manual of Gothic Architecture,' from the pen 
 of the same author. The latter has been superseded by larger and 
 more important works, but to this day c Paley 's Mouldings ' will be found 
 among the books recommended for study. About the same time ap- 
 peared c Bloxam's Principles of Gothic Architecture,' a small but well- 
 digested volume admirably adapted for the use of amateurs. Within a 
 few years it went through nine editions, showing the rapidly increasing 
 popularity of Gothic among the non-professional public. 
 
 Messrs. Bowman and Crowther's f Churches of the Middle Ages,' 
 
Bowman and Crowthcr. 237 
 
 was a large and sumptuous work illustrating well selected specimens of 
 the Early and Middle Pointed structures, together with a few of the 
 purest Late Pointed examples. The art of lithography had by this 
 time much improved, and was admirably adapted for illustrations of 
 architecture on a large scale, especially when it was desired, as in this 
 case, to publish perspective views of an artistic character in the same 
 volume with plans, elevations, and studies of detail. The scrupulous 
 care with which these plates were prepared rendered them invaluable 
 for reference to many an architect who had had neither time nor oppor- 
 tunity to study the admirable churches of Lincolnshire and other counties 
 whose treasures were now revealed for the first time, not by merely 
 general views, but by accurate drawings on a large scale, of spires, 
 porches, window tracery, sedilia, canopies, and all those decorative 
 features which give life and character to the buildings of the middle 
 ages. These features were drawn with far more knowledge and expres- 
 sion of architectural form than heretofore, and though the sketches of 
 carved work were still coldly executed, they represented a considerable 
 advance in delineative skill. 
 
 It is remarkable that neither in this case nor in that of Sharpe's 
 f Parallels,' any descriptive text should have been printed with the 
 plates. Perhaps the authors thought that enough and more than enough 
 had been said about Gothic in other quarters, and that the time had 
 arrived when it was better to let the merits of Mediaeval art speak for 
 themselves. 
 
 Meanwhile a more popular work, both by reason of the subjects 
 selected for illustration and the nature of the illustrations themselves, 
 was reviving a taste for that old manorial style of domestic architecture 
 which, subject to many modifications of detail, and varying considerably 
 in qualities of design, had prevailed in this country from the fifteenth to 
 the seventeenth centuries. Nash's c Mansions of England in the Olden 
 Time,' conveyed in its very title so much interest even to the most super- 
 ficial critic that it is no wonder it attracted attention. But it was, moreover, 
 
238 Nas/is 'Mansions of England! 
 
 the work of an accomplished artist who had at an early age, and in an 
 extraordinary degree, acquired the knack of investing with a picturesque 
 charm every object which he chose to portray. The facility of his pencil 
 was as the facility of Sir Walter Scott's pen, and they were both de- 
 voted with equal success to recalling the romance of Mediaeval life. It 
 required no technical knowledge of architecture to appreciate the 
 venerable aspect of Haddon Hall, with its panelled rooms, its ample 
 fire-places, and tapestried walls. The air of dignified repose, of jovial 
 hospitality, and lordly splendour, indicated throughout such apartments 
 as those of Levens in Westmoreland, of Adlington, Bramhall, and 
 Brereton in Cheshire, of Athelhampton in Dorsetshire, and of Hatfield 
 in Herts, appeals at once to the taste and sympathies of many an 
 amateur who may be unable to discriminate nicely between Tudor and 
 Elizabethan work, but who feels instinctively that the country houses 
 of our ancestors, for a century or more, realised every necessary comfort 
 in their day, while they were a hundredfold more artistic and interesting 
 than the cold formal mansions of the Georgian era. 
 
 Seen in their present state, some half modernised, some damaged by 
 time and wilful neglect, others spoilt by injudicious restoration, many of 
 these ancient mansions are but dimly suggestive of their former magni- 
 ficence. It was Nash's aim to represent them as they were in the days 
 when country life was enjoyed by their owners, not for a brief interval 
 in the year, but all the year round, in days when there was feasting in 
 the hall and tilting in the courtyard, when the yule log crackled on the 
 hearth, and mummers beguiled the dulness of a winter's evening, when the 
 bowling-green was filed with lusty youths, and gentle dames sat spin- 
 ning in their boudoirs, when the deep window recesses were filled with 
 family groups, and gallant cavaliers rode out a-hawking ; when, in short, 
 all the adjuncts and incidents of social life, dress, pastimes, manners, and 
 what-not, formed part of a picturesque whole of which we in these 
 prosaic and lack-lustre days, except by the artist's aid, can form no con- 
 ception. 
 
Mr. Robert IV. Billings. 239 
 
 When these delightful volumes were published a fresh impulse was 
 given to the study of ancient architecture for domestic purposes. 
 People began to see for themselves that the old national style of house- 
 building was neither so gloomy nor uncomfortable as it had once been 
 considered. They found that the rooms might be lofty, the windows 
 wide, the chimney corners cosy, the staircases ample and convenient. 
 They learned that a gabled roof was not inconsistent with grandeur, 
 and that a walled porch afforded better shelter from the weather than an 
 open portico, that chimney shafts, buttresses, and many another feature 
 which the modern ' Italian ' architect makes a shift to hide, may become 
 the ornaments of a Gothic house, that the style admits of every variety 
 of plan, and may embrace every modern requirement, that it is as well 
 adapted for a cottage as a palace, and above all that the preposterous 
 notion of grafting on domestic buildings the distinctive features of a 
 church or a convent, as had been the case at Fonthill and Eaton Hall, 
 was altogether wrong, and without precedent in genuine examples. 
 
 It was an evil inseparable from the nature of Nash's work that he was 
 guided in his selection of subjects solely by considerations of pictorial 
 effect. In that respect his selection was excellent. But, unfortunately for 
 the interests of art, pictorial effect may be, and indeed in architecture of 
 the seventeenth century frequently was, allied with unsatisfactory design as 
 far at least as details are concerned. He illustrated many specimens of 
 the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods which possessed sufficient archi- 
 tectural merit to satisfy a half-educated taste, but which, as models of 
 decorative treatment, were models of all that should be avoided. Tares 
 were thus sown with the wheat, and to this day it is difficult to teach 
 some people how to distinguish between the two crops. 
 
 If the publication of Nash's c Ancient Mansions ' did good service to 
 the Revival in England, Mr. Robert W. Billings was hardly less suc- 
 cessful in drawing the attention of his countrymen to Mediaeval archi- 
 tecture north of the Tweed. Until the appearance of his c Baronial 
 and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland,' no illustrations worthy of 
 
240 ' The Baronial Antiquities of Scotland' 
 
 the name had recorded the characteristics of a style which, whatever its 
 faults may be, is as thoroughly national both in its rise and its decline 
 as any that prevailed in Europe during the middle ages. The grand 
 severity of Borthwick Castle, the picturesque ruins of Craigmillar and 
 Dirleton, the graceful simplicity of Dryburgh Abbey, and the rich de- 
 tails of Melrose, represent each in their several ways pages in the history 
 of ancient art well worth the professional student's examination ; and 
 though he may turn with disappointment from the coarse and vitiated 
 detail of Rosslyn Chapel, he must be a fastidious critic who fails to 
 admire such noble work as that at Pluscardine, Iona, and Jedburgh. 
 
 The views in Billings' volumes are neither so large nor treated in 
 such a pleasantly scenic manner as those by Nash, but Billings had the 
 advantage of being an architect, and knew the value of correct delinea- 
 tion of detail. Many of the studies of parts are engraved with much 
 care and on so large a scale that they would be of practical value for 
 reference without a plan or section. The ichnography, indeed, of these 
 examples the author did not supply ; probably because it would have 
 greatly increased the cost of his work, without interesting the majority 
 of his subscribers, among whom were hundreds of unprofessional men. 
 On the other hand, each set of plates was accompanied by a short essay, 
 in which the history and peculiarities of every building portrayed were 
 fully described. 
 
 Notwithstanding the appearance of these and other similarly illustrated 
 books, a work was still wanting by means of which the student might 
 arrive at more technical knowledge of Mediaeval design, and especially 
 with regard to those details of wood-work and internal fittings which 
 had hitherto escaped study, but which were becoming more and more in 
 demand as the necessity for completeness and thorough consistency in 
 the appointments of a modern Gothic building became apparent. 
 
 This deficiency was in course of time supplied by the Messrs. Bran- 
 don who, with infinite pains and considerable ability, both of an artistic 
 and literary kind, produced in 1847 two quarto volumes entitled ' An 
 
u£K//rrtr.G0.sc. 
 
 St. John's {R.C.) Cathedral, Salford, MancJiester. 
 
 Hadfield aud Weightman, Architects, 1845. 
 
Brandon's 'Analysis of Gothic Architecture! 241 
 
 Analysis of Gothic Architecture,' illustrated by upwards of seven hun- 
 dred specimens of architectural features carefully selected from the best 
 periods of ancient work both ecclesiastical and domestic. These illustra- 
 tions were accompanied by letter-press, in which the origin and develop- 
 ment of window tracery, the distinctive character of mouldings, of piers, 
 arches, and buttresses, and the treatment of wood-work and metal-work, 
 were discussed. The comprehensive nature of the analysis, the skill with 
 which the details, especially of carved work, are sketched, and the 
 thoroughly practical nature of the information conveyed, soon rendered 
 this work popular in the professional world, and indeed it may still 
 be considered one of the most useful of its class which has issued 
 from the press. Without a genuine knowledge of detail, the very 
 alphabet of architectural design remains unlearned. An ill-spelt essay, 
 an ungrammatical speech, would not present a greater anomaly than a 
 building in which the individual parts indicate a want of study. It was 
 Mr. Raphael Brandon's early and untiring researches in this direction 
 which enabled him at a later period to raise one of the grandest and 
 most effective modern churches which have marked the Revival,* and 
 though his intimate acquaintance with the minutiae as well as the pro- 
 portions of old work may have here and there betrayed him into pla- 
 giarism, this was a venial fault at a time when an architect was expected 
 to give his authority for every moulding that he used, and when the 
 completely original designs which were produced did but little credit to 
 the Gothic cause or to their respective authors. 
 
 A large proportion of the modern Pointed structures raised between 
 1840 and 1850 were copied either entirely or in part from old ex- 
 amples, and perhaps it was the best thing that could have happened. 
 For with a few brilliant exceptions, which it would be invidious to 
 name, no architects of that day could have been trusted to work, as 
 many have since done, in the spirit of old art alone and without 
 borrowing largely from their books and sketches. 
 
 * The ' Apostolic ' Church in Gordon Square, London. 
 
 R 
 
242 R. C. Church of St. John, Salford, Manchester. 
 
 Among the instances of successful adaptations from old design, the 
 church of St. John, Salford, Manchester, by Messrs. Hadfield and 
 Weightman, may be mentioned. In this case the tower and spire of 
 Newark, the nave of Howden, and the choir of Selby, were copied, not 
 absolutely in proportion, but in detail. The nave, indeed, was one 
 bay shorter than its original, and certainly did not gain in effect by the 
 deduction ; but on the whole the result was considered very satisfactory 
 by contemporary critics, and especially elicited the admiration of Pugin. 
 It was begun in 1S44, and was opened in 1848. The interior, fitted 
 up as it is for the service of the Roman Catholic Church, with its 
 chantries and altar tombs, its stout piers and broad transepts, is very 
 striking. The nave has a clerestory and open timbered roof, the 
 chancel and chancel aisles being groined in wood.* The screens which 
 divide the chancel from its aisle, as well as some of the altars and 
 other fittings, were designed some years later by Mr. G. Goldie, who 
 had then joined Messrs. Hadfield and Weightman in partnership. The 
 decorative sculpture of this period, though refined and wrought with 
 extraordinary delicacy, as may be seen here in an altar tomb in the 
 north chantry, was treated in far too naturalistic a manner for the 
 conditions of good art. For instance, the Rosa Mystica, carved on a 
 church panel, is a sacred emblem, and should be an ideal abstraction 
 of nature. Here the carver has literally copied the flower, leaf for 
 leaf, with so unfortunately accurate an eye and so injudiciously sharp 
 a chisel, that his work looks like a petrified rose. During the Revival, 
 it took a decade of years to teach workmen to carve carefully. It took 
 another to get them to carve simply. We may expect more than a 
 third to elapse before they have learnt to carve nobly. 
 
 * Although this fact may fill the modern purist with aesthetic horror, it is not -without 
 precedent even in Mediaeval times, and was certainly more excusable twenty-five years ago 
 than now, when we are supposed to have mastered the true principles of Gothic design. 
 But it is an expedient still practised ; and if clients will insist on adopting it, what is the 
 unfortunate architect to do ? It is curious that the Roman Catholic clergy have been and 
 still are responsible for much that has been perpetrated in this way. 
 
Messrs. Hadfield and IVeightman. 243 
 
 Two other Roman Catholic churches were erected about this time 
 by Messrs. Hadfield and Weightman, viz. at Sheffield, and at Burnley 
 in Lancashire, each being dedicated to Saint Mary. The design 
 of the latter was based on a study of Heckington Church, with 
 certain modifications, the principal departure from the plan of the 
 original being the addition of a chapel on the north side of the north 
 aisle. The reredos of the high altar was entrusted to Pugin, whose 
 work here, it must be confessed, suffers by comparison with that of the 
 architects of the church. The reredos and side altar of the chapel, to 
 the left of the high altar, are far more vigorously treated, and there are 
 other examples of decorative sculpture in the interior which are ex- 
 cellent both in taste and execution. In the tracery of the windows a 
 certain tendency towards the German and Belgian schools may be 
 noticed. The west window, supplied by Messrs. Hardman & Co., 
 from a design by Pugin, is very good for its date and indeed superior 
 to those put up at a later period by the same firm. The masonry of 
 this and other churches erected by Mr. Hadfield exhibits evidence of 
 an appreciation of those ' true principles ' of constructive detail which 
 were then more preached than practised. The window arches, &.c, 
 instead of being turned in large blocks of stone, according to the pre- 
 vailing custom, are executed in small and numerous voussoirs, which 
 give scale and significance to the work. The wall courses, instead of 
 being rubbed down to the smoothness of paper (a method of finish at 
 once wasteful of labour and uninteresting in effect), are left simply 
 dressed with the chisel. The mouldings are delicately and sharply cut, 
 and the details of iron-work in the screens, &c, are handled with a 
 vigour far in advance of the time. 
 
 In 1845, the church of St. Francis Xavier was begun at Liverpool 
 from the designs of Mr. J. J. Scoles. In plan it includes a nave and 
 aisles, a shallow chancel, and a finely -proportioned tower at the south- 
 west angle. The nave arcade, of lancet-pointed arches, rests on iron 
 columns which, from their shape and colour, might almost be mistaken 
 
 R 2 
 
244 Church of St. Francis Xavier, Liverpool. 
 
 for marble. The propriety of using iron for such a purpose has been 
 much questioned, and is still open to dispute ; but of one fact there 
 can be little doubt, viz. that if it is so used, the nature of the material 
 should be at once revealed by the character of the design. The roof 
 of the nave is polygonal, and divided into panels decorated 'with colour. 
 Without possessing any ad captandum excellence, this church is a very 
 creditable work for its day, though the effect of the interior is greatly 
 marred by the unfortunate glazing of the aisle windows.* 
 
 The Roman Catholic churches erected at this period had one decided 
 advantage over those designed for the Establishment, viz. in the rich 
 treatment of their interiors. Ritualism, it is true, was gradually finding 
 favour among the Anglican clergy, but as yet its principal effect had 
 been to ensure a general orthodoxy of plan and proportion in the 
 buildings erected. A tamely-carved reredos, generally arranged in 
 panels to hold the Commandments, a group of sedilia and a piscina, 
 with perhaps a few empty niches in the clerestory, were, as a rule, 
 all the internal features which distinguished an Anglican church from 
 a meeting-house. The sumptuously sculptured dossels, the marble 
 altars inlaid with mosaic, the elaborate rood-screens and decorative 
 painting, which private munificence has since provided for many of our 
 national churches, with the approval of the clergy and to the delight of 
 many a devout congregation, were then rare, and would, in nine cases out 
 of ten, have created a scandal, even among the supporters of the Revival. 
 But no scruples on this score prevented the introduction of such features 
 in the Roman Church, where the worst innovation that could be feared 
 was an exchange of good taste for bad. The ritual of Rome had always 
 aimed at effect, though her priests might be robed in copes of miser- 
 able design. Her altars were meant to be attractive, though they were 
 
 * The designs for the altars, pulpit, and some other fittings of this church were com- 
 menced by Mr. S. J. Nicholl during the term of his pupilage with Mr. Scoles, and were 
 at Mr. Scoles's request completed by him after that term had expired. The Chapel of the 
 Sacred Heart, the last of these works, was finished in 1851. It is a very rich example, 
 carefully designed in the style of the church, but with considerable originality. 
 
A New Reformation. 
 
 245 
 
 decked with tawdry artificial flowers. Her shrines and niches were 
 never empty, though they were too often filled with imagery from the 
 toy-shop. Pugin raised his voice long and loudly against these artistic 
 heresies, and in course of time his denunciations had their effect. For 
 some years the Church of Rome went hand in hand with the Church 
 of England in a new and goodly Reformation — a Reformation which 
 caused no rivalry but that of devotion, which involved no loss but of 
 what was worthless, which pursued no policy but that of truth, which 
 effected no change but one from meanness to beauty, and from 
 heartlessness to love. 
 
246 
 
 New Churches in London. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 EFORE the first half of this century was reached, a number 
 of new churches had been erected in London, which, in their 
 design and execution, far surpassed the productions of pre- 
 vious years, and at last seemed as if a standard of excellence had been 
 reached beyond which it would be difficult to proceed. For up to this 
 time the chief care of the modern Gothic architect had been to imitate 
 with more or less precision, not only the plan and arrangement, but the 
 proportions and decorative details of old work. If he succeeded in doing 
 this satisfactorily, even in a literal copy, the critics found no fault with 
 him. But any attempt at the introduction of an unusual feature — any 
 departure from the several canons of style, which by dint of observa- 
 tion, sketches, and measurement had been arrived at by the antiquarian, 
 and enunciated by the Camden Society, would have been regarded as 
 heretical, and forthwith condemned. 
 
 And in truth, at that period the only safety from error lay in absolute 
 respect for ancient precedent. Those luckless designers who tried to 
 emancipate themselves from that authority, and to strike out in a new 
 independent line of taste, only brought ridicule on their heads by the 
 crudity and clumsiness of their work. It was easy to argue that old art 
 was a dead letter : that the requirements of modern life, the conditions 
 of modern religion, and the sentiment of modern taste, pointed one and 
 all to the necessity for a change of style, or to the freest possible inter- 
 pretation of old styles, both in our churches and our homes. But when 
 our art-reformers consolidated their ideas in brick and stone, the ques- 
 tion became no longer one of style, but of taste, and no educated 
 
Church of S. Stephen, Westminster, 
 B. Ferry, F.S.A., Architect, 1S46. 
 
St. Andrew's Church, I Tel Is Street. 247 
 
 taste could have approved the result of their experiments. The last 
 twenty years have seen more than one divergence in the progress of our 
 National Architecture. Those who follow it as a profession are no 
 longer content to make slavish copies of old work, but one fact must 
 be admitted, viz. that whenever a good and decidedly original design 
 has been executed, it has been by those who at some period of their 
 lives studied closely from ancient examples, and whenever a mean or 
 commonplace (though equally original) building has been planned, it has 
 been by some one who never considered such study worth the trouble. 
 
 The Church of St. Andrew, in Wells Street, London, designed by 
 Mr. Daukes, and consecrated in 1847, deserved and obtained great 
 credit for the ingenuity with which the architect managed to deal with a 
 very awkward site, irregular in shape, bounded on the north and south 
 by houses, and on the east by a mews. The selection of so late a 
 type of Gothic, was a mistake ; and the introduction of galleries an un- 
 fortunate necessity. But the west front, with its engaged tower, standing 
 at an odd angle with the line of the street, is picturesque, and internally 
 the arrangements of the chancel, with its stalls, sedilia, and raised sacra- 
 rium, gave great satisfaction to the High Church party, by whom the 
 building was long regarded as a model of orthodoxy until its more 
 famous rival All Saints' was raised in the adjoining street.* 
 
 Meanwhile, Miss Burdett Coutts, to whose well-directed liberalitv 
 many an English Church is indebted, had commissioned Mr. B. Ferrey 
 to design and erect the Church of St. Stephen, at Westminster, on a 
 site where it was much needed, viz. at the corner of Rochester Row, 
 surrounded by houses of the poorest description. The denizens of Tot- 
 hill Fields, and the Westminster Scholars who came to play cricket 
 in Vincent Square, saw, with mingled pleasure and surprise, a tower 
 and stone spire rising to a prodigious height from the east end of the 
 north aisle. The critics pronounced the spire too attenuated, even 
 
 * The interior of St. Andrew's Church has since undergone considerable additions, 
 under the able direction of Mr. G. E. Street, R.A. 
 
248 Sf. Stephen s Church, Westminster. 
 
 for its style (Middle Pointed), but approved the small courses of stone 
 which were used for the masonry below, and confessed the knowledge 
 of detail which the porches and window tracery exhibited.* By and by 
 the church was opened, revealing treasures of carving in stone and 
 wood, encaustic tiles, and stained glass— not indeed of that quality 
 which would now be accepted as satisfactory, but certainly as good as 
 could then be obtained. The walls are plastered internally, but the 
 plaster is stopped, as it should be, at the window quoins. The pulpit 
 is original in design, and the mouldings throughout the church delicate 
 and refined. An open-timbered roof, very good in style, covers the lofty 
 nave, while that of the chancel is polygonal and panelled. Here, then, 
 we have two metropolitan churches, one Perpendicular and the other 
 Decorated in design, representing a steady advance in the character of 
 Modern Gothic. A third example may be mentioned in which the 
 style adopted was Early English, and which from various causes has 
 since attained a celebrity quite apart from its architectural merit, 
 although that was not inconsiderable. 
 
 The Church, Parsonage, and Schools of St. Barnabas, Pimlico, 
 designed by Mr. T. Cundy, were erected at a time when every step 
 forward in the direction of Ritualism was persistently opposed by the 
 ultra- Protestant party — when the furniture and fittings of a chancel 
 were considered proof-positive of Popery, and when every clergyman 
 who preached in a surplice was suspected of being a Jesuit in disguise. 
 It was, therefore, with astonishment and dismay that certain good folks 
 who had the curiosity to examine this church shortly after its com- 
 pletion, found a chancel separated from the rest of the building by a 
 screen and parcloses, fitted with a stone altar and reredos, stalls and 
 miserere-seats, sedilia and recessed credence, the floor rich in encaustic 
 tiles, and the walls glowing with coloured diapers, while a corona of 
 beaten metal and glass bosses depended from the panelled roof. They 
 
 * The schools attached to this church were opened before its completion, and are 
 excellent examples of Domestic Pointed work. 
 
Church of St. Barnabas, Pimlico. 249 
 
 turned from the brass lectern to the marble pulpit, from the stained 
 glass windows to the Latin texts which ran round the arches in mys- 
 terious characters, and asked themselves whether in sober earnest the 
 Church of England could have come to such a pass as this. 
 
 Externally, even the house and schools were viewed askance, for 
 the windows were narrow and pointed, and to the uninitiated the whole 
 building looked like a convent. Convents were popularly supposed 
 to be dreadful places. Some young ladies, no doubt, were scandalised 
 at the notion ; and we may be sure that there were not a few in 
 Pimlico for whom the life of a nun had no great attractions. 
 
 The architect who could regard the building without prejudice, and 
 from a purely professional point of view, saw with some interest a type 
 of Gothic hitherto neglected in the Revival (for the so-called Early 
 English buildings had been but meagre travesties of that style) adapted 
 not only to a church and parochial schools, but to a modern dwelling- 
 house. The Domestic Architecture of the Revival has since passed 
 through many phases, ranging from ancient Venetian to cockney verna- 
 cular ; but the St. Barnabas Parsonage was probably the first instance 
 in which a Victorian drawing-room received its light from a lancet 
 window. 
 
 The church itself was destined to become, as time went on, the cause, 
 if not the actual scene, of ecclesiastical strifes and disputes, which, 
 though unfortunately associated with the history of the Revival, will 
 find no record in these pages — strifes in which bigotry has sometimes 
 been mistaken for zeal, and ignorant prejudice for conscientious 
 scruple ; disputes which, if prolonged till Doomsday, will never be 
 settled except by the mutual concession that in spiritual, as well as 
 worldly matters, there may be two ways of attaining the same end. 
 
 In 1849, ^ e foundations of two more London churches were laid, 
 which, apart from their merits considered respectively as works of art, 
 are interesting as evidence of a decided change in the development of the 
 Revival. Hitherto, Mr. Butterfield and the late Mr. Carpenter may 
 
250 Church of St. Mary Magdalene, Minister Square. 
 
 be said in many respects to have occupied common ground in the field 
 of design. Both had formed their taste by a careful study of old 
 examples. Both exhibited an apparent preference for the c Middle 
 Pointed ' period. Both had up to this time carefully avoided incon- 
 gruities of style and that restless striving after effect, at the sacrifice of 
 dignity, which has been the bane of Modern Gothic. The works of 
 each, in short, were thoughtful, refined and scholarlike. 
 
 Of Mr. Carpenter's Church, St. Mary Magdalene, close to Munster 
 Square, it is not too much to say that no contemporary structure raised 
 in London, of its class and size, surpassed, or even approached, it in 
 excellence. There is a simple grace in its proportions — a modest 
 reticence (if one may use such an expression in architectural criticism) 
 about the treatment of its decorative features that distinguishes it, on the 
 one hand, from the cold expressionless Gothic which then passed for 
 orthodox, and on the other from the rampant extravagance of treatment 
 which has occasionally found favour in later days. This "church was 
 originally designed with two aisles, but that in the south side only was 
 built. To this accident, and the fact that chairs instead of benches are 
 used for the congregation, perhaps the unconventional aspect of the 
 interior is due ; but an examination of the mouldings and other details 
 will show how carefully every part was studied. There are few modern 
 churches of which the interior may be called truly pictorial, but in this 
 one twenty years have helped to mellow the local colour of its walls ; 
 and under certain conditions of sunset, with the light streaming through 
 the west windows, leaving the rest of the church in gloom, the effect is 
 very fine. 
 
 St. Mary Magdalene's was perhaps the last church of any note erected 
 in London before the Revival became sensibly, though by no means 
 universally, affected bv certain new doctrines of taste in architecture 
 — doctrines which were proclaimed from an unexpected source, and 
 which at one time bade fair to revolutionise and reform those very prin- 
 ciples of design that Pugin had recently laid down with so much care. 
 
Proposed Erection of a Model Church. 251 
 
 It had long been a project of the Cambridge Camden Society to 
 found a model church, which should realise in its design and internal 
 arrangements a beau ideal of architectural beauty, and fulfil at the same 
 time the requirements of orthodox ritual. Some years after the 
 Society was transferred to London, an opportunity presented itself for 
 the execution of this scheme. The late incumbent of Margaret Street 
 Chapel, in the parish of All Souls (of which Dean Chandler was then 
 rector), had conceived the idea of rebuilding the chapel in what (for 
 that day) would have been a correct ecclesiastical style, and for this 
 purpose a sum amounting to nearly 3,000/. had been collected. On 
 Mr. Oakley's secession to the Church of Rome he was succeeded by the 
 Rev. W. Upton Richards, by whom the undertaking was still fostered. 
 In 1845 it occurred to Mr. Beresford Hope that the two schemes 
 might be combined with advantage, both to the Margaret Chapel con- 
 gregation and to the supporters of the Cambridge Camden Society. 
 This proposal was well received both by the Dean and Mr. Richards, 
 and, having been submitted to Bishop Blomfield, met with his ready 
 approval. It was arranged that the architectural and ecclesiological 
 control of the project should be vested entirely in the Cambridge 
 Camden Society, bv whom Sir Stephen Glynne and Mr. Beresford 
 Hope were appointed as the executive. The avocations of the former 
 gentleman, however, prevented him from taking an active part in the 
 matter, and thus the main responsibility devolved on Mr. Hope. 
 Mr. Butterfield was selected as the architect, and the next question 
 considered was the choice of site. 
 
 In many parts of London this would have presented no difficulty, 
 but the congregation of the old Chapel naturally showed their pre- 
 ference for Margaret Street, and there, after many obstacles in the way 
 of negotiation, and not without reluctance on Mr. Hope's part, a piece 
 of ground was purchased at a cost of 14,500/. It is to be regretted 
 that feelings of sentiment were allowed to prevail over practical con- 
 siderations in coming to this conclusion, for the site was confessedly 
 
252 All Saints Church, Margaret Street. 
 
 disadvantageous in regard to light, a point which in a model town 
 church should not have been disregarded. However, in 1849, tne 
 work was fairly begun, the foundation stone having been laid by 
 Dr. Pusey, and the building dedicated to All Saints. 
 
 The generous liberality with which the scheme was supported 
 shows the great interest felt in its development by modern Churchmen, 
 and affords a striking contrast to the niggardly thrift which the pre- 
 vious generation had shown in matters ecclesiastical. Among the 
 subscriptions placed at Mr. Beresford Hope's disposal in aid of the 
 object was the munificent sum of 30,000/., contributed by Mr. H. 
 Tritton ; Mr. Lancaster gave 4,000/. The cost of the baptistery at 
 All Saints was defrayed by the Marquis of Sligo, and many other 
 instances of private generosity might be quoted. Altogether, the 
 church, including the site and endowment, cost about 70,000/. 
 
 Whether Mr. Butterfield's design for All Saints' Church was or was 
 not influenced by the theories enunciated in the ' Seven Lamps of 
 Architecture,' it is certain that the building itself, as it was gradually 
 raised, and still more when it came to be decorated, revealed a ten- 
 dency to depart from ancient precedent in many important particulars. 
 In the first place, the use of red brick for the external walls was a 
 novelty, brick having been hitherto only used for the cheap churches, 
 while in this case the very quality of the brick used made it more 
 expensive than stone. Again, the tower and spire were of a shape and 
 proportions which puzzled the antiquaries, scandalised the architects, 
 and sent unprofessional critics to their wit's end with amazement. 
 Passers-by gazed at the iron-work of the entrance gateway, at the 
 gables and dormers of the parsonage, at the black brick voussoirs and 
 stringcourses, and asked what manner of architecture this might be, 
 which was neither Early English, Decorated, nor Tudor, and which 
 could be properly referred to no century except the nineteenth. 
 
 Internally, it is true, they found much to admire in the beauty of 
 the materials used ; in the marble, alabaster, and coloured brick, in the 
 
Criticism of Mr. Butterfield's J I "or/:. 253 
 
 fresco paintings, delicate carving, and brilliant glass. But the treat- 
 ment of all was so novel and eccentric, the proportions so unusual, the 
 application of colour was so strange, that people of taste could not 
 make up their minds whether they ought to like it or not ; while with 
 people who did not pretend to a taste it was decidedly out of favour. 
 Undoubtedly the work is not without its faults, but they are precisely 
 those faults which do not present themselves to an uneducated eye. 
 The tendency of a superficial critic, as a rule, is to sneer at every 
 specimen of modern art that departs in any marked degree from a 
 conventional standard ; to ignore the specific conditions which regulate 
 design ; to prefer obvious and commonplace prettiness to the nobler 
 but more subtle beauties of proportion and refinement, and restless 
 elaboration to sober dignity of effect. For instance, without neces- 
 sarily approving the outline of the spire at All Saints', it is easy to 
 perceive that much of the disparagement which it elicited was founded 
 on an ignorance of its wooden construction. People involuntarily com- 
 pared it with the ordinary type of stone spire which they had been 
 accustomed to see in English churches, and could not understand why 
 it was not broached in the usual way, or surrounded with a parapet at 
 its base. Again, the interior of the church was pronounced too high 
 for its width. There was no east window; and there were no windows 
 in the north aisles. But all these peculiarities were the inevitable 
 result of the site, for the choice of which the architect could not be 
 held responsible. Objections were raised to the character of the 
 carving and of the metal-work, but no better reason could be given 
 for these objections than that nothing of precisely the same kind had 
 been seen before. 
 
 The truth is that the design was a bold and magnificent endeavour 
 to shake off the trammels of antiquarian precedent, which had long 
 fettered the progress of the Revival, to create not a new style, but a 
 development of previous styles ; to carry the enrichment of eccle- 
 siastical Gothic to an extent which even in the Middle Ages had been 
 
254 
 
 Decoration of All Saints Church. 
 
 rare in England ; to add the colour of natural material to pictorial 
 decoration ; to let marbles and mosaic take the place of stone and 
 plaster ; to adorn the walls with surface ornament of an enduring 
 kind; to spare, in short, neither skill, nor pains, nor cost in making this 
 church the model church of its day — such a building as should take a 
 notable position in the history of modern architecture. 
 
 If Mr. Butterfleld had been a 
 man of less cultivated taste, or if 
 he had had more funds at his dis- 
 posal for this purpose, the experi- 
 ment might have proved a failure 
 — in the former case, because the 
 numerous instances which we have 
 since seen of f original ' Gothic, 
 prove how few are yet to be 
 trusted with the license in design 
 which he took ; and in the latter 
 case, because there is evidence, 
 even at All Saints', that the secret 
 of knowing where to stop in 
 decorative work had still to be 
 acquired. The multiplicity of 
 line patterns* on the walls of this 
 church, and the elaboration of 
 ornament, generally make it a 
 matter of regret that there are no 
 broad surfaces of wall on which 
 the eye can rest unoccupied. 
 Frescoes, marbles, geometrical 
 patterns, carving, mosaics, stained glass, gilding, dazzle it by their close 
 association, and even trench on each other's claim to attention. It seems a 
 
 \A J.KMRSC 
 
 * For the most part incised on the ashlar and filled in with coloured mastic. 
 
Yealmpton Church, Devonshire. 255 
 
 commonplace truism now to sav that veined marble should not be carved, 
 vet this was permitted in the alabaster capitals. The work, is excellent, 
 the material lovely, but the sculptor's chisel and nature's colour-brush 
 are ill-assorted. Again, the treatment of the nave arcade suggests an 
 inlay of bricks in a marble arch, as if the more precious material were 
 employed as a setting for the commoner one, which is unsatisfactory. 
 I low far the architect foresaw or was responsible for the effect of the 
 stained glass windows may be doubtful, but as a simple question of poly- 
 chromv, the flood of green and yellow light which streams in from the 
 west window is out of key with the colour of the walls, and widely 
 removed from the rich mellow tones of old glass, in which the brightest 
 hues are employed so sparingly that they sparkle like jewels. These 
 remarks are merely typical of objections raised at the time on the sub- 
 ject of this work, and would not be made here but as some qualifica- 
 tion of the praise to which Mr. Butterfield is justly entitled for this 
 otherwise magnificent work. None but those who have examined it 
 with attention can appreciate the masterly skill with which every pro- 
 portion has been studied, or the loving care which has been bestowed 
 on the minutest detail. Ten years elapsed during its completion, and 
 long before the church was consecrated a change had taken place in 
 the current of public taste, as will presently be shown. 
 
 Meanwhile, Mr. Butterfield had accepted and in many instances 
 executed other commissions. Among these was the rebuilding of the 
 parish church of Yealmpton, in Devonshire, undertaken at the cost of 
 the late Mr. Bastard, of Kitley.* This was probably the first rural 
 structure of its class in which decoration was introduced by the employ- 
 ment of natural colour. The chancel screen (about four feet high) is 
 
 * This amiable and accomplished gentleman was a sincere admirer of Mediasval archi- 
 tecture, the principles of which he had well studied. Soon after the completion of the 
 church, lie joined the Romish communion, and built a chapel for the Roman Catholic poor 
 of the neignbourhood. At his death, however, which followed soon after, it ceased to be 
 supported, and is now used as a parish school. 
 
256 Abbey Mere, Plymouth. 
 
 of Devonshire marble. The nave piers are of the same material, 
 arranged in alternate courses (light grey and dark veined). A narrow 
 label of marble inlay is also carried round the aisle walls and over the 
 windows in a trefoiled form with discs (intended for lettering) in the 
 spandrils. This label and the treatment of the chancel arch are peculiar 
 and not very satisfactory features in the church, which, however, in other 
 respects is designed with a great sense of beauty both in proportions and 
 detail. As an example of Domestic architecture in the same county 
 and by the same architect, the Anglican Conventual Establishment of 
 1 Abbey Mere,' near Plymouth, may be mentioned. This is an 
 unfinished but picturesque pile of buildings. Seen from across the 
 Stonehouse Lake, on rising ground, with its walls divided into heights 
 of two or three stories as occasion required, breaking out occasionally 
 into an octagonal bay, or sweeping round in an apselike curve, and sur- 
 mounted by a high-pitched roof of slate, it forms an admirable group. 
 The cold grey limestone, which is the building material of this district, is 
 generally a dull and formal one for local masonry ; but Mr. BuLterfield, 
 by breaking it up into irregular courses, has given it life and interest. 
 Internally, the plan, though probably added to from time to time, seems 
 excellently adapted for its purpose, and possesses the rare quality in 
 modern Gothic of being thoroughly practical and straightforward in its 
 arrangement. 
 
 At Leeds, Huddersfield, Eton, Sheen, Wykeham, Milton (near 
 Adderbury), and Braisfield in Hampshire, churches, and in some cases 
 parsonages, were built by Mr. Butterfield. In London he reaped more 
 laurels by the erection of St. Matthias, at Stoke Newington, where the 
 c saddle-back ' roof of the square tower was a novelty in ecclesiastical 
 design. The same feature was introduced over the belfry of St. Alban's, 
 Holborn, one of the most perfect and interesting examples of the 
 architect's skill, which, through the munificent liberality of Mr. Hubbard, 
 was raised in one of the poorest metropolitan districts, where it was 
 much wanted. It is especially characteristic of Mr. Butterfield's design 
 
Belfry of S. A /ban's Church, London. 
 
 II'. ButterMd, Architect, 1858. 
 
SI. Albans C liurch, Holborn. 257 
 
 that he aims at originality not only in the form but in the relative pro- 
 portion of parts. Thus in St. Alban's the first thing that strikes one on 
 entering is the extreme width of the nave as compared with the aisles, 
 and the great height of the nave as compared with its width. This 
 indeed is the secret of the striking and picturesque character which dis- 
 tinguishes his works from others which are less daring in conception 
 and therefore less liable to mistakes. Mr. Butterfield has been the 
 leader of a school, and it is necessary for a leader to be bold. 
 
 Over the chancel arch and in the space included between it and the 
 roof above, the wall is enriched with ornamental brickwork arranged in 
 diaper patterns which are intersected here and there by circular panels 
 filled with the same material. These panels are disposed, apparently, 
 without the slightest reference to the outline of the arch below, which 
 indeed intersects them abruptly as if it had been cut through the wall 
 at random. Here then is an excellent illustration of what some of Mr. 
 Butterfield's critics called his culpable eccentricity of taste. How easy 
 it would have been, they argued, to adapt this ornamental brickwork 
 to the space for which it is intended — to map out the patterns so as to 
 look as if they had been intended for this particular piece of wall and 
 no other, and let the bounding lines of construction regulate and deter- 
 mine the nature of the patterns within ! 
 
 This is indeed precisely what an ordinary architect would have done. 
 But does nature decorate after this fashion ? The ablest art-critic of 
 our own day has deftly pointed out that the variegations of colour 
 on the skins of beasts and the plumage of birds have little or no relation 
 with the forms which they adorn. And if this be considered a far- 
 fetched authority, we have only to remember the extraordinary success 
 of Japanese decoration, where symmetry (as we moderns understand 
 the word) and what may be called the methodism of ornament are utterly 
 discarded, and with so admirable a result that the highest grace of 
 European manufacture in an artistic sense sinks into insignificance 
 beside it. 
 
 s 
 
2 5 8 
 
 Details of St. Albaris Church. 
 
 With a designer of such genius and originality as Mr. Butterfield, it 
 is difficult to estimate how much of his departure from accepted con- 
 ventionalities of form and arrangement is due to conviction and how 
 much to accident. It is difficult to conceive how an architect wtfh a 
 keen sense of beauty and fitness could have tolerated so unfortunate a 
 distribution of lines as that which occurs in the central portion of the 
 reredos at St. Alban's, or have adopted such an unconstructivc type 
 of corbel as that which supports the engaged shafts of the clerestory. 
 
 Yet the mouldings of the nave 
 arcade are modelled with singular 
 felicity, and the mural arcuation 
 of the aisles is treated with con- 
 summate skill. 
 
 In examining the character of 
 this architect's work here and 
 elsewhere one can scarcely avoid 
 the conclusion that the guiding 
 principle of his taste is rooted in 
 a determination to be singular. 
 And on this principle he acts at 
 any sacrifice, whether of tradition, convenience, or grace. Architectural 
 features which it is the fashion to elaborate he reduces to the severest 
 and most archaic forms. On comparatively unimportant details he 
 frequently lavishes his fondest care. He aims at grandeur and effect 
 when most designers are content with simplicity. Yet he has 
 nothing in common with that school whose chief aim is to make 
 their buildings picturesque. In this respect he presents a marked 
 contrast to Pugin, and a still greater contrast to those who, taking 
 up Gothic Art where Pugin left it, have endeavoured to improve 
 upon his design — not by a wider range of study but by a freer exer- 
 cise of license. 
 
 Perhaps there is no matter of detail in the treatment of which Butter- 
 
 j£mi t sf.ea se 
 
Mr. Butterfield 's Iron-work. 
 
 259 
 
 field has displayed more originality than decorative iron-work. Thirty 
 years ago one might have safely predicted the type of railing which 
 would enclose the sacrarium of a new church. The lock-escutcheons 
 and hinge-fronts which ornamented the entrance door were sure to be 
 designed on one of a dozen patterns. The gas- standards, corona;, 
 and other metal fittings might be found portrayed in the Mediasvai 
 ironmongers' advertisements. 
 
 Butterfield's iron-work was almost from the first original. In All 
 Saints' and afterwards in St. Alban's 
 Church he adopted for his screens that 
 strap-like treatment of foliation, which 
 was then a novelty in the Revival, but 
 which is not without precedent and is 
 unquestionably justified by the nature 
 of the material used. 
 
 It has been observed, and with 
 some truth, that in the embellishment 
 of his churches Mr. Butterfield has in- 
 troduced but little sculpture and shows 
 a decided preference for pictorial de- 
 coration. This is so far true that 
 in both his principal London build- 
 ings, viz. All Saints' and St. Albans', 
 we find little or no figure-carving 
 while the chancels in each case are 
 resplendent with colour. Without 
 attempting to divine the precise cause 
 of this peculiarity, it is not unrea- 
 sonable to assume that it is due in some measure to the general difficulty 
 which architects have found in getting decorative sculpture satisfactorily 
 executed. There is no want of manipulative skill, or of imitative 
 ability, but from some cause or another there is a great want of spirit, 
 
 s 1 
 
 ■ 
 
260 Decorative Sculpture and Painting. 
 
 in the present carver's work. The Mediaeval sculptor, with half the 
 care and less than half the finish now bestowed on such details, managed 
 to throw life and vigour into the capitals and panel subjects which grew 
 beneath his chisel. The ' angel choir ' at Lincoln is rudely executed 
 compared with many a modern bas-relief, but the features of the winged 
 minstrels are radiant with celestial happiness. There are figures of 
 kings crumbling into dust in the niches of Exeter Cathedral which 
 retain even now a dignity of attitude and lordly grace which no 
 1 restoration ' is likely to revive. Our nineteenth century angels look 
 like demure Bible-readers, somewhat too conscious of their piety to 
 be interesting. Our nineteenth century monarchs seem (in stone at 
 least) very well-to-do pleasant gentlemen, but are scarcely of an heroic 
 type. The roses and lilies, the maple foliage and forked spleenwort, 
 with which we crown our pillars or deck our cornices, are cut with 
 wonderful precision and neatness, but somehow they miss the charm of 
 old-world handicraft. And as we examine the corbels and subsell<e of 
 a subscription church — features which in days of yore revealed after a 
 grotesque fashion the sins and frailties of humanity, we shall now 
 find no uglier record than of art's decline, and if we blush it will not be 
 at the indelicacy of the subject but for the incapacity of the workman. 
 The frescoes executed by Mr. Dyce for the chancel of All Saints' differ 
 so essentially in motive and sentiment from the water-glass paintings 
 designed by Mr. Le Strange at St. Alban's that they can hardly be 
 compared. The former were begun at a time when the German heilige 
 school was generally considered the best model of taste in decoration, 
 and though Mr. Dyce invested his figures with a grace of colour and 
 arrangement which was all his own, there is a certain tendency to acade- 
 micism and over-refinement of handling in his work that is somewhat 
 out of keeping with the architecture of the church. 
 
 Mr. Le Strange went into the opposite extreme. He had on the 
 east wall of St. Alban's chancel to deal with ten large panels, separated 
 from each other by narrow slabs of alabaster. This he filled with ten 
 
Balliol College Chapel . 
 //'. ButterMd, Architect, 1S5G. 
 
Chapel of Balliol College, Oxford. 261 
 
 paintings representing incidents in the life of Our Lord — treated, so 
 far as the style of drawing is concerned, after a thoroughly archaic 
 fashion — surrounding each with a broad border of colour, on which, 
 however, the figures intrude so much as to leave the spectator in some 
 doubt as to which is border and which is background. The effect was 
 a little glaring at first, but time and London smoke have considerablv 
 toned down the hues, which at present are not inharmonious. 
 
 How much Mr. Butterfleld values the aid of colour, even for the 
 exterior of his buildings, may be noticed in the Chapel of Balliol 
 College, Oxford, where the admixture of grey and purple tiles in the 
 roof, and the introduction of bands of reddish stone in the main body 
 of the walls, add singular grace to the design. The interior of this 
 chapel is wonderfully effective, and rendered more so no doubt by the 
 fact that some old stained glass of the former building has been re- 
 inserted in windows on the north side. The design of the roof is 
 simple to severity — plain rafters (with plaster between) being used 
 over the body of the chapel, and the principals being only slightly 
 decorated with colour at the east end. The voussoirs of the window 
 arches are accentuated by the occasional use of a brownish stone, 
 alternating, though by no means at regular intervals, with the white 
 ashlar. The chancel is lined with alabaster scored over with incised 
 lines so as to form diamond-shaped panels, at the intersection of 
 which quatrefoils are sunk to the depth of an inch, giving them at a 
 little distance the effect of black inlay. All this is of course foreign 
 to English Pointed work, and is the more remarkable, because, in his 
 mouldings and tracery, Mr. Butterfield's design as a rule is thoroughly 
 national. The wood fittings of the chapel are very peculiar, and, 
 though by no means wanting in refinement, partake of that dry formal 
 character which distinguishes some of the quasi-Gothic carpentry of the 
 last centurv. 
 
 J 
 
 But if criticism is invited by such oddities as these, it is openly 
 defied by the design of Keble College, where this architect, in the im- 
 
262 Keble College, Oxford. 
 
 mediate neighbourhood of buildings rendered venerable by association 
 with the past, has recently ventured on a more emphatic departure 
 from local traditions of style than Oxford has yet seen, either in the 
 decadence or the Revival of Gothic, applied to buildings of a similar 
 class. Perhaps it is hardly fair to judge of this building so soon after 
 its erection, when the horizontal bands of stone, of black brick, and of 
 white brick, oppose each other so crudely that in looking at the 
 various fronts — east, west, north, or south — one can see nothing but 
 stripes. Yet, even when time has toned down the colour of the 
 materials, they will be always predominant in the design, and if such an 
 innovation be tolerated at Oxford — once the head-quarters of Mediaeval 
 taste — we need not be surprised to find it imitated elsewhere. Indeed, 
 this mode of surface decoration has been long practised in other works, 
 though by no means with equal skill. In Keble College the main 
 mass of the walls is executed in red brick, and the architect has 
 cunningly broken up his black bands with white bricks and his white 
 bands with black ones, in order to relieve each other from monotony 
 and heaviness. The window dressings and mullions are of stone, and 
 the general design — except in the particulars mentioned — is distinguished 
 by intense simplicity. 
 
 It is a remarkable fact, and one which is keenly suggestive of this 
 paradoxical age of art, that Mr. Butterfield's professional followers are 
 the most conservative in their opinions, the most exclusive in their 
 taste, and the stanchest admirers of traditional English Gothic among 
 contemporary architects, and yet there is no one who in some re- 
 spects has more deliberately discarded tradition than their leader. But 
 then he has done so consistently. There is a sober earnestness of 
 purpose in his work widely different from that of some designers, who 
 seem to be tossed about on the sea of popular taste, unable, apparently, 
 to decide what style they will adopt, and trying their hands in turn at 
 French, at Italian, and what not, with no more reason than a love of 
 change or a restless striving after effect. He does not care to produce 
 
Characteristics of Mr. Butterfield's I Fork. 263 
 
 showy buildings at a sacrifice — even a justifiable sacrifice — of construc- 
 tive strength. To the pretty superficial school of Gothic, busy with 
 pinnacles, chamfers, and fussy carving, he has never condescended. 
 He has his own (somewhat stern) notions of architectural beauty, and 
 he holds to them whether he is planning a cottage or a cathedral. 
 His work gives one the idea of a man who has designed it not so much 
 to please his clients as to please himself. In estimating the value of 
 his skill, posterity may find something to smile at as eccentric, some- 
 thing to deplore as ill-judged, and much that will astonish as daring, 
 but they will find nothing to despise as commonplace or mean. 
 
2 64 ' Ruskinism . ' 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 T was suggested in the last chapter that during the ten years 
 which elapsed between the commencement and the comple- 
 tion of All Saints' Church, the public taste in architecture 
 underwent a decided change. It would perhaps have been more 
 correct to say two or three changes, but undoubtedly the first and 
 perhaps the most important one was expressed by that phase in the 
 Gothic Revival which has since been distinguished — and in one sense 
 honourably distinguished — by the name of Ruskinism. 
 
 If the author of 'Modern Painters' had been content to limit his 
 researches, his criticism, and the dissemination of his principles to the 
 field of pictorial art alone, he would have won for himself a name not 
 easily forgotten. No English amateur had measured so accurately the 
 individual merits and deficiencies of the old schools of painting, or was 
 so well qualified to test them by the light of reason. No critic had 
 educated his eye more carefully by observation of Nature. No 
 essayist enjoyed the faculty of expressing his ideas with greater force 
 or in finer language. But Mr. Ruskin's taste for art was a compre- 
 hensive one. He learnt at an early age that painting, sculpture, and 
 architecture are intimately associated, not merely in their history but 
 in their practice, and in the fundamental principles which regulate their 
 respective styles. His love of pictures was not that of a mere collector 
 or dilettante, who buys them to hang up in gilt frames to furnish his 
 drawing-room, but that of an artist who considers no noble building 
 complete without storied walls and sculptured panels, and who believes 
 that even in an ordinary dwelling-house there might, under a proper 
 
Condition of Modern Architect it re. 265 
 
 condition of things, be found scope for the carver's handiwork and 
 limner's cunning. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin looked around him at the modern architecture of England 
 and saw that it not only did not realise this ideal but was diametrically 
 opposed to it. He found the majority of his countrymen either pro- 
 foundly indifferent to the art or interested in it chiefly as antiquarians 
 and pedants. He saw public buildings copied from those of a nobler 
 age, but starved or vulgarised in the copying. He saw private houses — 
 some modelled on what was supposed to be an Italian pattern, and others 
 modelled on what was supposed to be a Mediaeval pattern, and he 
 found too often neither grandeur in the one nor grace in the other. 
 He saw palaces which looked mean, and cottages which were tawdry. 
 He saw masonry without interest, ornament without beauty, and 
 sculpture without life. He walked through the streets of London and 
 found that they consisted for the most part of flaunting shop fronts, 
 stuccoed porticos, and plaster cornices. It is true there were fine clubs 
 and theatres and public institutions scattered here and there ; but after 
 making due allowance for their size, for the beauty of materials used, 
 and for the neatness of the workmanship, how far could they be con- 
 sidered as genuine works of art ? Mr. Ruskin was by no means the 
 first person who asked this question ; but he was the first who asked it 
 boldly, and with a definite purpose. 
 
 Pugin for years had argued that it was the duty of modern Christians 
 to Christianise their architecture — that is, as he explained it, to revive 
 the style of building which prevailed in this country for some centuries 
 before the Reformation ; but he made no secret of his hope that in 
 readopting Gothic, Englishmen would gradually learn to readopt their 
 ancient faith ; and this was what a large proportion of them did not 
 exactly contemplate with satisfaction. The High Church party, too, 
 were mainly anxious for the Revival, because they saw in it an oppor- 
 tunity of carrying out their notions of orthodox ritual, and of reviving 
 ecclesiastical ceremonies which had long been obsolete. It would be 
 
266 The 'Seven Lamps of Architecture? 
 
 hard indeed to blame either the author of ' The True Principles ' or 
 the followers of Dr. Pusey for viewing the matter in this light. The 
 interests of religion are of higher importance than the interests of art, 
 but art has more than once been the handmaid of religion, and the 
 seeking to retain her in that service, from conscientious motives, was 
 in both cases a most natural and obvious course. 
 
 Twenty years ago, however, the extreme Protestant party was still 
 a strong one. They saw mischief lurking in every pointed niche, 
 and heresy peeping from behind every Gothic pillar. They regarded 
 the Medievalists with suspicion, and identified their cause with Romish 
 hierarchy, with the Inquisition and Smithfield. It would be a curious 
 matter for speculation to ascertain how far the Revival has been en- 
 couraged, and how far it has been retarded, by ecclesiological zeal or 
 idle bigotry. 
 
 When Mr. Ruskin first entered the lists as a champion of Gothic 
 Architecture, it was certainly not as a Ritualist or as an apologist for the 
 Church of Rome. His introduction to the 'Seven Lamps of Archi- 
 tecture ' partook largely, as indeed much of his writing then did, of a 
 religious tone, but he wrote rather as a moral philosopher than as a 
 churchman, and though his theological views found here and there 
 decided expression they could hardly be identified with any particular 
 sect. His book, therefore, found favour with a large class of readers 
 who had turned from Pugin's arguments with impatience, and to whom 
 even the c Ecclesiologist ' had preached in vain. With regard to archi- 
 tecture as an art, he openly declared himself a reformer. 
 
 I have long felt (he wrote) convinced of the necessity, in order to its pro- 
 gress, of some determined effort to extricate from the confused mass of traditions 
 and dogmata with which it has become encumbered during imperfect or restricted 
 practice, those large principles of right which are applicable to every stage 
 and style of it. Uniting the technical and imaginative elements as essentially as 
 humanity does soul and body, it shows the same infirmly balanced liability to 
 the prevalence of the lower part over the higher, to the interference of the 
 
Italian Gothic. 267 
 
 constructive, with the purity and simplicity of the reflective, element. This 
 tendency, like every other form of materialism, is increasing with the advance of 
 the ase ; and the only laws which resist it, based upon partial precedents, and 
 already regarded with disrespect as decrepit, if not with defiance as tyrannical, are 
 evidently inapplicable to the new forms and functions of the art which the 
 necessities of the day demand. 
 
 This was enough to alarm that school of the Revivalists whose aim 
 was to reproduce, line for line, the works of the Middle Ages in 
 England, and their alarm was increased when they found that Mr. 
 Ruskin's taste was of so comprehensive an order as to include Italian 
 Gothic among his models of structural beauty. Up to this time 
 English architects, whether of the Gothic or Classic school, had 
 regarded such buildings as the Doge's Palace at Venice, or the Church 
 of San Michele at Lucca, as curious examples of degenerate design — 
 interesting indeed as links in the history of European art, but utterly 
 unworthy of study or imitation. It was, therefore, with some surprise 
 that they found features from those buildings engraved in the f Seven 
 Lamps ' as instances of noble carving and judicious ornamentation, 
 while the lantern of the Church of St. Ouen at Rouen, which the old 
 school of Medisevalists had accepted as a miracle of grace, was described 
 as one of the basest pieces of Gothic in Europe. But Mr. Ruskin did 
 not confine his remarks to general praise or censure of existing works. 
 Arranging the principles which he conceived had regulated or should 
 regulate architectural design under several heads, he proceeded to show 
 how far they had been developed in past ages, and to what extent they 
 were liable to be missed or falsified in the present. In doing this he 
 occasionally traversed old ground ; but he avoided as far as possible 
 the footsteps of his predecessors, and even where he agreed with their 
 conclusions, he generally led up to them with a different line of argu- 
 ment. There are sentiments expressed in c The Lamps ' of Sacrifice, of 
 Truth, and of Memory, which had been frequently expressed before; 
 but they are founded on novel theories, identified with minutias of facts 
 
268 Mr. Ruskiris Opinions. 
 
 which had hitherto escaped attention, or so clothed in metaphysical 
 language as to assume a different aspect. He showed, for example, 
 more clearly and emphatically than any previous writer on art, the folly 
 of wasting money on the meaningless and uninteresting fineries of a 
 modern house, while a tenth part of the expense thus thrown away on 
 so-called decoration, which no one cares for or enjoys, * would, if col- 
 lectively offered and wisely employed, build a marble church for every 
 town in England.' But he carefully guarded himself against the impu- 
 tation of advocating either meanness in domestic architecture, or osten- 
 tatious display of magnificence in ecclesiastical. 
 
 The most advanced practitioners of the day had long agreed that it 
 was undesirable to employ iron for visible construction in a Gothic 
 building. But many of them had not hesitated to use its where it could 
 be concealed from view. On this point Mr. Ruskin found himself 
 embarrassed by some doubt. He had propounded the dogma that there 
 was no law based on past practice which might not be overthrown 
 by the invention of a new material, and he could not avoid the conclu- 
 sion that a fresh system of architectural laws might gradually be evolved 
 from the modern use of iron. Besides, there were examples of its 
 employment in good ages of art — as the Florence dome and the 
 central tower at Salisbury — to say nothing of minor instances. On 
 the other hand, all his artistic sympathies were opposed to the nature of 
 metallic construction. After deliberating on this confliction of theory 
 and practice, he came to the conclusion that iron might be used as a 
 cement, but not as a support — or, as an architect would say, as a tie, but 
 not as a strut. This was a distinction, though in arriving at it he for- 
 got to notice the distinct qualities of strength in tension and compres- 
 sion respectively possessed by wrought and cast iron. 
 
 Professor Willis had already demonstrated that Gothic tracery had 
 been gradually developed from the close association of pierced openings 
 in the solid arch-heads of early windows. The prevalent opinion was 
 that the full beauty of tracery had only been reached when this primi- 
 
Development of IVindcrw-tracery. 269 
 
 tive type was forgotten, and the stone ribs themselves, rather than the 
 spaces which they enclosed, were reduced by geometrical rule to de- 
 finite form. Mr. Ruskin held, on the contrary, that in proportion as 
 this stage had been approached, the true grace of tracery had di- 
 minished. He pointed out that the forms which the penetrations 
 assumed were of primary importance, and that whereas in the early 
 windows they were simple and severe in outline, in the late windows 
 they became distorted and extravagant, while the flowing unstone-like 
 character of the tracery itself gave rise to a foolish supposition among 
 the ignorant, viz. that it originated in the imitation of vegetable 
 form. 
 
 To this supposition Mr. Ruskin alluded in terms of well-deserved 
 contempt, yet it is not a little remarkable that in defining the conditions 
 of architectural beauty he himself endeavoured to trace its source in 
 almost every instance to the example of nature. This was, in short, 
 the foundation and elementary belief of his teaching. From this 
 belief he derived, or thought that he derived, a fixed and lasting 
 standard, by which the value of every structural feature, the quality of 
 all ornament, and indeed the excellence of most designs as a whole, 
 might be tested. In endeavouring to prove this theory he encountered 
 endless difficulties, involved himself in many apparent contradictions 
 and inconsistencies, and though it enlisted the sympathies of those 
 whose opinions on art are based on sentiment rather than study, it was 
 received with incredulity by a large proportion of his readers, while pro- 
 fessional architects, as a rule, regarded him in the light of a vain and 
 misinformed enthusiast. 
 
 There is nothing in the world easier than the expression of a simple 
 opinion on matters of taste ; but there is nothing more difficult than 
 to succeed in justifying it, not only in one's own mind, but to the 
 satisfaction of other people. It was of course open to Mr. Ruskin to 
 declare the Greek triglyph and the Greek fret ugly things. So far 
 many of his readers, and especially the Gothic architects of the day, 
 
270 The 'Lamp of Beauty! 
 
 agreed with him. But when he attempted to prove that the triglyph 
 was ugly because it suggested no organic form, and that the fret 
 ornament was ugly because its natural type was only found in crystals 
 of bismuth, even his admirers began to smile. They felt that this 
 mode of reasoning carried a little farther would tend to condemn 
 many architectural features, the use of which has been long sanctioned 
 by custom, and even authorised by expedience, but which has no sem- 
 blance of a prototype in the book of Nature. 
 
 Assuming the application of Mr. Ruskin's theory to be correct in 
 these instances, it would be difficult to assign any reason for retaining 
 such distinctively Gothic details as the pinnacle, the battlemented 
 parapet, the moulded arch, or that peculiar form of Venetian billet 
 decoration, of which he himself says, in another work, that ( nothing 
 could be ever invented fitter for its purpose.' Indeed, they are all 
 admirable in their place, but it must be a poetical order of mind which 
 could detect in them any resemblance to natural form. 
 
 The truth is that Mr. Ruskin was continually advancing proposi- 
 tions, often excellent in themselves, which he as frequently failed to 
 maintain — not for want of argument, but because his arguments proved 
 too much. Nothing, for instance, can be more rational than a great 
 deal of what he says in the f Lamp of Beauty ' on the subject of pro- 
 portion. That subtle quality of architectural grace was, he averred, 
 not a science which could be taught, but the result of individual 
 genius in the designer. 
 
 Proportions are infinite (and that in all kinds of things, as severally in colours, 
 lines, shades, lights, and forms), as possible airs in music ; and it is just as 
 rational an attempt to teach a young architect how to proportion truly and well 
 by calculating for him proportions of fine works, as it would be to teach him to 
 compose melodies by calculating the mathematical relations of the notes in 
 Beethoven's 'Adelaide' or Mozart's 'Requiem.' The man who has eye and 
 intellect will invent beautiful proportions and cannot help it ; but he can no 
 more tell us how to do it than Wordsworth could tell us how to write a sonnet or 
 than Scott could have told us how to plan a romance. 
 
Mr. Ruskin' s Critics. 
 
 271 
 
 This is all very well, but a few pages further on we find our author 
 dissecting the flower stem of a water-plantain, and using arithmetical 
 formulas to show the subdivision of its branches, from which he implies 
 that a lesson is to be learnt. Now it may or may not be true that 
 the anatomy of water-plantains is suggestive of good proportion in 
 architecture, and it may or may not be right that Mr. Ruskin should 
 recommend us to examine it for that reason ; but if the secret of right 
 proportion is, as he has said, not to be learnt, it follows that both the 
 sermon and its text are thrown away. It was one of the same writer's 
 early opinions that the scientific study of perspective was quite useless. 
 In course of time he wrote a treatise himself on the subject, which is 
 certainly not less complicated or obscure than many others which had 
 previously been published. 
 
 These inconsistencies and prejudices are to be regretted, not only on 
 their own account, but because they have from time to time exposed 
 the author to criticism which is not only severe, but, up to a certain 
 point, justifiable. 
 
 Many an architect who had no time to read through the f Seven 
 Lamps ' with attention cast the book impatiently aside as he lighted on 
 some passage which betrayed the author's inexperience in technical 
 details. Many a journalist who knew nothing of technicalities was 
 fully alive to irreconcilable dogmas and flaws of logic. Meanwhile, 
 the great moral of his teaching was overlooked. His opinions were 
 regarded by many of the profession as utterly absurd and irrational. 
 The general press admired his eloquence, but questioned his arguments, 
 and stood aghast at his conclusions. For Mr. Ruskin had even then 
 hinted at certain social reforms, which he has since endeavoured to 
 reduce to a system, but which have as much chance of being realised 
 as the discovery of the philosopher's stone. To what extent morality 
 and art were allied in the Middle Ages, or at any other period of the 
 world's history, may be doubtful. What we do know is, that in the 
 nineteenth century a bad artist is not unfrequently a verv qood 
 
272 Art, Religion, and Philanthropy 
 
 Christian, and that an indifferent Christian may be an excellent artist. 
 The services of architects, sculptors, and painters have, it is true, been 
 of late years secured for the Church ; but it is probable that they 
 undertook their work as they would have undertaken any other sort 
 of work — zealously, but, except in a few rare instances, without extra- 
 ordinary enthusiasm. It would, no doubt, be beneficial to the interests 
 of society if every art-workman were to become a religious man; but 
 the chances are that the progress of art would not be advanced by his 
 conversion. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin is one of the most accomplished art critics, and perhaps 
 the most eloquent writer on art that England has seen, in this or any 
 other age. He is also, if any man ever was, a theoretical philanthro- 
 pist. His views on the subject of art may in the main be sound ; his 
 philanthropical intentions are, we doubt not, sincere ; but, considered 
 in combination as they are usually associated, they present a scheme 
 which is utterly impracticable. 
 
 On the Gothic Revival, as it was ordinarily understood, Mr. Ruskin 
 himself did not look very hopefully. He had seen the fitful variations 
 of taste to which modern architecture had already been exposed, and 
 perhaps he foresaw other and more radical changes by which it was 
 threatened. He was impatient of the tame and spiritless formality 
 which distinguished too many specimens of contemporary design ; 
 but, on the other hand, he was sick of the cant which continually 
 demanded novelty and freedom from precedent. 
 
 A day never passes without our hearing our English architects called upon 
 to be original and to invent a new style : about as sensible and necessary an 
 exhortation as to ask of a man who has never had rags enough on his back to 
 keep out the cold to invent a new mode of cutting a coat. Give him a whole 
 coat first and let him concern himself about the fashion of it afterwards. We 
 want no new style of architecture. Who wants a new style of painting or of 
 sculpture ? But we want some style. 
 
 This is not exactly one of the happiest of Mr. Ruskin's similes, but 
 
Proposed Limits of National Style. 273 
 
 it serves to illustrate his meaning. What he meant was that a style 
 of national architecture should be definitely selected for adoption, and 
 universally practised. The choice of a style he limited to four types : 
 (1) Pisan Romanesque ; (2) Florentine of Giotto's time ; (3) Venetian 
 Gothic; and (4) the earliest English Decorated. Of these he considered 
 that the last would, on the whole, be the safest to choose ; but it was 
 to be f well fenced ' from the chance of degenerating again into Per-' 
 pendicular, and might be enriched by the introduction of a French 
 element. 
 
 To ensure conformity of taste to this standard when once settled, 
 Mr. Ruskin proposed that an universal system of form and workman- 
 ship should be everywhere adopted and enforced. How it was to be 
 enforced and by whom he did not venture to explain. Whether it was 
 to become the law of the land ; what provision was to be made for its 
 fulfilment; what penalties were to be attached to its neglect or violation , 
 whether the architect of a Jacobean mansion would be subject to a fine, 
 or how far any decided tendency to Flamboyant design could be con- 
 sidered as a misdemeanour ; all these were details of his scheme which 
 he left others to determine. That the scheme presented a difficulty 
 he was aware, but he did not consider that any difficulty could affect 
 the value of his proposition. 
 
 It may be said that this is impossible. It may be so. I fear it is so. I 
 have nothing to do with the possibility or impossibility of it. I simply know and 
 assert the necessity of it. If it be impossible, English art is impossible. Give it 
 up at once. You are wasting time and money and energy upon it, and though 
 you exhaust centuries and treasuries, and break hearts for it, you will never raise 
 it above the merest dilettanteism. Think not of it. It is a dangerous vanity, 
 a mere gulf in which genius after genius will be swallowed up, and it will not 
 close. 
 
 It was wild and impetuous reasoning such as this which broke the 
 spell of Mr. Ruskin's authority and robbed his eloquence of half 
 its charm. People began to ask themselves whether a man gifted, 
 
 T 
 
274 Character of Mr. Ruskin' s Opinions. 
 
 even as they knew him to be gifted, with a keen appreciation of the 
 beautiful in art and nature, with intellectual faculties of a high order, 
 with a moral sense which revealed itself in the minutiae of aesthetics — 
 whether even such a guide as this was to be trusted when he allowed 
 his theories to waft him into dreamland, or to culminate in plans which 
 would have been considered unfeasible in Utopia. 
 
 In so far as the author of c The Seven Lamps of Architecture ' con- 
 fined himself to strictures on all that was false or mean or meretricious 
 in bad art, or pointed out the truth, the purity, and grace of noble art 
 (and on the whole no one was better qualified to draw these distinc- 
 tions), he did excellent service to national taste. In so far as he allowed 
 his prejudices to get the better of his judgment, in so far as he at- 
 tempted to form — what never will be formed — a perfect and universally 
 acceptable test of architectural excellence, or pursued fanciful theories 
 at the expense of common sense, he exposed himself to the obvious 
 charges of unfairness and inconsistency, and damaged the cause which 
 he had most at heart.* 
 
 Two years after the publication of c The Seven Lamps,' Mr. Ruskin 
 came before the world as the author of another and more important 
 work, with which his name has been more permanently associated, and 
 for which, if we regard collectively the character of its contents, the 
 nature of its aim, or the beauty and vigour of its language, there is no 
 parallel in the range of English literature. 
 
 The Mediaeval architecture of Venice had hitherto been to most of 
 our countrymen an unexplored mine of artistic interest, which pro- 
 bably few, if any, professional students in this country considered worth 
 the working.. Since the days of Joseph Woods, a man of education and 
 refined taste, who came back from his Continental tour to tell the 
 British public that he could find no beauty in St. Mark's, it is pro- 
 bable that our architects who went, there to sketch and to measure 
 
 * It is but fair to state here that Mr. Ruskin has since expressed himself dissatisfied 
 with the form in which many of his early opinions were recorded at this period of his life. 
 
' The Stones of Venice.' 275 
 
 were content to fill their portfolios with drawings of the Libreria and 
 the Renaissance palaces, and to leave the Byzantine and Gothic relics 
 to their fate. Those who had not visited Venice itself could form no 
 idea of such remains from the cold and lifeless engravings of Cicognara's 
 work. Fontana gave (to the artist) even less information. But at 
 last the merits of Venetian Gothic found an able and a doughty ex- 
 ponent. Mr. Ruskin for many years of his life had returned again 
 and again to examine it, to admire it, to sketch its details with a loving 
 hand, to note carefully and minutely its peculiar characteristics, and to 
 lay up a stock of information respecting its origin, its development and 
 decay, such as never had before been so copiously accumulated or 
 turned to so excellent an account. 
 
 The same year which saw the first-fruits of this labour witnessed the 
 realisation of a scheme of world-wide reputation, which had also for its 
 object — or at least one of its main objects — the advancement of art ; 
 but it is impossible to conceive two modes devised for that end more 
 thoroughly opposed to each other in sentiment, in purpose, and ex- 
 ample, than the publication of * The Stones of Venice ' and the opening 
 of the Great Exhibition of 1851. 
 
 That ' The Stones of Venice ' expanded into three volumes is no 
 matter of surprise when we remember that the author's aim was not only 
 to give an historical and artistic description of Venetian architecture but 
 to incorporate with that description his ideas of what modern architecture 
 should be : not only to illustrate, but to moralise, expound, and advise. 
 In entering on so bold and comprehensive an undertaking as this, it 
 was of course necessary to proceed in a methodical manner, and it 
 classification of subject could ensure this end Mr. Ruskin did his best to 
 ensure it. Not only was each volume divided into chapters, not only 
 was each chapter divided into sections, but further divisions and sub- 
 divisions were made to such an extent that it became an effort to 
 remember in what precise relation they stood to each other. 
 
 The ( virtues of architecture ' were declared to be three. The main 
 
 T 2 
 
276 Divisions and Subdivisions of Subject. 
 
 duties of architecture were declared to be two. The divisions of archi- 
 tecture were declared to be six. The first of the two main duties of 
 architecture were concerned with Walls, Roofs, and Apertures. The 
 Wall was divided into the Foundation, the Body or Veil, and the 
 Cornice. The roof was of two kinds — the Roof proper and the Roof 
 mask. The Cornice was of two kinds — the Roof Cornice and the Wall 
 Cornice. Roof cornices were, again, subdivided into the Eaved cornice 
 and the Bracket. Eaved cornices were of several kinds, brackets were 
 of several kinds, and, in short, to trace intelligibly the ramifications of 
 each feature on Mr. Ruskin's plan would be to rival the intricacy of a 
 genealogical tree. 
 
 In pursuing this system of classification Mr. Ruskin did not hesitate 
 to coin names and employ phrases unknown in any architectural 
 glossary and certainly unfamiliar to professional ears. The Expressions' 
 f wall-veil,' f arch-load,' f linear and surface Gothic,' and f ignoble 
 grotesque,' though now intelligible enough to those who have read his 
 works, were at the time, and simply because of their novelty, pronounced 
 by many to be obscure and affected. For precisely the same reason 
 many of his theories were condemned as untenable. The injustice of 
 this inference is obvious. It was not affectation which led Mr. Ruskin to 
 spend month after month in studying the capitals of the Ducal Palace ; 
 in measuring the intercolumniations of the Fondaco de' Turchi ; in 
 planning the churches of Torcello and Murano ; in delineating the rich 
 inlay of the Palazzo Badoari. It was the work of no shallow reasoner 
 to show step by step the development of the pointed arch with all its 
 varieties of outline and tracery, to analyse and define the condi- 
 tions of sculptured decoration, to draw nice distinctions between the 
 profiles of base-mouldings and string-courses, to demonstrate the 
 relations between archivolt and aperture. In these and a hundred other 
 instances he showed that his appreciation of architecture was not that 
 of a mere amateur, but based on an earnest study of its fundamental 
 principles. 
 
My. Ruskiris Qualifications as a Critic. 277 
 
 It is true that here and there he betrayed an imperfect acquaintance 
 with the science of construction, but it was chiefly on points which did 
 not affect his arguments ; while in all that related to the philosophy of 
 his favourite art or the elements of its beauty he generally proved his 
 case whether he was answering Mr. Garbett or posing Mr. Fergusson. 
 
 Indeed Mr. Ruskin discoursed on art with advantages not often 
 possessed by ordinary art critics. Before he ventured to write on the 
 subject his curriculum of study had extended over a wide field. He 
 had had a university education. He had looked into natural science. 
 He was better acquainted than most men who have not devoted them- 
 selves specially to such pursuits with geology and botany. He was 
 well read in classic literature. His taste and skill as an artist were 
 remarkable, and his sketches of architecture and of decorative sculpture 
 are even now second to none in refinement and delicacy of execution. 
 A man who with such qualifications sets himself seriously to examine 
 the principles of a particular branch of art has a right to be heard when 
 he talks of it. 
 
 And, for all his errors and failings, Mr. Ruskin was heard.* Never, 
 since the days of the English decadence — never, since the Pointed arch 
 was depressed into Tudor ugliness — never, since tradition lost its sway in 
 regulating the fashion of structural design — has the subject of Gothic 
 
 * A curious evidence of the extent to which ' Ruskinism ' was at this time recognised 
 
 in English society may be mentioned. The Latin Epilogue to the ' Westminster Play ' is 
 
 generally a reflex of some popular taste or current topic of sufficient notoriety to afford 
 
 scope for good-humoured satire. In 1857 the Epilogus ad Adelpbos contains the following 
 
 dialogue : 
 
 Ctesipbo. Graecia in hac v\ij palmam fert semper. ^Escbinus. Ineptis ! 
 
 Est cumulus nudas simplicitatis iners. 
 
 Ars contra mediaeva haud lege aut limite iniquo 
 
 Contenta, hue, illuc, pullulat ad libitum. 
 
 # * # * * 
 
 Ctesipbo. An rectum atque fldem saxa laterque docent? 
 
 uEscbinus. Graia et Romana. nihil immoralius usquam 
 Archi-est-tectura — {turning to ' The Seven Lamps') pagina sexta — tenc. 
 Sic ipsus dixit. Ctesipbo. Vix hax comprendere possum. 
 
 JEscbinus. Scilicet iEsthesi tu, miserande, cares. 
 
278 Early Converts to ' Ruskinism! 
 
 Architecture been rendered so popular in this country, as for a while it 
 was rendered by the aid of his pen. All that had been argued — all that 
 had been preached on the subject previously, was cast into the shade by 
 the vigour of his protest. Previous apologists for the Revival had 
 relied more or less on ecclesiastical sentiment, on historical interest, or 
 on a vague sense of the picturesque for their plea in its favour. It 
 was reserved for the author of ' The Stones of Venice ' to strike a chord 
 of human sympathy that vibrated through all hearts, and to advocate, 
 independently of considerations which had hitherto only enlisted the 
 sympathy of a few, those principles of Mediaeval Art whose appli- 
 cation should be universal. There are passages in this work record- 
 ing nobler truths concerning architecture than had ever before found 
 expression in our mother tongue. The rich fertility of the author's 
 language, his happy choice of illustrative parallels, the clear and forcible 
 manner in which he states his case or points his moral, and, above all, 
 the marvellous capacity of his descriptive power, are truly admirable. 
 No finer English has been written in our time. It is poetry in prose. 
 
 That he made many converts, and found many disciples among the 
 younger architects of the day, is not to be wondered. Students, who 
 but a year or so previously had been content to regard Pugin as then- 
 leader, or who had modelled their notions of art on the precepts of the 
 ' Ecclesiologist,' found a new field open to them, and hastened to occupy 
 it. They prepared designs in which the elements of Italian Gothic were 
 largely introduced : churches in which the c lily capital ' of St. Mark's 
 was found side by side with Byzantine bas-reliefs and mural inlay from 
 Murano ; town halls wherein the arcuation and baseless columns of the 
 Ducal Palace were reproduced ; mansions which borrowed their parapets 
 from the Calle del Bagatin, and windows from the Ca' d'Oro. They 
 astonished their masters by talking of the Savageness of Northern 
 Gothic, of the Intemperance of Curves, and the Laws of Foliation ; 
 and broke out into open heresy in their abuse of Renaissance detail. 
 They went to Venice or Verona not to study the works of Sansovino 
 
Introduction of Venetian Gothic. 279 
 
 and San Michele — but to sketch the tomb of the Scaligers and to 
 measure the front of the Hotel Danieli. They made drawings in the 
 Zoological Gardens, and conventionalised the forms of birds, beasts, and 
 reptiles into examples of ' noble grotesque ' for decorative sculpture. 
 They read papers before Architectural Societies, embodying Mr. 
 Ruskin's sentiments in language which rivalled the force, if it did not 
 exactly match the refinement, of their model. They made friends of 
 the Pre-Raphaelite painters (then rising into fame), and promised 
 themselves as radical a reform in national architecture as had been 
 inaugurated in the field of pictorial art. Nor was this all. Not a few 
 architects who had already established a practice began to think that 
 there might be something worthy of attention in the new doctrine. 
 Little by little they fell under its influence. Discs of marble, billet- 
 mouldings, and other details of Italian Gothic, crept into many a 
 London street-front. Then bands of coloured brick (chiefly red and 
 yellow) were introduced, and the voussoirs of arches were treated after 
 the same fashion.* 
 
 But the influence of Mr. Ruskin's teaching reached a higher level 
 than this, and manifested itself in unexpected quarters. Year's after- 
 wards, in the centre of the busiest part of our busy capital — the very last 
 place one would have supposed likely to be illumined by the light of 
 c The Seven Lamps ' — more than one palatial building was raised, which 
 recalled in the leading features of its design and decoration the distinc- 
 tive character of Venetian Gothic. 
 
 The literature of the Revival was sensibly affected by the same cause. 
 It is impossible not to recognise even in the title of Mr. Street's charm- 
 ing volume, 'The Brick and Marble Architecture of North Italy,' a 
 
 * In the suburbs this mode of decoration rose rapidly into favour for cockney villas 
 and public taverns, and laid the foundation of that peculiar order of Victorian Architecture 
 which has since been distinguished by the familiar but not altogether inappropriate name 
 of the Streaky Bacon Style- 
 
280 ' Quot Jiomiucs, tot scut cut ice.' 
 
 palpable echo from c The Stones of Venice,' while in some of his theories 
 — as, for instance, that the undulation in the pavement of St. Mark's 
 was intended to typify the stormy seas of life — we find a reflex of 
 Mr. Ruskin's tendency to natural symbolism. 
 
 For a considerable time, indeed, the principles enunciated by this 
 accomplished author and critic gained ground even in spite of violent 
 opposition. It was perhaps while they were most vigorously attacked 
 on one side that they received the staunchest support from the other. 
 But the current of public taste, even in the artistic world, is capricious 
 in its course, and is subject to constant deviation. Of late years other 
 influences have been at work — for good or evil one can scarcely yet 
 say, but certainly to some purpose. If the Gothic Revival has lost 
 Mr. Ruskin as a leader, it is to be trusted that he may still watch its 
 progress as a counsel ler and a friend. 
 
The Great Exhibition <?/" 1851. 281 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 HE flourish of trumpets which announced to an admiring 
 crowd that the Great Exhibition of 1851 was open to the 
 world found many an echo outside that ingeniously-contrived 
 building. Not content with prophecies of future peace and plenty for 
 England — not content with proclaiming that the ambition of kings, in- 
 ternational jealousies, and all other incentives to war would thenceforth 
 yield to the beneficent influence of commercial intercourse — not content 
 with inventing poetical names for the structure in Hyde Park which 
 were widely remote from its purpose and material being — the enthusiastic 
 public declared that a new order of architecture had at last been dis- 
 covered that would soon supersede every kind of style which had 
 hitherto been devised, and that it needed but time to ensure its universal 
 adoption. 
 
 If more practical men did not precisely share these anticipations, it 
 must be confessed that a few did their best to encourage them. One 
 architect at least, whose acquaintance with the history of his art extends 
 over all time, and compasses regions from the North Sea to the Arabian 
 Gulf, from the Sierra d'Estrella to the Himalaya Mountains, did not 
 hesitate to avow his conviction that Mr. Paxton, guided by the light of 
 ( his own native sagacity ' had achieved a success which proved incon- 
 trovertibly how mistaken we had been in endeavouring to copy from 
 ancient examples ; that the architecture of the future should be the archi- 
 tecture of common sense ; and that if the same principles which had in- 
 spired the designer of the Exhibition building had. been applied to the 
 Houses of Parliament, to the British Museum, and to the new churches 
 
282 Effect of the Great Exhibition. 
 
 then in course of erection, millions of money would have been saved 
 and a better class of art secured. 
 
 Sanguine converts to the new faith began to talk as if glass and iron 
 would form an admirable substitute for bricks and mortar, and wondrous 
 changes were predicted as to the future aspect of our streets and squares. 
 The failure of the professional competition invited by the Royal Com- 
 missioners of 1850 was pointed out with triumph, and architects were 
 warned that if they still fondly clung to the traditions of the past they 
 had better abandon their vocation altogether. 
 
 At length a climax of absurdity was reached. The intelligent gentle- 
 man whose professional occupation had previously been limited to the 
 study and practice of horticulture, and to whom it had occurred that 
 the objects collected for international display would be better lodged 
 in an enormous greenhouse than anywhere else, was professionally con- 
 sulted as an architect and employed on the restoration of a church ! 
 
 It did not take many years to dissipate the dreams of universal 
 philanthropy to which the Exhibition scheme had given rise, and with 
 these dreams the charming visions of a glass-and-iron architecture may 
 also be said to have vanished. If the structural details of the Crystal 
 Palace teach us any lesson it is that they are strictly limited in applica- 
 tion to the purpose for which that building was erected, and that even 
 for such a purpose their adoption is not unattended by drawbacks. 
 
 The Gothic Revival itself was on the whole but little affected by the 
 great event of 185 r. Any advantage which may have been derived 
 from the scheme in its supposed encouragement of art manufacture was 
 more than counterbalanced by the abundant opportunities it afforded 
 for the cultivation of bad taste. Crace's furniture, the specimens of 
 stone and wood carving by Myers, Hardman's Mediaeval metal-work 
 and stained glass, and Minton's encaustic tiles came in for some ad- 
 miration, and showed in many instances Pugin's untiring industry in 
 design. But all these objects might have been seen as well elsewhere, 
 and in this department of art at least England found nothing to learn 
 
3 *" 
 
 S if 
 
 K 
 
Messrs. Deane and Woodward. 283 
 
 from the Continent. The specimens of pseudo-Gothic furniture and 
 church fittings which were imported from France and Belgium were 
 with a few exceptions all miserable in design, and the more dangerous 
 in this respect because of the meretricious attractions which many of 
 them presented. 
 
 The Great Exhibition came to an end. , Not far from the site which 
 it occupied, and in order to pay a national tribute to the memory of 
 the accomplished Prince who originated the scheme, a rich and costly 
 monument is now in course of erection. It may also serve another 
 purpose, and that is to record by its design and decoration how complete 
 and remarkable a change has occurred within the space of a few years 
 in the development of English taste for architecture. 
 
 Evidences of that change are scattered far and wide throughout this 
 country, but no single town exhibits them in more regular sequence 
 than Oxford, where, indeed, it would not be difficult to select from 
 the University buildings alone examples illustrating the various phases 
 through which modern Gothic has passed from its earliest revival 
 down to the present time. One of the first-fruits of Mr. Ruskin's 
 teaching is to be found there in the new Museum of Physical 
 Sciences, begun in 1855 under the superintendence of Messrs. Deane 
 and Woodward, and since carried on at intervals. However much 
 opinions may vary as to the general effect of this building, there is no 
 doubt that it exhibits in its details far more originality and grace than 
 were to be found in most contemporary examples of secular Gothic. 
 The principal front consists of two stories with an attic lighted by 
 triangular dormers in the roof. This block is divided in the centre by 
 a tower carried to the height of three stories, and surmounted by a 
 wedge-shaped roof. Under the tower is the main entrance, spanned by 
 an acutely-pointed arch, richly decorated with carving in low relief and 
 voussoirs of dark brown stone and grey marble placed alternately, but 
 at irregular intervals. The first-floor windows partake of an early 
 Italian character. They are divided into two lights by slender marble 
 
284 
 
 The Oxford Museum. 
 
 columns, the arch head above being pierced with circular lights delicately 
 cusped. The spandrils of the tracery and the arch mouldings which 
 
 enclose them are filled with 
 relievi of foliage and animals 
 arranged with considerable care 
 and executed with great refine- 
 ment. 
 
 The roof, gay with purple 
 and greyish-green slates sym- 
 metrically disposed, contrasts 
 admirably with the rich cream 
 colour of the Bath stone 
 masonry, which in its turn is 
 relieved by marble of various 
 hues introduced in the details 
 above mentioned. The chro- 
 matic effect of the whole seen 
 \ on a bright sunny day sur- 
 rounded by natural verdure 
 and with a blue sky overhead, 
 is charming. The laboratory 
 on the right hand of the prin- 
 cipal front is suggestive in its general outline of the well-known Glas- 
 tonbury kitchen. This building, together with the residence and offices 
 recently erected on the other side of the Museum, helps to break the 
 external formality of the Museum front and to lend the composition 
 a picturesqueness which is more English than its individual features. 
 
 It is, however, in the internal arrangement of the Museum that, we 
 trace most distinctly the influence of those principles which the author of 
 1 The Seven Lamps ' so earnestly strove to inculcate. Just as the Pre- 
 Raphaelites — while they existed as a school — aimed at representing the 
 heroic incidents of ordinary life, so those architects who accepted Mr. 
 
Ironwork in the Oxford Museum. 
 
 285 
 
 Ruskin's guidance endeavoured to realise beauty in their art not by 
 literally reproducing the decorative features of Mediaeval work, but by 
 investing with its spirit as far as possible the skill of modern workman- 
 ship and the materials of modern use. A large quadrangle had to be 
 roofed with glass and iron — and the difficulty was to do this without 
 limiting the design to the merely structural features of the Crystal 
 Palace or condescending to the vulgar details of a railway terminus. 
 Under these circumstances Messrs. Deane and Woodward did their best 
 to Gothicise their ironwork, and though the attempt displayed great 
 ingenuity it can hardly be called successful. The system of construction 
 adopted may be good of its kind. The system of ornamentation 
 adopted may be good of its kind. But the two are not happily associated. 
 As a rule it is far better to use wrought or beaten metal than cast metal 
 for decoration; but whether in enriching the 
 capital of an iron column the same type of 
 decorative mask should be used as is ordi- 
 narily employed for a stone capital may be 
 questioned. In the latter case we know 
 that the carved work represents a portion of 
 its integral strength more or less weakened 
 by the parts cut away. But in the case of 
 an iron capital to which beaten metal is 
 subsequently attached, as at the Oxford 
 Museum, we feel that the ornaments of 
 leaves and flowers, however excellent in 
 themselves, are mere additions having no 
 sort of relation to the constructive feature 
 which they adorn and claiming a raison 
 d'etre of scarcely higher pretensions than 
 the plaster enrichments of a brick cornice. 
 They appear unnecessary, not because they are simply decorative (a 
 reason which would condemn half the old forms of ornamental iron- 
 
 -V~_T. 
 
286 
 
 Carved Capitals in the Museum. 
 
 work) but because they are confessedly applied decorations to a feature 
 whose very form is regulated bv practical considerations. Objections 
 of an analogous kind might be raised to the constructive arches formed 
 of iron rods in the same quadrangle. Iron rods have their use as ties 
 or struts, but the metal requires a different section when it is required 
 to do service as an arch. 
 
 Utilitarians might suggest that the whole of the quadrangle could 
 have been roofed with half the number of columns employed, and 
 there can be little doubt that the strictly architectural portion of the 
 court — viz. the double-storied galleries by which it is surrounded — 
 would have gained rather than lost in effect by such an arrangement. 
 
 These galleries take the form of arcaded cloisters on the ground- 
 floor level, the arches being pointed and their voussoirs formed of dark 
 and light stone used alternately. Against the piers which carry them 
 are placed life-size statues of eminent men of science by Durham, 
 Armstead, &c, many executed with great vigour but some exhibiting 
 
 the almost insuperable difficulty which 
 the sculptor has to encounter in dealing 
 with modern costume. The decorative 
 carving of the capitals is executed with 
 great care, and consists in the strictly 
 realistic representation of various types 
 of plants and tree foliage, many ex- 
 cellently adapted for the purpose, some 
 hardly so successful. But in these and 
 other instances we must remember that 
 the character of these details and the 
 manner of their execution were tentative. 
 They represent one of the earliest de- 
 partures from the beaten track of 
 architectural design. The result is perhaps not all that could be 
 wished, but it indicates an association of thought, of ingenuity, and 
 
 xr.ct.se 
 
Christ Church and Merton College. 287 
 
 operative skill which reflects great credit on all concerned in its 
 realisation. 
 
 Of the new buildings designed for Christ Church at Oxford by Mr. 
 Deane it is scarcely fair to judge until the carved work with which 
 many of the details are to be enriched has been executed. At present 
 partly owing to their unfinished state, and partly owing to the peculiarities 
 of design in which the architect has indulged, the effect of the work is 
 rather quaint than beautiful. The front facing the Broad Walk is in 
 many respects finely proportioned, and though it must have been no 
 easy matter to give variety to an unbroken elevation of such ex- 
 ceptional length, this has been secured by an ingenious grouping of the 
 windows. The occasional introduction of coloured stone in bands 
 and the flat character of the carved foliage which enriches a few 
 capitals and corbels of this facade is suggestive of the same influence 
 as that indicated in the design of the Museum, but the details of the 
 latter building exhibit far more refinement. 
 
 Mr. Butterfield's additions to Merton College are chiefly remarkable 
 for their studied simplicity. But here, as in almost every work carried 
 out by this architect, one may note his inclination to oddities. The 
 corbelling of the chimney shaft on a wall facing the meadow is extremely 
 whimsical, but it has the advantage of setting his seal on the design. 
 No one else would have attempted so bold an experiment. 
 
 The tendency to deviate from English types of Gothic was for a 
 long while, and indeed is still, far less marked in ecclesiastical than in 
 domestic architecture, and for obvious reasons. 
 
 Ancient examples of the latter class are rare in this country, and those 
 which exist would in the majority of cases be unsuitable for literal re- 
 production. The character of style in such buildings has always been 
 directly affected by the social requirements and conditions of the period 
 in which they were erected. Days of civil strife necessitated the feudal 
 castle, baronial splendour and hospitality were typified in the Tudor 
 mansion, rural peace and prosperity in the gabled homestead, commer- 
 
288 Domestic and Ecclesiastical Gothic. 
 
 cial welfare in the city hall ; but habits of life in the present century 
 differ so radically from those of our ancestors that it would scarcely be 
 possible to select whether for town or country, whether for a nobleman's 
 seat or a suburban villa, any authentic model of Mediaeval Architecture 
 which in plan and internal arrangements should exactly fulfil our pre- 
 sent notions of comfort and convenience. And modifications of plan 
 involve modifications of proportion. The increased height of rooms, 
 the altered distribution of doors and windows, the improved modes of 
 heating and ventilating, and in London the stringent regulations of the 
 Building Act, all present obstacles to a strict revival of national Gothic 
 
 in the antiquarian sense of the word — for a modern residence. The 
 
 departure from early precedent in this respect became almost a neces- 
 sity, and there was on that account a less urgent plea for the retention 
 of those constructive and ornamental details which are specially charac- 
 teristic of old English work. 
 
 In the case of Ecclesiastical Architecture it was different. The Re- 
 formation, it is true, had introduced changes which for a while deprived 
 many features in an English church of their old use or significance, 
 and it is probable that if buildings of any importance had been erected 
 for the purpose of public worship in the days of Puritan rule, they 
 would have retained little or no resemblance to the Mediaeval type. 
 But the Puritans confined their zeal to works of destruction, and in 
 course of time, when a reactionary feeling set in and brought about a 
 better state of things, the builders of churches returned to the ancient 
 model. In later times it was still held in respect, though the intro- 
 duction of Italian Architecture prevented its imitation. But with the 
 modern High Church party faith in the merits of English Gothic rose 
 to the level of a religious creed, and for years those who favoured the 
 re-establishment of Anglican ritual and those who encouraged the 
 revival of national architecture made common cause. 
 
 There was nothing in the general plan of a Mediaeval church to pre- 
 vent it from being adopted in its integrity for modern service. That 
 
Church Architects 1850 to i860. 289 
 
 eastern portion of the aisles which had formerly been occupied by 
 chapels dedicated respectively to the Blessed Virgin and the Holy 
 Sacrament was easily made available for the organ on the north side, or 
 additional sittings on the left. With this single exception, every- 
 thing could and did remain in statu quo. The altar retained its old 
 position. The choir stalls were again filled with occupants. The 
 sedilia, the piscina, and even the credence table, served their original 
 purpose : the tower rang out its peal of bells : the pulpit, the font, and 
 entrance porches, were as much needed in the modern English church as 
 they had been five centuries ago. And all these features could be copied, 
 and copied literally, from old examples. There was no need (as in the 
 case of domestic architecture), to alter the internal arrangement of the 
 building in respect of dimensions, proportion, or the admission of light, 
 whilst in all minor details, such as the distribution of seats, the fittings 
 of doors and windows, the roofing and paving of the edifice, the work 
 of our ancestors presented an excellent and all-sufficient model for 
 imitation. 
 
 Hence it happened, that when, in consequence of Mr. Ruskin's 
 teaching, a foreign element was introduced in the designs for houses and 
 civic buildings of a Mediaeval character, the general aspect of ecclesias- 
 tical architecture was for some time scarcely, if at all, affected by the 
 new doctrines of taste. 
 
 In 1850 and i860, however, the list of English architects who devoted 
 themselves more specially to the building and restoration of churches 
 was largely increased. Messrs. E. Christian, J. Clarke, S. S. Teulon, 
 and J. H. Hakewill, were among those who followed, with more or less 
 tendency to individual peculiarities, in the footsteps of Mr. Scott ; while 
 a certain number of younger men, including Messrs. G. E. Street, 
 H. Woodyer, W. White, and G. F. Bodley, showed an early inclination 
 to strike out in a new line for themselves. 
 
 ■In 1853 Mr. Street, whose name was well known at Oxford both as 
 a local member of the profession and as a contributor to the literature of 
 
 u 
 
290 
 
 St. Peter's Churchy Bournemouth. 
 
 his art, was employed by the bishop of the diocese to prepare designs 
 for the Theological College at Cuddesdon, near Wheatley, a large 
 work, including the usual accommodation for students, a dining hall, 
 common room, oratory, and rooms for a vice-principal. The building 
 was picturesquely planned, and met with favourable criticism at the 
 time, though exception was made to the un-English character of some 
 
 of its details. The remodelling of St. Peter's Church at Bournemouth 
 was another of Mr. Street's early achievements, or at least that portion 
 which was finished at the time, for the works have been carried on since 
 at various intervals. The original structure had no pretensions to age 
 or architectural excellence, but it has been gradually transformed into a 
 
All Saints Church, Not ting Hill. 291 
 
 very interesting example of the Revival. The decorative sculpture of 
 the reredos is an instance of this architect's fertility of invention in the 
 treatment of detail. The accompanying woodcut will serve to show the 
 general character of this feature, though it is far from conveying an 
 adequate idea of the beauty and refinement of the carving. 
 
 About the same period Mr. White began the large church dedicated 
 to All Saints at Notting Hill, a work exhibiting great cleverness in 
 design allied with a certain inclination to peculiarities which are not 
 always justified by their effect. Among these may be reckoned the 
 treatment of the chancel roof and sedilia, and, externally, the gable 
 turrets of the north transept. These, however, are but details. By a 
 judicious attention to the proportions of the interior Mr. White has 
 managed to secure for it a great appearance of size. The fenestration 
 of the north aisle, though eccentric, is undeniably picturesque, and the 
 western tower, with its octagonal belfry stage, makes a remarkable and 
 interesting feature in the composition. The chancel of this church has 
 been since decorated with a fine mural painting of the Annunciation by 
 Mr. F. Holiday, an engraving of which forms the frontispiece to this 
 volume. This artist is one of a very few, the style of whose decorative 
 works occupies a middle place between the archaisms of the ultra- 
 mediseval school and the quasi-classical, or more frequently naturalistic 
 treatment of other painters. While completely free from affectations, 
 whether of an archaeological or sentimental kind, his designs possess a 
 certain quality of saintly grace which exactly fits them for ecclesiastical 
 decoration, and it is in this field of art that his abilities have found most 
 successful expression. 
 
 It is much to be regretted that the revival of modern Gothic Archi- 
 tecture has not been more intimately associated with mural painting, 
 for the adornment not only of our churches but of our private dwelling 
 houses and public institutions. Half, and less than half the money 
 lavished on fashionable upholstery, gilded cornices, and rococo furni- 
 ture, bought for mere show and luxury and affording no real pleasure 
 
 U 2 
 
292 Character of Mr. White's Designs. 
 
 to anyone, would pay for a band of figure subjects round many a 
 drawing-room wall. For the price of a single easel-picture (as such 
 works are now valued) many a wealthy man might secure the services 
 of a Marks, a Holiday, or an Albert Moore to enliven every room-in 
 his house with pictured allegory or old-world lore. 
 
 It happens that the chancel of another church designed by Mr. White, 
 viz. that of Lyndhurst, in Hampshire, is also decorated by an eminent 
 artist, Mr. F. Leighton, R.A., whose mural painting, though it may 
 not accord with the architecture around it, is nevertheless a very fine 
 work of its kind. The church itself exhibits evidence of Mr. White's 
 ingenuity and vigour in design side by side with those eccentricities of 
 form either structural or decorative which distinguish nearly every 
 building that he has erected. How far these eccentricities result from 
 individual caprice, whether they are the consequence of some peculiarity 
 in early studies, or whether they arise from an endeavour to escape from 
 conventionalities in design it is impossible to say, and perhaps Mr. 
 White himself could scarcely explain. If they are to be judgedTairly 
 they must be judged on their own merits, and quite apart from the 
 question as to how far they indicate a departure from ancient precedent. 
 When an architect, as in the case of Lyndhurst Church, chooses to 
 introduce a large dormer window in the clerestory, we ought to try 
 and foraet that in such a situation the latter feature' is an ^unusual 
 one, and simply ask ourselves first whether it serves its purpose, and 
 secondly whether it helps the composition. If these* conditions are 
 fulfilled it is sheer pedantry to raise further objections. Nothing is 
 easier than to design a church which shall be perfectly orthodox in plan 
 and general appearance from an ecclesiological point of view, nothing 
 more difficult than to design one which shall be effective and interesting 
 in an artistic sense. London, for instance, at the present time swarms 
 with churches built within the last twenty years, and models of archi- 
 tectural propriety — correct in the length of their chancels, correct in 
 the height of their naves, correct in the width of their aisles, and fre- 
 

 -^7 ~ ; • - : ^£0g~'' 
 
 ,.':■' rs.A ,-. l( .i,t 
 
 Lyndhurst Parish Church. 
 
 If. White, F.S.A., Architect, 1858. 
 
Lyndhurst Church, Hampshire. 293 
 
 quently (though not so often) correct in the proportion of their towers 
 and spires. But of how many can it be said that they are the work 
 of an artist's hand, or worth entering to examine ? The truth is 
 that nineteen out of every twenty are absolutely commonplace, and 
 stand in about the same relation to architectural art as the sickly 
 genre pictures of pseudo-cottage life and portraits of gentlemen 
 which crowd the walls of an annual exhibition can claim to the art of 
 painting. 
 
 An architect of more than average ability naturally endeavours to 
 rise above this level. He alters proportions which (as Mr. Ruskin ha.s 
 truly pointed out) are infinite in their variety. He modifies the form 
 of constructive features, he devises new combinations of parts, and he 
 invents new types of ornament. If he can do all this and yet retain 
 the spirit of old work (on which we cannot hope to improve) he will do 
 well. But if he sets himself recklessly to invert conditions of design 
 which owe their origin to practical reasons, if he changes round for 
 square and square for round merely for the sake of change, if, in short, 
 he will be original at any price, we may be sure that he must fail. 
 Mr. White's work is never of this thoughtless kind, but occasionally 
 it seems to want repose. 
 
 The interior of Lyndhurst Church exhibits many peculiarities, and 
 among them is the extremely naturalistic treatment of carved foliage in 
 the capitals. There is no more subtle question of architectural taste than 
 that which is involved in the design of such details. Probably the most 
 noble type of decorative sculpture is that wherein the forms of animal 
 life and of vegetation are found to be suggested rather than imitated. But 
 the secret of this abstractive treatment is precisely that which our wood 
 carvers and stone carvers have lost. It belonged to the days of pure Gothic 
 art, and has never been satisfactorily revived. The modern designer, 
 therefore, is compelled to follow one of three courses. He may repro- 
 duce line for line and leaf for leaf the grotesque forms and convention- 
 alised foliage of old sculpture, or he may do his best to copy nature 
 
294 
 
 Details of Lyndhurst Church. 
 
 literally, or he may omit all representation of natural objects, and con- 
 tent himself with mouldings. In the case of Lyndhurst Church Mr. 
 White took the second course, and if we accept the principle which 
 guided him in this choice, we cannot but admit that the work of its 
 kind is excellent. 
 
 The same year in which Lyndhurst Church was begun (1858), found 
 Mr. G. G. Scott employed in the rebuilding of Exeter College Chapel 
 at Oxford. Although this stately building exhibits here and there, es- 
 pecially in its decorative details, evidence that its designer was not 
 uninfluenced by the now rapidly-increasing taste for Continental Gothic 
 there is nothing in the design which suggests a thorough conversion to 
 the new doctrines. For its external effect the Chapel chiefly depends on 
 its lofty proportions, on the varied character of the window tracery, on 
 its massive buttresses, and on the highly ornate treatment of the south 
 porch. In place of the ordinary dripstone over the window arches a 
 hollow moulding is carried round, enriched with carved foliage. The 
 topmost stage of each buttress is provided with a pedestal and canopy 
 for a statue, but at present only a few are executed. The east end ot 
 
South Porch of Exeter College Chapel, Oxford. 
 G. See//, A'./., Architect, 1858 
 
Exeter College Chapel and Library 
 
 295 
 
 the building terminates in a semi-octagonal apse, while towards the west 
 and rising from the roof ridge a lofty wooden belfry lends grace and 
 dignity to the design. 
 
 It is, however, the interior of the chapel which is most impressive by 
 reason of its elegant proportions, the refinement of its detail, and the 
 sumptuous nature of its embellishments. The groining is particularly 
 well studied, and its elance character gives it an appearance of great 
 strength. The engaged columns from which it springs are supported 
 on richly-sculptured corbels. Both in 
 design and execution these features 
 reach a degree of excellence rarely 
 approached in modern work. The 
 whole of the apse is filled with stained 
 glass by Messrs Clayton and Bell, 
 admirable in design as far as draughts- 
 manship is concerned, but somewhat 
 crude in colour. The apse wall is 
 arcaded below the windows, each com- 
 partment being filled with figures 
 executed in coloured mosaic work on 
 a gold background. A stone- screen, 
 consisting of open arches on coupled 
 columns, divides the chapel from 
 the ante-chapel. The decorative carving of this screen, as indeed 
 throughout the building, is very delicate though perhaps a little too 
 much accentuated here and there. 
 
 The Library at Exeter College (also designed by Mr. Scott) was 
 erected a year or two before the chapel. Its principal external features 
 are the mural arcuation of the main story, and the four solid-looking 
 stone gablets which rise from its parapet and enclose windows lighting 
 the library roof. The internal fittings of the building are excellent 
 of their kind and show how easily, in judicious hands, modern 
 
296 Progress of the Revival. 
 
 furniture may be invested with a Mediaeval character without becoming 
 either monumental or inconvenient. 
 
 If the evidence of Mr. Scott's professional skill rested on his works 
 at Oxford alone it would be sufficiently established. An architect who 
 thirty years ago could design the Martyr's Memorial — ordinary as its 
 design may now appear — might fairly be expected to play a prominent 
 part in the Gothic Revival. An architect who a dozen years ago could 
 design and carry out such a work as Exeter College Chapel must be 
 accredited with the power of keeping pace with the steadily advancing 
 ability of his contemporaries. It has been said of Mr. Scott's later 
 work that it does not rise above the level of popular appreciation. To 
 this he would probably reply that those examples of architectural design 
 which exhibit greater originality are the productions of men who in 
 many instances differ entirely from each other as to the principles of 
 beauty in their art, and that while such works have been exposed to 
 severe criticism, his own have escaped direct censure. 
 
 While Mr. Scott was year by year adding to his reputation by the 
 design of churches such as those at Nottingham, Cirencester, Doncaster, 
 and Halifax, other architects who shared his enthusiasm for Mediaeval 
 art were not idle. Salvin was employed to restore or rebuild many an 
 ancient castle — a class of work for which his studies had eminently 
 qualified him. Hardwick was reaping the fruits of his labours at Lin- 
 coln's Inn in the form of numerous commissions for Tudor mansions. 
 St. Aidan's Theological College, near Birkenhead, was being executed 
 from the joint design of Messrs. T. Wyatt and D. Brandon. Mr. 
 E. Christian was building churches in Kent. Mr. J. Prichard found 
 favour and a good practice in Wales. The Roman Catholics of the 
 northern counties supplied ample occupation for Messrs. Hadfield and 
 Weightman; while in the west of England — not locally remarkable for 
 the Mediaeval sentiment of its population — Mr. H. Woodyer and 
 Mr. J. Norton made many converts to Gothic, and St. Aubyn's 
 Devonport churches were confessed to be models of excellence. 
 
The Battle of the Styles. 297 
 
 It was lucky that the Revival at this period found able championship, 
 for it had still to incur much opposition. Many architects were still 
 living who had devoted themselves from their earliest youth to the study 
 and practice of Italian architecture, and it was impossible to expect 
 them in middle life to renounce those principles of their art which had 
 guided them to fame and fortune. Some, indeed, willingly conceded 
 the point that for ecclesiastical purposes Gothic might be appropriately 
 adopted ; but neither they nor that portion of the public who shared 
 their views could be brought to believe in its general application to 
 domestic buildings and still less to structures of a public and municipal 
 kind. 
 
 It was ingeniously argued that to return to the architecture of our 
 forefathers was as absurd as to return to their dress, their literature, and 
 their habits of life ; that inasmuch as no one would dream of adopting 
 the orthography of Chaucer's time, so no one could venture to recom- 
 mend that a house in the nineteenth century should assume the appear- 
 ance of one erected four centuries ago. To this the Mediaeval party 
 retorted with reason that there was more affectation in employing 
 Gothic for churches and Italian for dwelling-houses than there would 
 be in readopting Gothic altogether ; that in the best periods of all art, 
 whether Greek or English, one style sufficed for all purposes, whether 
 religious or secular, and that to use one style for a church and another 
 for a dwelling-house was, in the abstract, as absurd as printing our 
 Bibles in black-letter to distinguish them from ordinary books. It was 
 moreover urged that architecture, as an art, is subject to the condition 
 of all arts which in modern life are necessarily deficient in originality, 
 but that English Gothic was a national inheritance, which was more 
 than could be said of pseudo-classic design. With arguments such 
 as these and countless others the Battle of the Styles was carried on by 
 many who forgot, on both sides, that although reason may explain and 
 even justify a taste, it must be possessed before it can be either 
 justified or explained. And possession is nine points of the law. 
 
298 Deficiency of Public Interest. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 O one who has watched the progress of modern architecture in 
 this country can fail to be struck with the enormous dis- 
 ^1 advantage under which it labours, when compared with 
 other arts, in regard to popular interest. Many reasons might be 
 assigned for the apathy and ignorance which it has been its fate to 
 endure from the public. Severed as it was for centuries from asso- 
 ciation, except in rare instances, with the sister arts of painting and 
 sculpture, people even of reputed taste came gradually to regard it as 
 a useful science, which enabled them to live in comfort— sometimes in 
 luxury — but one that was incapable of appealing to such a sense of 
 beauty or creating such emotions of pleasure as are awakened by the 
 sight of a skilful picture or a noble statue. Nothing in modern days 
 has done more to educate national taste in pictorial art than the esta- 
 blishment of annual exhibitions, but from that advantage architecture 
 is necessarily debarred. The most cleverly tinted drawing, the most 
 perfectly finished model can give at best but a feeble idea of any 
 executed structure. It is a suggestion of the work, not the work itself. 
 When, therefore, the Royal Academy (which, by the way, was 
 established as an academy of arts and not of painting only) annually 
 devoted one of its rooms to the exhibition of architectural designs, it 
 is scarcely to be wondered that they were passed hastily over by people 
 who were deeply interested in the historical pictures and landscape 
 subjects by which they were surrounded. And, as time went on, even 
 this opportunity of drawing public attention to contemporary archi- 
 tecture was curtailed. Crayon portraits and water-colour sketches 
 
llic Architectural Exhibition. 299 
 
 gradually intruded on the small space conceded to architects, who felt 
 at last that they ought to have an exhibition of their own. In 1852 
 the experiment was tried under the patronage of Earl de Grey, at that 
 time President of the Institute. It met with great success and laid the 
 foundation for that exhibition which was afterwards annually held in 
 Conduit Street under the management of a committee. 
 
 The removal of the Royal Academy to Burlington House, and the 
 spacious accommodation thus secured have since enabled that body to set 
 apart more room for the display of architects' drawings. The Archi- 
 tectual Exhibition as a separate scheme has ceased to exist, but there 
 can be no doubt that in its early days it did good service to the Revival 
 by enabling professional designers to compare their work at a time 
 when there were but few who devoted themselves exclusively to Gothic, 
 and whose example, therefore, had immense influence on younger men. 
 The formation of an Architectural Museum was another scheme set 
 on foot about the same time and zealously supported by the Mediaeval 
 party. Singularly enough, among all the antiquarian collections in 
 London, accessible to the public, there were none which included a 
 good assortment of casts from decorative sculpture, and the few which 
 did exist were almost exclusively taken from classic and Italian ex- 
 amples. The advisability of securing such objects for the inspection 
 and study, not only of young architects, but of art-workmen, became 
 apparent to all who knew how much the success of modern Gothic 
 depends on the spirit and vigour of its details. Every cathedral in 
 England contained examples of such details, but every cathedral was 
 not within reach of the student. Engravings and lithographs of such 
 work were comparatively useless, but a careful cast was, for the sculp- 
 tor's purpose, as good as the original. A few architects and amateurs 
 united their efforts to supply this deficiency. Mr. Scott procured 
 a fine collection of casts from Ely and Westminster. Mr. B. Ferrey 
 laid Wells under like contribution. Mr. Ruskin imported some ex- 
 quisite examples from France and Italy. Messrs. Hardwick, Burges, 
 
300 The Architectural Museum. 
 
 Cundy, Clarke, Hakewill, and others, presented various specimens, and 
 the Ecclesiological Society added their own collection to the rest. For 
 these objects a humble and somewhat inconvenient repository was found 
 in Cannon Street, Westminster, where they remained until constant 
 additions and donations increased their number to such an extent that 
 it became necessary to remove them to South Kensington. In course 
 of time a building was raised for their reception in Bowling Street, 
 Westminster. The Royal Architectural Museum, as it is now called, 
 has had many friends and supporters, but to none is it more indebted 
 than to Mr. J. Clarke, who for years has acted as its honorary secretary, 
 and to Sir William Tite, who, with his usual liberality, has contributed 
 largely to its support. 
 
 It is impossible to say how far the opportunities for study which 
 such a museum as this affords would have affected professional 
 skill in the design of details if it had been established twenty years 
 earlier. The probability is that in such a case the class of examples 
 selected would have been different; but we may at least regnrd the 
 character of the present collection as an evidence of the phase which 
 architectural taste had entered at the time that collection was made. 
 For, in truth, it has passed during the Revival through many phases. 
 Pugin talked much of the true principles of Gothic art, but he raised 
 many buildings which would scarcely bear the test of modern criticism. 
 Pugin is dead, but the practice of many of his contemporaries has 
 extended to the present time, and in judging of them we must re- 
 member that their artistic creed was to a great extent modelled on his 
 principles, and that unless we may be supposed to have reached a 
 climax of perfection, the most advanced designers of the present day 
 will, if they live to be old enough, have to defend their theories against 
 the attacks of a future generation of critics. 
 
 It has been the lot of some architects to see many aspects of the Re- 
 vival, and of thos^ who have steered a safe middle course between old 
 errois and modem heresy, Mr. T. H. Wyatt may be selected as an 
 
5> 
 
 •a 
 
 . — 
 
 
 oo 
 
 
 .£ 9 
 
 
 <2 
 
 O 
 
 ^ 
 
The Works of Mr. T. IVyatt. 301 
 
 example. When it is remembered that so long ago as in 1836 this 
 gentleman was entrusted with the restoration and enlargement of Llan- 
 tarnam Abbey in what was then called the c castellated ' taste, and that 
 he only recently designed and executed the Italian Gothic residence of 
 Capel Manor, in Kent, for Mr. F. Austen, his experience as a designer 
 may be said to extend over a wide range of time and style. Nor is it 
 limited to the field of domestic architecture. In addition to numerous 
 churches in Wales of a simple but picturesque character, which he has 
 designed, and including that of Glanogwen, near Bangor, he erected 
 several in Wiltshire. Among these may be mentioned one in Sa- 
 vernake Forest, built at the cost of Lord Ailesbury in i860, and 
 remarkable for the ingenious and effective treatment of the interior, 
 where the easternmost bay of the nave is divided from the aisle on 
 each side by a screen of marble columns and open tracery. The church 
 of Hindon in the same county is of an earlier type, with plain lancet 
 windows and broad masses of wall which give the building the appear- 
 ance of great stability. Here the square stone spire rising from a 
 tower on the south is a novel feature, but well suited to the character 
 of the building. 
 
 A small but creditable specimen of Mr. Wyatt's skill is the 
 c Herbert Memorial ' Church at Bemerton, erected by subscription 
 in 1858, as a tribute of respect to the memory of that accomplished 
 statesman whose blameless life and zealous devotion to the Anglican 
 Church are now a matter of history. There is a quiet rural sim- 
 plicity about this work which fits it excellently for its purpose. 
 The tower is particularly successful, both in its proportions and fenes- 
 tration, and only wants a spire to render it a complete and graceful 
 example of its class. 
 
 In 1850 Mr. Wyatt and his former partner, Mr. D. Brandon, 
 were employed to design and erect the church of the Holy Trinity, at 
 Haverstock Hill, in which the chancel as well as the nave is provided 
 with aisles. The plan by which this arrangement was secured, and the 
 
302 Orchardleigh Park and Capel Manor. 
 
 fact that the clerestory windows were of an earlier date than the rest 
 of the church, incurred the censure of the c Ecclesiologist,' which at the 
 time and for many years afterwards published criticism based more 
 on notions of orthodoxy than on artistic considerations, and showed 
 little sympathy with works unidentified with ritualistic reform. 
 
 It is, however, as the designer of large country mansions, rather than 
 as a church architect, that Mr. Wyatt is chiefly known. In dealing 
 with them he has generally adhered to the late Tudor type of archi- 
 tecture, to which rural squires of the last generation gave a decided 
 preference, and which certainly presents many advantages as to con- 
 venience of plan and distribution of window space. 
 
 Carlett Park in Cheshire, the residence of Mr. John Torr, is an 
 example of this class, and was erected in i860. In comparing this 
 with one of Mr. Wyatt's first works — Malpass Court, Monmouthshire, 
 built just twenty years earlier — one is struck with the remarkable 
 advance which has been made during that period in the study of 
 Domestic Gothic. The aim of the designer has apparently been the 
 same in both cases; but the Gothic of 1840 has a thin cold look; the 
 proportions are formal and the details uninteresting ; while in Carlett 
 Park, and still more in Mr. Duckworth's seat of Orchardleigh, 
 Mr. Wyatt has shown of what artistic treatment the style is capable. 
 
 The quasi-Lombardic details of Capel Manor give it a character of 
 its own, in which national traditions find no place. But the picturesque 
 disposition of its masses, the rich quality and colour of the materials 
 used in its construction, and the elaborate nature of the carved work, 
 combine to render it a most effective structure. Its owner, Mr. F. 
 Austen, has long been known as an architectural amateur, and it is 
 probable that the general design is a reflex of his own taste no less than 
 that of Mr. Wyatt himself. 
 
 Mr. J. L. Pearson's name has been already mentioned among the 
 second group of contemporary architects, whose works have been con- 
 spicuous in the Revival, and perhaps there are none which illustrate so 
 
Treberfydd House and Guar Wood. 303 
 
 accurately as his own, both in domestic and ecclesiastical architecture, 
 its progress and the various influences to which it has been subject, 
 from the days of Pugin down to the present time. Mr. Pearson, like 
 many of his fellow -students, began his professional career with the 
 flxed intention of adhering not only to the principles of Mediaeval" art 
 but to national characteristics of style. His early churches in York- 
 shire and other parts of England, many of which were erected between 
 1840 and 1850, exhibit those characteristics in an eminent degree. 
 Treberfydd House in South Wales, which he designed for Mr. Robert 
 Raikes, is thoroughly English in its leading features and general com- 
 position. The plain but well-proportioned mullioned windows, the 
 modest gables, outlined by thin coping stones (the early Revivalists 
 made them of clumsy thickness), the battlemented entrance porch and 
 clustered chimney shafts, all indicate an attention to details then rarely 
 gi' en, and though the architect was at first limited to the alteration of 
 an existing house, which must have considerably taxed his abilities, this 
 accident led to a picturesque treatment of the design, which no artist 
 would regret. 
 
 Quar Wood, of which an illustration is given, was begun some 
 nine years later, and shows a freer and less conventional distribution of 
 parts. The saddle-back roof and open loggia of the tower suggest the 
 influence of Continental study, which, as time went on, considerably 
 affected Mr. Pearson's taste. It was, however, in his churches that 
 this change became most apparent. Only five years elapsed between 
 the erection of St. Mary's, Dalton Holme, in Yorkshire, and that of 
 Christchurch at Appleton-le-Moors in the same county ; but the 
 difference between them in point of style is extraordinary, the former 
 being a pure specimen of Middle Pointed, treated indeed with more 
 originality of detail than the Church of the Holy Trinity at West- 
 minster, which Mr. Pearson had completed in 1852, but still quite 
 northern in its leading features and internal arrangement. Christchurch, 
 on the contrary, is modelled on the earliest and severest type of French 
 
304 Mr. y. L. Pear soi is J Forks. 
 
 Gothic, with an admixture of details almost Byzantine in character. 
 The tie-team roof, the rounded apse, with its open arcade and deco- 
 rative painting, the severe and primitive foliage of the carved capitals, 
 and the square-edged arches which they carry ; above all, the reredos, 
 with its incised figure-subjects and quaintly-treated panels, all scholar- 
 like and noble work of its kind, bear evidence of the extraordinary 
 vicissitudes through which modern Gothic has passed in this country 
 during the last twenty years.* 
 
 If the art of the Revival had been only methodically progressive — 
 or, more strictly speaking, retrogressive — in regard to the chronological 
 order of styles ; if it had even consistently assimilated this or that 
 foreign element at a time and by common consent ; its development 
 would have been intelligible to posterity. As it is, the future anti- 
 quary may well despair of attempting to reduce to a system the com- 
 plicated changes and counterchanges which have taken place, and 
 which are rendered still more intricate by individual caprice and the 
 accidental circumstances of professional study. We have borrowed in 
 turn from France, Germany, and Italy. We have retraversed whole 
 centuries of time in search of the beautiful. We have adopted one by 
 one our favourite types, and as time rolled on we have one by one 
 discarded them. 
 
 Only twelve months after Quar Wood was begun, Mr. J. Prichard of 
 LlandafF, whose ability had secured to him more than provincial repute 
 was called on to remodel the country residence of Mr. John Shirley at 
 Eatington Park in Warwickshire. This is at all times a difficult 
 task, especially when the building to be altered has either no architec- 
 tural character of its own, or possesses one at variance with the style 
 which it is expected to assume. Mr. Prichard, however, after making 
 
 * There is a mortuary chapel, with a groined roof, on the north»side of the chancel, 
 enriched with mural decoration of figure subjects suggested by Psalm cvii. 23-30, the 
 chapel having been expressly dedicated by the founder of the church (Mrs. Shepherd) to 
 the memory of her husband, who had passed nearly his whole life at sea, beginning as a 
 cabin boy and ending a very wealthy man, largely given to good works. A tomb, with 
 recumbent figures of the founder and her husband, will hereafter be placed in the chapel. 
 
Mr. J. Prichard. 
 
 5 
 
 05 
 
 sundry alterations of a substantial kind, proceeded to clothe the whole 
 structure with what Mr. Ruskin would call a new ' wall-veil.' And 
 perhaps it is not too much to say that it is a wall-veil which Mr. Ruskin 
 would have approved. The use of natural colour in construction was 
 one of the points which had been frequently advocated in c The Seven 
 Lamps ' and in ' The Stones of Venice,' where also may be found many 
 
 a plea for the introduction of decorative sculpture and manv an 
 argument to prove the superiority of what is there called surface 
 Gothic over linear Gothic. Whether Mr. Prichard was influenced by 
 this advice, or whether his own course of professional study had led 
 him to the same conclusions, is a matter of little moment ; but no one 
 who has examined the work at Eatington can doubt that it embodies 
 
306 
 
 Eatiugton Park. 
 
 in its design much of those principles which were at one time identified 
 with Mr. Ruskin's name. 
 
 The general plan of the house was, from the condition of things, 
 English in arrangement, but the horizontal bands of colour in the 
 masonry, the character of the arcading and upper windows, and, above 
 all, the square campanile which rises from an internal angle in the 
 building, are all Italian in character. The same may be said of the 
 cornices, parapets, and enriched string-courses, while the carving of the 
 capitals and some other details suggest a French origin. Decorative 
 sculpture is largely employed in panels above the ground-floor win- 
 dows, and the tympana of arches over those on the main floor are simi- 
 larly enriched, and this not merely after the rude conventional way in 
 
 which such work is usually executed, but 
 with figure subjects most artistically de- 
 signed, and executed with consummate 
 skill. 
 
 The main entrance to the house is 
 under a groined porch, which is perhaps 
 the least satisfactory part of the design, 
 owing to the semi-ecclesiastical appear- 
 ance which it assumes, and the somewhat 
 restless character of the details. But 
 there are features in the building which, 
 for merits of general form, judicious 
 ornament, and refined workmanship are 
 worthy of the highest praise, especially 
 when it is remembered that the adapta- 
 tion of the style to such a purpose was 
 at the time almost a complete novelty in 
 this country. The whole work exhibits evidence of close and attentive 
 study. Even the chimneys are invested with a picturesque character 
 which is all their own, and none the less admirable for its originality. 
 
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Adaptability of Italian Gothic. 307 
 
 Whatever may be urged in support of national traditions, there can 
 be little doubt that Italian Gothic lends itself more readily than most 
 styles to the treatment of a facade in which the relation of wall space to 
 aperture is restricted by modern requirements. The employment of 
 almost every type of English Gothic except the latest, involves either an 
 anachronism in plan and elevation or a sacrifice of those internal arrange- 
 ments which rightly or wrongly the modern householder deems neces- 
 sary to his comfort. That quality of proportion which the art 
 architect endeavours to secure is, however desirable for the effect of 
 his design, frequently obtained by peculiarities of plan which seem in- 
 convenient to the inmates. On the other hand, when an ordinary 
 modern plan is retained and the building is allowed to derive what 
 character it can from the application of old English details, the result is 
 often an unreal and cockneyfied appearance. The peculiar merit of 
 Eatington is that, while preserving the general arrangement of an or- 
 dinary country house, its architectural effect is genuine and unstrained. 
 Even the use of sash-windows and plate glass, generally unsatisfactory in 
 association with English Gothic, does not seem out of place here. And 
 it may be safely asserted that for one client who is prepared to give up 
 his plate-glass sashes on artistic grounds, an architect may remonstrate 
 with ninety-nine in vain. 
 
 If obstacles to the Revival were represented only by such objections 
 as these, they would speedily have been overcome ; but twenty years 
 ago prejudices of a more general character still lingered against Mediaeval 
 architecture. A popular idea existed that it was suitable for churches 
 and almshouses, that it was tolerable for schools and parsonages, that 
 it might with modifications be adopted for a country seat, but that it 
 was utterly unsuited to the requirements of a town house or public 
 building. 
 
 These delusions Mr. G. G. Scott, both as an architect and as an 
 author, endeavoured to dissipate. 
 
 In London he found an opportunity of showing the public the capa- 
 
 X 2 
 
308 Houses in the Broad Sanctuary, J I r estminster. 
 
 bilities of Gothic for street architecture. The block of houses in the 
 Broad Sanctuary at Westminster, which he designed and erected in 1857, 
 was once stupidly likened, in parliamentary debate, to a convent. 
 The sneer, if it had any real significance at all, was intended to convey 
 the notion that houses bore a certain resemblance to conventual build- 
 ings of the Middle Ages. Now, whatever faults may be ascribed to 
 the design, this certainly cannot be reckoned one of them. The one 
 pre-eminent fact which asserts itself in this work to any but the shal- 
 lowest critics is that the design as a whole bears an unmistakably 
 modern stamp. The conditions of form maintained throughout are 
 those which not only fulfil the requirements of a London house, but 
 also keep within the intention of the Building Act. And this is the 
 more to be observed because the composition has been palpably and 
 carefully studied with an aim at the picturesque. For instance, in the 
 west wing, the front wall is carried up into stepped gables, while in the 
 east wing it terminates in a battlemented parapet at the foot of the 
 main roof which is lighted by dormers. The distribution of parts in 
 the fenestration and porches of their wings is intentionally unsym- 
 metrical. The introduction of an oriel or rather a group of oriel 
 windows, which forms a feature at the north-east angle, is another 
 well-intentioned violation of the uninteresting uniformity which had 
 hitherto been considered essential to our street architecture. 
 
 In 'Belgravia' the entrance porch is a necessary adjunct to every 
 dwelling house. Here we have not only a porch but a bay window 
 above it, by which means additional room is gained on the first floor. 
 The projection of these bays and of the buttress, which at once define 
 and strengthen the party walls, would have been far more conspicuous if 
 the facade had not unfortunately faced the north and thus been deprived 
 of that play of shadow which is the essence of architectural effect. 
 
 The entrance porch to Dean's Yard forms the central feature in this 
 group, and rises in a square mass flanked by angle turrets above the 
 adjoining roofs. The pointed arch over the main gateway, the groined 
 
Mr. G. G. Scott on the Gothic Revival. 309 
 
 vault above it, and the general features of this building, if not strik- 
 ingly original are at least undeniably correct in detail, while the carved 
 work is executed with a spirit which was remarkable eighteen years 
 ago. 
 
 Not long after these buildings were finished, Mr. Scott, in an able 
 paper read at Doncaster before the Yorkshire Architectural Society, 
 offered the following earnest plea for Domestic Gothic : 
 
 I now come, however, to the great hindrance to the perfect success of our 
 Revival, and the great object which we must set before us in all our future 
 efforts. The hindrance referred to is the absurd supposition that Gothic archi- 
 tecture is exclusively and intrinsically ecclesiastical. Every form of architecture 
 may in some sense be said to be religious, for each succeeding style has both 
 arisen and culminated in the temple, and has thence spread itself through all 
 other classes of building. . . . But it is not to be argued from this that our 
 revived style is unsuited to other uses, any more than that those of Egypt and 
 Greece were only applicable to temples. . . . Do our houses need less archi- 
 tectural improvement than our churches ? Look at the streets of our towns, 
 look at our workmen's cottages, at the mushroom growth of streets, terraces, 
 and crescents at our watering places, or the villas which disfigure the suburbs of 
 our cities, and the answer will not be long suggesting itself. Do our commercial 
 buildings want no reformation ? Compare then our warehouses, &c, with 
 those that remain in the ancient cities of Europe, the one disgracing and disfigur- 
 ing, the other forming noble ornaments to the towns in which they were 
 erected. . . . To cut the matter short, compare Manchester, Leeds, Birming- 
 ham, and Bradford in the height of their glory with Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, 
 Ypres, or Nuremberg in their decay, and say whether the state of secular 
 architecture among us does or does not stand in need of reformation. 
 
 Mr. Scott, we may be sure, spoke with no ordinary zeal on this 
 occasion, for a question was then under discussion which affected not 
 only the prospects of the Revival but his personal interest in that 
 cause, and the final result of which must have placed him as a champion 
 of Gothic architecture in a very difficult and delicate position. The 
 Government had invited English and foreign architects in general com- 
 
310 The New Foreign Office Competition. 
 
 petition to submit designs for the new public offices. The competition, 
 like many a similar one, was unfortunately mismanaged. One set of 
 prizes was offered for the best Foreign Office design ; another set of 
 prizes was offered for the War Office design, although both were to be 
 included in one group ; and lest this arrangement should not lead to suf- 
 ficient confusion, a third premium was offered for a ' block plan' of both. 
 More than two hundred designs were sent in. They were exhibited in 
 Westminster Hall and inspected by thousands. The public journals 
 were deluged with criticism. After much delay and doubt, and the 
 award of some 5,000/. in premiums, Mr. Scott was appointed architect 
 to the new buildings. His original design was, as might have been 
 expected, Mediaeval, and with some necessary modifications would pro- 
 bably have been executed. But an unexpected difficulty presented 
 itself. The Government under which he had received his appointment 
 went out of office, and Lord Palmerston became Premier. 
 
 Lord Palmerston's knowledge of art was never profound, and his 
 taste for architecture now manifested itself after a negative rather than a 
 positive fashion. He may have been unable to explain what style he 
 liked, but he knew very well what style he did not like, and that style 
 was Gothic. He attacked Mr. Scott's design in the House and out 
 of it. He called it unsuitable for its purpose, and a frightful struc- 
 ture ; compared the building (with singular ingenuity) to a Jesuit 
 college, and the well-known taste of its author to a monomania. A de- 
 putation of members of Parliament interested in the adoption of Gothic 
 waited on his lordship at Cambridge House, and expostulated with 
 him, but in vain. He had determined that so far as his influence 
 could prevail no Mediaeval design should be executed. He illustrated 
 some of his arguments on this occasion by familiar example. 
 
 Everybody who has seen the Speaker's house, says it is most inconvenient in 
 point of arrangement. Lord John Russell dined there at the first dinner which 
 was given in it : I was there also ; and when we got into the Speaker's draw- 
 ing-room, he said very naturally that it was all very well for our ancestors to 
 
Lord Palrnersf oris dislike to Gothic. 311 
 
 fit up rooms and apartments in that way, because they knew no better ; but why 
 should we, who do know better, make buildings so inconsistent with the purposes 
 for which they are intended ? 
 
 It had long been a popular objection to Gothic that it involved a dark 
 and gloomy interior.* As this fallacy had been dissipated by the report 
 of a Parliamentary Committee, Lord Palmerston found it advisable to 
 substitute another of a completely opposite kind. 
 
 One advantage in point of light which the Gothic style possesses, is 
 that it is light from the time the sun rises ; and the Speaker complains that his 
 windows are .so constructed that there cannot be any shutters put to them, and 
 that when he goes to bed at 3 o'clock in the morning (as he probably did to-day) 
 there is the sun pouring full in at his bedroom, and he has no chance of repose 
 except what a green baize curtain can afford him. 
 
 This might be truly called a glaring objection to Gothic, yet before 
 the deputation withdrew Lord Palmerston had so far forgotten it as to 
 express his intention of requesting Mr. Scott £ to devise some elevation 
 that shall be in a different style, more cheap, more light, more cheerful, 
 and better adapted to the position and purposes of the building.' 
 
 Further than this inconsistency could scarcely be carried. The 
 truth is that the Premier had made up his mind and there was no help 
 for it. The Speaker's comfort at dinner, and the Speaker's chance of 
 morning repose were, it is to be hoped, insured, after the domestic 
 revelations above mentioned. How far the consideration of these im- 
 portant points bore upon the question at issue may, after a lapse of 
 years, seem doubtful. But as to Lord Palmerston's opinion there 
 could be no doubt. He was determined that the new Foreign Office 
 should not be Gothic, and he had his way. Mr. Scott stood his ground 
 to the last. He might, indeed, have taken one step which would have 
 
 * Lord Palmerston himself is reported to have said in Parliament, « We all know that 
 our northern climate does not overpower us with an excess of sunshine. Then, for 
 Heaven's sake, let us have buildings whose interior admits, and whose exterior reflects, 
 what light there s. 
 
312 The Manchester Assize Courts Competition. 
 
 made him not only a champion but a martyr in the cause of the 
 Revival : he might have resigned his commission. Perhaps some of the 
 younger Gothic architects of the day, who regarded him as their leader, 
 expected him to take that step. If there are any who still hold that he 
 was bound to do so, it is to be hoped that they may never find them- 
 selves in a similar predicament. From an aesthetic point of view it 
 would have been a grand act. From a practical point of view it would 
 have been Quixotic. Mr. Scott would have been reckoned a hero, 
 but we should not on that account have secured a Mediaeval Foreign 
 Office. 
 
 As it was, the caprice and prejudice of a statesman who had no sort 
 of claim to connoisseurship were allowed to prevail, and Mr. Scott 
 was reluctantly compelled to raise a building in a style with which he 
 had little sympathy, and to which he had probably devoted little 
 attention. Under these circumstances, the result may well surprise his 
 friends and disarm his adversaries by its excellence. 
 
 Although the Gothic Revival had thus received a decided check in 
 London, it met with more encouragement in the provinces. 
 
 The Manchester Assize Courts competition attracted more than a 
 hundred candidates, among whom were many whose names had been 
 little known before, but who have since become eminent in their pro- 
 fession. The choice of the judges fell upon Mr. Alfred Waterhouse, 
 a local architect, who had sent in a Mediaeval design, which united 
 considerable artistic merit with unusual advantages in regard to plan 
 and internal arrangement. The original treatment of its individual 
 features did not indeed indicate evidence of a thorough and consistent 
 attempt to realise in this building the character of any special phase or 
 type of Gothic art. The formal proportions of its principal facade, 
 the outline of its roof, the fenestration of its upper story, and, above 
 all, the nature of its ornamental details, showed a tendency to depart 
 from the unities of architectural style. At the time of this competition 
 many young architects had devoted themselves with enthusiasm to the 
 
Entrance to Assize Courts, Manchester. 
 A. Waterkouse, Architect, 1859. 
 
Mr. A. Waterhouse's Design. 313 
 
 study of Early French Gothic, and had really caught much of the 
 spirit of twelfth century work. Others still clung to national traits, 
 and endeavoured to preserve them in their designs. A few had studied 
 the Mediaeval examples in Lombardy and Venice to some profit, while 
 others were allured by the more specious attractions of the Italian 
 Renaissance. Some of these several types were ably represented in the 
 Manchester competition, and perhaps if the decision of the judges had 
 been based on artistic considerations alone, more than one of the 
 candidates would have taken precedence of Mr. Waterhouse, the prin- 
 ciple of whose design was confessedly eclectic. But experience has 
 proved that whatever may be accomplished in ecclesiastical or domestic 
 architecture, the special characteristics of individual style can rarely be 
 renewed in their integrity for modern public buildings without some 
 sacrifice of convenience, and that is precisely the requisite which those 
 who have the management of public buildings are bound to secure. 
 
 Time has shown that Mr. Waterhouse's plan for the Assize 
 Courts is admirably adapted for its purpose ; and, with regard to 
 the artistic merits of the work, it will be time enough to criticise when 
 any better modern structure of its size and style has been raised in this 
 
 country. 
 
 During the interval which elapsed between the selection and execu- 
 tion of his design, Mr. Waterhouse introduced many improvements in 
 the facade. The central block, of which the lower portion is devoted 
 to an entrance porch, had terminated above in a fantastically-shaped 
 roof, surmounted by a clock turret. In place of this feature, a lofty 
 gable, pierced with a large wheel window, is now substituted. The 
 upper windows of the principal front had been enriched with 
 ogival hood mouldings. These were omitted in execution, and the 
 window heads gain immensely in effect by the change. In the 
 Southall Street front other modifications were adopted in the plan, 
 which considerably enhanced the general effect. The best view of 
 the building as a composition is at some little distance from the 
 
314 The Manchester Assize Courts. 
 
 corner formed by the junction of Great Ducie Street and Southall 
 Street, where the principal masses of the building group excellently 
 together. 
 
 The aim of the architect seems to have been to secure general 
 symmetry with variety of detail. Thus the principal facade is exactly 
 divided by the central block : the wings on either side are lighted by 
 exactly the same number of windows, but the windows themselves 
 vary in their tracery. Perhaps the least satisfactory feature in the 
 design at first sight is the lofty tower, which, rising in the centre from 
 the rear of the building, looks like an Italian campanile, but really 
 serves the purpose of a ventilating shaft. Yet, after the eye has 
 become accustomed to its proportions, there are really no definite faults 
 to find with it but faults of detail, on which it would be hypercritical 
 to enter here. At this stage of his career, and it was a very early 
 stage, Mr. Waterhouse perhaps erred in over-prettifying his work. 
 This tendency may be noticed here and there in the design ; but it 
 never lapses into fussiness or descends to vulgarity. 
 
 The interior of the great hall is most successful in its proportions. 
 It has an open timber ' hammer-beam ' roof, and a large pointed 
 window with geometrical tracery, at each end. The doorways leading 
 hence to the corridors and adjoining offices are studied with great care; 
 and indeed the same may be said of every feature in the hall, from its 
 inlaid pavement to the pendant gasaliers. The Civil Court and the 
 Criminal Court (each capable of holding about 800 people) are 
 respectively to the north-east and south-east of the hall. They are 
 identical in size and arrangement, and are provided with the usual 
 retiring rooms forjudges and juries. 
 
 The barristers' library is a picturesque and effective apartment, with 
 a roof following the outline of a pointed arch, and divided into panels. 
 The barristers' corridor is lighted by a skylight, supported at intervals 
 by arched ribs cusped and slightly decorated with colour. This, 
 together with many other features in the building, represents with 
 
A uc i cut Art and Modern Requirements. 315 
 
 more or less success an attempt to invest modern structural require- 
 ments with an artistic character which shall be Mediaeval in motive 
 if not in fact. The trying conditions of this union cannot be too 
 constantly kept in view by critics, who, applying an antiquarian test to 
 such works as this at Manchester, proceed to condemn the association 
 of features for which there is no actual precedent in old and genuine 
 Gothic. 
 
 Now it is quite certain that if any modern architect were so inge- 
 nious as to be able to raise in the nineteenth century a municipal or any 
 other building, which, in its general arrangement and the character of its 
 details thoroughly realised the fashion of the thirteenth or fourteenth 
 century, it would be about as uncomfortable, unhealthy, and incon- 
 venient a structure as could be devised. There must be a compromise. 
 Gothic architecture under its old conditions, and where the ordinary 
 requirements of life are concerned, is impossible. Gothic architecture 
 under modern conditions — improved methods of lighting and venti- 
 lating, sanitary considerations, the use of new materials, and habits of 
 ease and luxury — may be, and indeed is, very possible. But it is open 
 to various interpretations, and in judging of its examples we must 
 apply to them a new standard of taste — a standard of no narrow limit 
 to place or time, artistic rather than archaeological, founded on necessity 
 rather than on sentiment. Judged by such a standard as this, Mr. 
 Waterhouse's work at Manchester is a decided success. 
 
3i 6 Influence of Individual Taste. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 TTEMPTS have frequently been made to identify the various 
 phases through which modern Gothic has passed during the 
 last twenty years, with the names of individual architects 
 who are popularlv supposed to have formed by their influence and 
 example special schools in the practice of their profession. And, 
 indeed, no more convenient method of classification could be adopted 
 in recording the progress of the Revival if it were one which might be 
 safely relied on. The past history of some arts is capable of this 
 analysis, which materially aids the student in arriving at a knowledge 
 of style, and of those distinct qualities which help to form a style. In 
 our own day it is not unusual for writers to group together for purposes 
 of criticism the names of certain painters whose aim is understood to be 
 uniformly directed, and who incline to the same choice of subjects or to 
 the same class of treatment. But in a description of modern architec- 
 ture such a course could not be systematically pursued. Here and 
 there it might serve in a general way to indicate the position of such a 
 man as Pugin or Scott, in reference to those who for a while acknow- 
 ledged him as their leader ; but, as a rule, most architects decline to 
 entertain the notion of having been led at all, except by their own convic- 
 tions. As pupils, their natural tendency is, of course, to design after the 
 fashion of their masters ; though, even at this stage, a few weeks' 
 study on the Continent, the erection of a new and striking building, or 
 the genial influence of an art clique, may turn the current of their 
 ambition. But when once an architect has entered on practice for 
 
llic Study of French Gothic. 317 
 
 himself, his admiration of individual talent undergoes considerable 
 abatement; his great desire is to be original, and one cannot pay him 
 a poorer compliment than by supposing that his designs have been 
 suggested by any previous design, or that he is indebted for a single 
 detail to the invention of his contemporaries. 
 
 Now without accepting the conclusion that no modern architect's 
 work could possibly be mistaken for any other than his own, it is easy 
 to see that a young designer is subject to a variety of impressions 
 from various sources, which, acting together, may prevent him from 
 pledging himself to a particular school of art, and, further, that as 
 he gains in experience, his taste, in whatever direction it may have set, 
 will assuredly undergo a change. 
 
 During the last fifteen years the current of architectural taste has 
 been turned in more than one direction. Mr. Ruskin's influence sent 
 it rushing for awhile towards North Italy. The Lille Cathedral com- 
 petition, in which, though open to all the world, the first two prizes 
 were awarded to Englishmen,* naturally drew attention to the merits 
 of French Gothic, while a strong party strove hard to maintain our 
 own national traditions of style. 
 
 Of the three schools thus represented, French Gothic was for some 
 years decidedly in the ascendant. It was novel ; it appealed by the 
 adventitious aid of sculpture and other decorative details to a popular 
 taste ; it admitted of general application, and a work was then being 
 published which promised peculiar advantages for its study. This was 
 M. Viollet-le-Duc's famous c Dictionnaire raisonne de l'Architecture 
 Franchise du XI e au XVI e Siecle/ of which it is scarcely too much to 
 say that no more useful or exhaustive treatise could have been written 
 on the subject. In examining this extraordinary contribution to the 
 
 * The first to Messrs. Glutton and Burges ; the second to Mr. Street. In the same 
 
 competition silver medals were awarded to Messrs. Holden and Son of Manchester, 
 
 Mr. Brodrick of Leeds, and Messrs. Evans and Pullan ; while the designs of Mr. Goldie, 
 Mr. Pedley, and Mr. Robinson were ' honourably mentioned.' 
 
318 M. Viollct-lc-Duc. 
 
 literature of the Revival, it is difficult to say which is most worthy of 
 admiration, the patient research and archaeological labour which occu- 
 pied its author during fourteen years of a busy life, or the artistic taste 
 and skill which enabled him to fill nine quarto volumes with illustrations 
 so various in their range, so ingenious in their character, so attractive in 
 their form, and so delicate in their execution, that they leave nothing to 
 be desired in the form of technical information or artistic record. 
 
 In illustrating the constructive details of Mediaeval masonry and 
 carpentry, previous authors had been content to supply plans and 
 sections, which explained themselves indeed to the professional reader, 
 but left many a youthful student and amateur in doubt as to their 
 practical significance. M. Viollet-le-Duc not only supplied geometrical 
 drawings of such features, but added perspective sketches, in which the 
 parts to be illustrated are dissected in a manner that renders them 
 intelligible to everyone at first sight. The same principle is frequently 
 applied to general views in this admirable work. One looks down 
 upon a church or town hall, partly stripped of its roof or gable, and 
 straightway the whole anatomy of its walls is revealed. The various 
 buildings of an abbey or the ramparts of a fortified town are shown, 
 not only by a plan, but by a bird's-eye view. If the author is de- 
 scribing a piece of timber construction he is not content until he has 
 pulled the whole framework to pieces, and described with his pencil 
 as well as with his pen the nature and purpose of every joint. 
 
 Nothing is too abstruse — nothing too insignificant for explanation. 
 Under the heads of ' Voute ' and ' Arc-boutant] the scientific principles 
 of Mediaeval groining are made clear. When M. Viollet-le-Duc is 
 dealing with ' Serrurerie] he is at the pains to enter into a minute de- 
 scription of ancient locks. The subject of sculpture forms the text 
 for a valuable essay. That on military architecture is of such length 
 and importance that it has been reprinted in a separate volume. The 
 examples of towers and spires, of window tracery, of door-jambs, of 
 parapets and cornices, capitals and bases, not to mention other details, 
 
Entrance to the Digby Mortuary Chapel, Sherborne. 
 W. Slater, Architect, i860. 
 
The ' Dictionnaire de V Architecture Frangaise.' 319 
 
 with which these volumes are filled, are innumerable. A more con- 
 venient book for reference was never devised for the architectural 
 student. If he wants a suggestion for the plan of an apse, the con- 
 struction of a staircase, the shape of a dormer, the decoration of a fire- 
 place, he has but to turn out f ChevetJ ' Escalier,' « Lucarne' or 
 ' ChemineeJ and forthwith he finds a dozen models to choose from. If 
 he wishes to learn something of the history of Mediaeval art, he will do 
 well if he can digest half the information supplied in the first volume 
 under the head of f Architecture.' If he seeks to understand its 
 artistic principles or their practical application, he will scarcely open a 
 single page that does not enlighten him. 
 
 It was not long before the influence of this work became perceptible 
 in England. Gothic architects began to introduce French details in 
 their work. Decorative sculpture assumed a different character. The 
 small and intricately carved foliage of capitals which had hitherto been 
 in vogue gave place to bolder and simpler forms of leaf ornament. 
 The round abacus was superseded by the square. In place of com- 
 pound or clustered pillars, plain cylindrical shafts were employed. 
 Arch mouldings grew less complex. Crockets and bail-flower enrich- 
 ments were reduced to a minimum. The plans, the proportions, the 
 general composition of many a church and private dwelling were 
 sensibly affected by the change. Artistically considered, the examples 
 of modern Gothic might be said to approach a more archaic type than 
 previously. From a constructive point of view they were pronounced, 
 in the professional slang of the day, more c muscular.' 
 
 After the first few volumes of the c Dictionnaire raisonne ' had been 
 published, Mr. R. Norman Shaw, a young architect who had carried 
 off more than one prize at the Royal Academy, was sent abroad as its 
 travelling student. He returned from a lengthy tour on the Continent 
 with a portfolio of interesting sketches, which were afterwards pub- 
 lished in the well-known volume which bears his name. It is a sig- 
 nificant evidence of the prevailing taste in architecture at this period 
 
320 Sketches Published by Shaw and Nesfield. 
 
 that the sketches were all from Mediaeval buildings, and that half of 
 them were made in France. 
 
 Not long afterwards Mr. W. E. Nesfield made a similar tour, and 
 for a like purpose ; but in his case nine-tenths of the specimens 
 selected for illustration were French, and for the most part French of 
 the earliest types. 
 
 To estimate the true value of these works we must remember that 
 they were the first of any importance which represented Continental 
 architecture in a style of drawing at once artistic and accurate enough 
 for professional reference. The skill, the delicacy of touch, the atten- 
 tion to perspective, and the knowledge of detail which they exhibit, are 
 worthy of all praise. Comparisons are sometimes made between the 
 ability of modern students and those of the good old times when the 
 taste for classic art was at its zenith. Whatever else may be said of the 
 Gothic Revival and its tendencies, there can be little doubt that it has 
 encouraged students to draw. In this respect the present generation 
 has a decided advantage. In our grandfathers' days the artist archi- 
 tect was a rarity, and for one who could then sketch with freedom we 
 have twenty who can do so now. 
 
 The introduction of a French element in the Gothic of this period 
 may be exemplified in the Digby Mortuary Chapel at Sherborne (de- 
 signed by Mr. W. Slater, the partner and professional successor of 
 Mr. Carpenter), where the rich details of the entrance door and the 
 carved tympanum of the arch-head are eminently suggestive of foreign 
 study. Mr. Slater was associated with Mr. Carpenter in the execution 
 of many buildings, among which may be mentioned the Church of 
 SS. Simon and Jude at Earl's Hilton in Leicestershire, and the Episcopal 
 Chapel of St. Peter in Edinburgh. After Mr. Carpenter's death, 
 Mr. Slater was commissioned to rebuild Kilmore Cathedral in Ireland, 
 and to erect St. John's Schools, St. Pancras — a plain but excellent 
 example of secular Gothic. In conjunction with his present partner 
 (the late Mr. Carpenter's son) he has since designed and carried out 
 numerous works, and has been largely employed in restorations. 
 
Baptistery of St. Francis Church, Notting Hill. 
 
 J. /•". Beiitley, Architect. 1861. 
 
Chit nil of St. Francis of Assist, Not ting Hill. 321 
 
 In 1861 Mr. J. F. Bentley added the baptistery, schools, and other 
 buildings to the Roman Catholic Church of St. Francis of Assisi at 
 Notting Hill. The baptistery, as the production of a young architect 
 then little known to fame, was much admired. There is a breadth 
 and simplicity about the design which distinguished it from previous 
 work, as well as from much that was executed at that time. In the 
 character of the capitals, the treatment of the font, and other details, 
 a tendency to depart from English tradition may be noticed, and this 
 is the more remarkable because the architect, like many others, has 
 since retraced his steps, and is now emphatically insular in his taste. 
 
 But in no instance was this revolt from national style more marked 
 than in the Church of St. James the Less, erected at Westminster by 
 Mr. Street. Here the whole character of the building, whether we 
 regard its plan, its distinctive features, its external or internal 
 decoration is eminently un-English. Even the materials used in its 
 construction and the mode by which it is lighted were novelties. 
 The detached tower with its picturesquely modelled spire, its belfry 
 stage rich in ornamental brick-work and marble bosses, the semi- 
 circular apse and quasi-transepts, the plate tracery, the dormers in- 
 serted in the clerestory, the quaint treatment of the nave arcade, the 
 bold vigour of the carving, the chromatic decoration of the roof — all 
 bear evidence of a thirst for change which Mr. Street could satisfy 
 without danger, but which betrayed many of his contemporaries into 
 intemperance. Even here there is something to regret in the restless 
 notching of edges, the dazzling distribution of stripes, the multiplicity 
 of pattern forms, and exuberance of sculpture detail. But it is all so 
 clever and so facile, so evidently the invention of a man who enjoys his 
 work — and who, full of rich fancies and quaint conceits, is incapable of 
 insipidity, but at any moment if he so chooses can rein himself back 
 from extravagance — that it is impossible but to regard it with pleasure. 
 
 If Mr. Street had never designed anything but the campanile of this 
 church — and its Italian character justifies the name — it would be suf- 
 
 Y 
 
322 Church of St. James the Less, Westminster. 
 
 ficient to proclaim him an artist. In form, proportion of parts, decorative 
 detail, and use of colour, it seems to leave little to be desired. To 
 form a just appreciation of its merits, let the architectural amateur walk 
 down to Garden Street from any part of London, and note as he passes 
 the stereotyped patterns of towers and spires which he will find to right 
 or left of his road. How neat, how respectable, how correct, how 
 eminently uninteresting they are ! No one cares to look at them twice. 
 They are all like each other, or so little different that if they changed 
 places any day, by help of Aladdin's lamp, the London world would 
 never find it out. But here, in one of the poorest and meanest quarters 
 of town, hidden away behind dull masses of brick and mortar, this fair 
 tower, when one does see it, is something not to be easily forgotten. It 
 is the fate of more than one noble church in London to be thus ob- 
 scured. And there is no help for it. The poorest neighbourhoods 
 want them most, and on that account the choice of site does infinite 
 credit to its founders.* But it is to be regretted that so fine a work 
 should be placed where it must be rarely seen by those who could best 
 judge of its artistic excellence. 
 
 The rich fertility of this architect's inventive power is only equalled by 
 the sagacious tact which guides its application. He is not only master 
 of many styles, but he can give original expression to every one of them. 
 Where decoration can be afforded, he invests his work with a sumptuous 
 refinement which reveals itself in every detail. Where simplicity is re- 
 quired, he makes simplicity attractive. This faculty of design belongs 
 to that rare order which unites artistic instinct with practical ability. 
 He sees his opportunity at a glance and makes the most of it. Some- 
 times his originality is manifested in a novel plan, as in the Church of 
 St. Saviour, Eastbourne, where the chancel is joined to the nave by a 
 1 canted ' bay ; sometimes in the clever association of ecclesiastical and 
 domestic architecture, as at Boyne Hill ; sometimes in the design of 
 
 * St. James the Less was erected by the Misses Monk in memory of their father, the 
 late Bishop of Gloucester and Canon of Westminster. 
 
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 Church of S. PJiilip and S. James, Oxford. 
 <;. /■. Street, .I.A'..I.. Architect, 1862. 
 
Character of Mr. St reef s Designs. 323 
 
 decorative sculpture, as at Brightwaltham Church, where the carved 
 figures which enrich the altar exactly realise that combination of 
 quaintness and grace which is so characteristic of Medieval work. 
 
 Mr. Street was one of the first architects of the Revival who showed 
 how effective Gothic architecture might be made where it simply de- 
 pends for effect on artistic proportion. In this respect he brought 
 about a great and useful reformation in the practice of his art. If 
 Pugin and his followers could decorate their walls with carved panels, 
 fill their windows with tracery, crown their buttresses with crocketed 
 pinnacles, and enrich their porches with canopied niches, they made a 
 showy building. But shorn of such details it cut a sorry figure. 
 Now, if Mr. Street were limited to the arrangement of four walls, a 
 roof, a couple of windows, a door, and a chimney shaft, on the distinct 
 understanding that none of these features were to be ornamented in the 
 slightest degree, we may be quite sure that he would group them in 
 such a fashion as to make them picturesque. Nothing can possibly be 
 simpler than his works at Cuddesdon and East Grinstead — the first a 
 college, the latter a convent. They have literally no architectural 
 character beyond what may be secured by stout masonry, a steep roof, 
 and a few dormer windows. But there is a genuine cachet on each 
 design which it is impossible to mistake. They are the production of 
 an artist hand. 
 
 Perhaps there is no better test of an architect's originality in design 
 than when he has to deal with the design of a very small village church. 
 It must have its sanctuary, its porch, its pulpit, and its belfry, but it 
 must be spanned by a single roof, and the picturesque subdivision of 
 nave and aisles is of course out of the question. How can such a 
 building as this be made to express its purpose, to look interesting 
 and avoid conventionality ? Mr. Street has shown us how to do this 
 in his design for Howesham Church. He gave the chancel an apsidal 
 end, decorated its windows with escoinson shafts, cusped the chancel 
 arch, reduced the pulpit to a little quadrant in plan (which was just the 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 Church of SS. Phi Zip and James, Oxford. 
 
 thing for a corner), planned a snug little porch with a lean-to roof for 
 the west end, and carried up a picturesque belfry turret by its side. 
 The effect of the whole is charming. Nothing better could have been 
 devised. It is simplicity itself, but simplicity with meaning and effect. 
 In his larger works Mr. Street is equally successful. Of all the 
 churches which he has built there is scarcely one which is not remark- 
 able for some originality of treatment. And this originality is always 
 secured by legitimate means, without an approach to that license which 
 with the less accomplished designer results in extravagant proportions 
 or bizarrerie of detail. It is by slight and temperate departures from 
 ordinary types of form and decoration that this architect frequently 
 ensures a novel grace without startling by oddities of design. Thus in 
 the Church of SS. Philip and James, at Oxford, the tower which rises 
 over the intersection of the nave and transepts is a little broader in plan 
 from north to south than it is from east to west. The division of the 
 clerestory windows does not exactly coincide with the division of the nave 
 arcade. The fenestration of the north transept differs from that of the 
 south. The building is enriched with natural colour, not by covering 
 it over with stripes like a zebra, but by introducing bands of reddish 
 stone at rare intervals and by marking the voussoirs in the same manner. 
 The nave of this church is of unusual width in relation to its aisles, 
 but the easternmost bay of each arcade slopes slightly inwards to meet 
 the piers which carry the central tower. This forms a peculiar and by 
 no means an uninteresting feature. The nave roof, instead of being 
 open timbered and of the ordinary type, is ceiled internally and takes 
 the form of a pointed arch, decorated at intervals with bands of colour. 
 The picturesque grouping of the aisle windows, the rich inlay and 
 carving of the reredos (heightened in effect by contrast with the plain 
 wall lining and simple wood fittings of the chancel), even the iron-work 
 of the screen — are all full of character, and that type of character which 
 if verbally expressed would only be a synonym for artistic grace. Once, 
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All Saints, Clifton ; St. Joints, Torquay. 325 
 
 into random work, and that is in the design of the circular window which 
 lights the western gable. But even here the result is rather quaint than 
 distasteful. The best view of the exterior is certainly from the east end, 
 where the central tower and spire, rising from the crux with an octa- 
 gonal turret at the south-east corner, form with the chancel and tran- 
 septs an admirably composed group, in which two architectural 
 features constantly adopted by Mr. Street — viz. the round apse and 
 the louvred belfry windows — are conspicuous. 
 
 In one marked particular, church building of the present day differs 
 from that which was carried on formerly, and that is in the gradual 
 manner of its execution. Twenty or thirty years ago, when a church 
 was begun, the great object was to complete it as soon as possible, and 
 to provide accommodation for a certain number of sitters. The money 
 granted or subscribed for this object was applied to the erection of the 
 whole structure, which became simple or ornate in proportion to the 
 amount of funds available. At the present time it is not at all un- 
 common, when means are limited, to begin by building the chancel, 
 and even to enrich it and decorate it before the rest of the building is 
 complete. This has happened with two of Mr. Street's churches, viz. 
 that of All Saints', Clifton, and St. John's at Torquay, both admirable 
 specimens of his ability. The chancel of All Saints' is decorated in- 
 ternally with stone of three different hues — white, bluish gray, and 
 light red, judiciously apposed in the construction of the piers, &c. 
 With such fair building materials as these but little carved work is 
 necessary, and to a critical eye the perpetual notching of the arch edges 
 throughout this church appears tedious. There is no type of orna- 
 mentation more mechanical or less interesting in itself than this 
 notched work ; and so much thought and ingenuity have been bestowed 
 on the building that one is impatient of details which exhibit neither, 
 and have, moreover, been woefully hackneyed elsewhere. The chancel 
 screen is an instance of Mr. Street's luxuriant fancy when let free to 
 play with brass and iron, but its elaboration is cleverly concentrated on 
 
326 Sf. Peter s Church, Van x hall. 
 
 the upper and lower portions, leaving the centre a plain transparent 
 grille of octagonal rods. 
 
 It is remarkable that this architect, who was one of the first to set 
 aside home traditions of style in favour of Continental Gothic, should 
 also be among the earliest of his professional contemporaries to return 
 to English models. Among his admirers, who watched with interest 
 the completion of St. James the Less, there was probably not one 
 who foresaw the change which was destined to take place in the spirit 
 of his design. Yet the stately church now rising in Toddington Park, 
 near Winchcomb, is eniinentlv northern in the character of its plan and 
 details. We have had a French fashion, and we have had an Italian 
 fashion : but the tide of architectural taste is once more returning to 
 our shores. 
 
 It was perhaps when the rage for foreign Gothic was at its height 
 that a building was begun in London, which, from its size, the nature 
 of its construction, and the masterlike skill of its design, deserves 
 especial mention. The Church of St. Peter's, Vauxhall, is not only an 
 excellent example of Mr. Pearson's originality in design, but may be 
 fairly described as one of the most successful instances of modern 
 ecclesiastical architecture in London. The plan and general arrange- 
 ment of this structure are extremely simple ; its most remarkable 
 features being a semicircular apse and triforium at the east end, the 
 bold and unconventional treatment of the west front, and the groined 
 vaulting which roofs the whole of the interior. It is also distinguished 
 by the very early character of its internal details, especially of the 
 carved work, which, where finished (the capitals of the nave piers are 
 still left en bloc), has been executed with great spirit and refinement. 
 
 The wall of the apse immediately below the triforium is decorated 
 with fresco paintng in seven panels or compartments, devoted to the 
 following subjects illustrative of the last incidents in the life of our 
 Lord : The Last Supper, The Agony in the Garden, Christ bearing 
 His Cross to Calvary, The Crucifixion, The Descent from the Cross, 
 
C liurch of S. Peter, / \iuxhall. 
 J. J.. Pearson, J-.S.A., Architect, 1S63. 
 
Internal Decoration of St. Peters. 327 
 
 The Resurrection, and Christ's subsequent appearance to the Apostles. 
 The figures in each subject are closely grouped and are relieved in al- 
 ternate panels on a dark blue and Indian red ground. Other tints are 
 employed to represent some of the accessories, but the figures them- 
 selves are for the most part left uncoloured, the folds of drapery, &c, 
 being expressed by lines only. 
 
 Below this series of pictures the wall is covered to a depth of about 
 eight feet with a diaper pattern in two tints of Indian red separated bv 
 a narrow band of white from the lower portion of the wall which is 
 diapered in green to a height of some three feet from the pavement. 
 The altar, which is detached from the wall, is surmounted by an alabaster 
 reredos simple in general form but judiciously enriched with coloured 
 marble and gold Mosaic. The choir stalls are extremely plain in general 
 form, and depend for their effect on the novel introduction of iron 
 grille-work which rises behind them, and forms a canopy overhead. It 
 is impossible to praise too highly the skill and attention which have been 
 bestowed on the design of these screens, and indeed on the whole of the 
 metal-work in this church. 
 
 The groined work over the chancel, nave, aisles, and north transept 
 is executed in brick with stone ribs. The nave is divided into five bays 
 by obtusely-pointed arches and columns which are nearly cylindrical in 
 plan, but from which two slender shafts project towards the aisle, appa- 
 rently for the purpose of carrying the stone ribs of the aisle vaulting. 
 
 The windows of this church are simply lancet headed without cusping. 
 At the west end they are arranged in double couples with a circular 
 cusped light over each couple. The large round window filled with 
 plate tracery, which is seen in the centre of the gable outside, lights not 
 the church itself but the roof above the groining. The square bell 
 turret which rises to the right of the gable, and the three bold 
 buttresses which descend to the narthex below are unusual features, 
 and add considerably to the original and picturesque character of the 
 composition. 
 
328 Mr. Henry JVoodycr. 
 
 Such is a brief description of St. Peter's, Vauxhall, a work which 
 must always be regarded with interest, not only on its own account but 
 as marking the extent to which the Revival was for a while influenced 
 by the introduction of a foreign element in Gothic design. The French 
 school found many admirers among the Medievalists. For accurate 
 knowledge of its details, skilful adaptation of its characteristic features, 
 and intimate acquaintance with its hagiology and iconography, Mr. W. 
 Burges was second to none. Of those who shared his views, and in 
 some cases rivalled his ability, may be mentioned Messrs. E. W. God- 
 win, G. Goldie, J. P. Seddon, and at first (though not latterly) Messrs. 
 W. E. Nesfield, R. N. Shaw, and J. F. Bentley, besides many older 
 practitioners who, like Messrs. G. Somers Clarke and R. J. Withers, 
 found themselves more or less influenced by the prevailing taste. 
 
 From these last there were, however, some notable exceptions. Mr. 
 Butterfield, for instance, modified English Gothic after his own fashion, 
 but in his hands, and perhaps from his attachment to its most charac- 
 teristic features, its tracery, its mouldings, and its wood-work, it never 
 lost its nationality. Among the earliest and most successful followers 
 of Mr. Butterfield's school — the school which has been marked through- 
 out by a steady fidelity to Middle Pointed, which has avoided the ex- 
 travagances of the Revival, and (except in a few instances) has resisted 
 the influence of Continental study — is Mr. Henry Woodyer, His 
 Church of the Holy Innocents at Highnam, near Gloucester, is an 
 example of pure scholarlike design, which, without pretending to any 
 striking originality in general composition or treatment of detail, reveals 
 itself at first sight as genuine work of its class. The tower and spire 
 are exquisitely proportioned. The interior is enriched with mural 
 paintings executed by Mr. T. Gambier Parry, at whose cost the church 
 was erected in 1849. 
 
 A smaller but perhaps not less characteristic work of the same archi- 
 tect is that of St. Raphael's College at Bristol, a set of almshouses for 
 the use of retired seamen, commenced in 1853. This modest but 
 
St. Raphael's College, Bristol. 329 
 
 eminently picturesque building, with its ample roof of tiles rising from 
 the eaves at an obtuse angle and taking a steeper pitch above, lighted 
 by dormer windows, and its snug wooden cloister extending the whole 
 length of the principal front, is thoroughly English in spirit, and ap- 
 parently well adapted for its purpose. 
 
 In the chapel attached to these buildings may be noticed many details 
 in which, though the influence of Mr. Butterfield's taste can be recog- 
 nised, there is much to identify the author's own peculiarities of design. 
 The window mullions are slight and acutely chamfered, the cusping 
 is refined and thorny in outline. There is a tendency to concentrate 
 rather than to distribute decorative features noticeable in the elaborate 
 external canopy over the east window and in the picturesque but need- 
 lessly complex construction of the wooden belfry; a tendency to 
 naturalism in the carved work, especially in the corbels of the nave 
 arcade, where, in defiance of Mr. Ruskin, running blocks and other 
 ship's tackle are literally represented by way of nautical emblems ; a 
 tendency to severity in the reredos, with its repetition of uncusped 
 pointed arches and six-winged angels only relieved from monotony by 
 the varied treatment and exquisite delicacy of the sculptured panels 
 which they enclose ; a tendency to simplicity and sober grace in the 
 general proportions of the interior — the open roof with its canted tie- 
 beam, the plain but well-studied chancel fittings and alabaster pulpit 
 
 though the purist may take exception to the chamfer decoration of the 
 last mentioned feature. 
 
 Two years later Mr. Woodyer was commissioned by Sir Frederic 
 Ouseley to design the Church and College of St. Michael at Tenbury. 
 The former is a steep-roofed and finely-composed building, depending 
 for effect on its general proportions, which are excellent, rather than on 
 any strongly emphasised or highly decorated feature. The chancel, 
 which is apsidal in plan, is lighted by long two-light windows varying 
 in tracery and carefully studied. 
 
 In his additions to Eton College, 1857, Mr. Woodyer had necessarily 
 
330 St. Paul's, Wokingham ; Surrey County Schools. 
 
 to deal with a late and debased type of Gothic, but he has made the best 
 of his conditions, and perhaps no architect of our day adhering absolutely 
 and conscientiously to the class of sculptured decoration which the style 
 admits could have treated it more effectively than he has done in his 
 entrance gateway to the new buildings, where the mural carved work, 
 though formal in general effect, is exquisitely graceful in design, and 
 where the natural foliage which enriches the panels is soberly conven- 
 tionalised without losing its vitality. Sometimes, indeed, he lapses into 
 strange eccentricities of detail, as in the interior of Christchurch, Reading 
 (1858), where the head of the chancel arch is filled with tracery sup- 
 ported by an inner and obtusely-pointed arch springing from below the 
 main impost. The canopied capitals of the piers which divide the nave 
 from the north aisle are also of a type which it is difficult to accept as 
 agreeable in an artistic sense, whatever authority there may be for their 
 use ; but even here these idiosyncrasies are redeemed by a certain refine- 
 ment of motive which is all the author's own, and never descend to 
 commonplace extravagance, while every moulding employed exhibits 
 care and purposeful design. 
 
 In the Church of St. Paul's, Wokingham (1861), one recognises less 
 individuality of conception, and impartial critics may condemn as an 
 sesthetic error the almost uniform repetition of proportion in the coupled 
 windows which occur immediately under each other in the tower. But 
 Mr. Woodyer is an artist who works with a fixed purpose, and would 
 probably be prepared to defend this arrangement by his own theories. 
 
 The Surrey County Schools (1863) are a large range of three-storied 
 buildings thoroughly English in character, but of such marked origin- 
 ality that it would be difficult to refer them, except as regards their 
 details, to any special period of old domestic architecture. Among Mr. 
 Woodyer's contemporaries there is probably but one for whose design 
 this work might be mistaken, and that is the leader of his school, Mr. 
 Butterfield. The wide but low-fronted dormers springing from above 
 the eaves, and carried back at a picturesque angle into the main roof; 
 
All Saints' Hospital, Eastbourne. 
 If. Woodyer, Architect, i86€ 
 
The Convalescent Hospital, Eastbourne. 33 1 
 
 the square-headed windows of the first floor; the simple but genuinely 
 national treatment of the ornamental brickwork ; the quaint bell turret 
 rising just where it is wanted to help the composition ; the judicious dis- 
 position of the plan, and the dignified repose of the whole building, are 
 all eminently characteristic of the author's taste. The chapel, a long 
 plain building with a round apsidal end and a clerestory lighted by 
 Early Pointed windows, is less emphatically English, but nowise less 
 graceful in its simplicity. It was raised at the expense of Mr. 
 H. W. Peek, M.P. 
 
 Another example of Mr. Woodyer's skill in domestic architecture is 
 All Saints' Convalescent Hospital at Eastbourne, a large and plain but 
 effective building, well adapted for its purpose and situation. 
 
 The fenestration is light and cheerful, the distribution of parts judi- 
 cious and none the less interesting, though perhaps somewhat the less 
 convenient, for a picturesque crowding of dormers and chimney shafts 
 in the Sisters' House. The steep gable, and open gallery on the first 
 and ground floor of this wing contribute not a little to its effect, and 
 are repeated, with some slight variations, at the entrance porch. 
 
 One special quality in Mr. Woodyer's work is that it is uniformly 
 studied throughout. It is not mere facade planning. Those portions 
 of his buildings which are at the rear and seldom seen receive as much 
 attention as the principal front. This is particularly noticeable in the 
 House of Mercy erected by the Clewer Sisterhood at Bovey Tracy in 
 Devonshire — a spacious and well-arranged group of buildings con- 
 structed of rough-dressed granite with quoins of Bath stone and tall 
 picturesquely-treated chimney shafts of red brick. 
 
 The principal front faces the south, with projecting wings at east 
 and west, the former being the loftier of the two. The difference of 
 ground level gives to the north front a height of four stories, whereof 
 the uppermost is lighted by large triangular dormers on the roof. The 
 chapel attached to the building is of lofty proportions, with a semi- 
 octagonal east end, two sides of which are panelled internally with 
 
332 The House of Mercy at Bovey Tracy. 
 
 richly-veined marble, while the reredos and east wall are lined with 
 alabaster, which material is also used for the columns and sides of the 
 lancet window above. The reredos is divided into seven niches cano- 
 pied with the acute trefoil-cusped heads which Mr. Woodyer specially 
 affects. In each niche is the figure of an angel, carved with rare 
 delicacy and refinement. The open timber roof, west gallery, and 
 wood fittings of the chapel are exceedingly simple but excellent of their 
 kind. 
 
 The picturesque and beautiful site of this building, on a hill over- 
 looking the village of Bovey and the wild moorland beyond, lend 
 additional interest to the exterior, which in effect is well suited to the 
 surrounding scenery. And this may be considered no small merit 
 when we remember that as yet time has done little or nothing to 
 beautify it. Nor does its general design, being thoroughly original, 
 affect in any absolute degree the traditions of a by-gone style. But it 
 has caught the spirit without imitating the letter of old English work. 
 It is the design of an architect who has profited by antiquarian study — 
 not that of an antiquary who has tried his hand at architecture. 
 
A Truce to the Battle of the Styles. 333 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 HE Revival had now reached a stage when its supporters found 
 themselves called upon to consider a fresh question regard- 
 ing its future progress. Their cause had so far prospered as 
 to survive popular prejudice, to be recognised and approved by a con- 
 siderable section of the artistic public, and to monopolise the services 
 of many accomplished architects. The Classic school was by no means 
 extinct, but it was in a decided minority, and chiefly represented by 
 members of the profession who had been long in practice, and 
 who, having reaped their laurels under a former condition of taste, 
 could well afford to let their younger rivals win renown by following a 
 new and different regime. 
 
 There was, in short, a truce to the Battle of the Styles, interrupted 
 no doubt by skirmishes here and there, but on the whole well and 
 generously maintained. The only wonder is how this aesthetic warfare 
 could have been so unconscionably prolonged. The waste of time, of 
 energy, and printer's ink, involved by endless discussions on the respec- 
 tive merits of Mediaeval and Renaissance architecture during twenty 
 years, can only be realised by those who have studied the current art 
 literature of that period. If anything has been left unsaid on the 
 subject, any argument pro or con omitted, any plea forgotten, it is 
 certainly not from want of pains or ingenuity on the part of disputants 
 on either side. 
 
 The Medievalists, however, left in possession of their ground, had 
 now to settle some important points among themselves. They were 
 free to follow their favourite taste, but unfortunately that taste could 
 
334 The Medievalists divided in Opinion. 
 
 no longer be considered uniform or well defined in its details. The 
 introduction of a foreign element in the Revival of Pointed Architec- 
 ture found many advocates who were weary of the cold spiritless copies 
 of old work which had long passed muster as good English Gothic. 
 On the other hand, there was a strong party who felt that in resigning 
 the nationality of their art they would yield a point which had long 
 been considered a strong one in its favour. A third, and perhaps more 
 reasonable section, openly admitted that they saw no great harm in 
 culling from Continental architecture such graces as were deficient in 
 our own, or in amalgamating in one style distinct characteristics of 
 design which would probably have been long since universally adopted 
 but for causes which had ceased to exist. 
 
 This eclecticism, especially when applied to Mediaeval design, has 
 been severely and unfairly condemned by many critics who forget that 
 every art which is not reduced to a state of stagnation must always be 
 subject to external influences, and that the facilities of travel and 
 study which we now enjoy only tend to accomplish more rapidly 
 changes which have been at all times inevitable. The history of 
 architecture in all civilised countries bears evidence of such changes, and 
 whether they are brought about by the sword of a victorious Norman 
 baron or the pencil of an industrious modern architect they will sooner 
 or later come to pass. 
 
 There is a conservative order of sentiment which sternly rejects every 
 element of architectural design that is borrowed from abroad. But if this 
 principle had always been maintained in its integrity we should now be 
 building after the fashion of our Saxon forefathers. The stanchest 
 champion of English Gothic will scarcely deny that for the vigorous 
 treatment of certain features — as, for instance, the pier, the buttress, 
 and the entrance porch, as well as for grace of form in sculpturesque 
 detail — French design of the best period realised an excellence which 
 we never attained in this country. On the other hand, there are many 
 qualities in our Middle Pointed and earlier styles wKirh are peculiarly 
 
The Eclectic and the Purist Schools. 335 
 
 adapted to our climate and national requirements. To unite these 
 distinct characteristics as far as may be possible in our modern Revival 
 seems a very natural and obvious course. To object to such a union 
 seems akin to sheer bigotry. The wholesale importation of a foreign 
 fashion in architecture, such as took place in England under the Stuarts, 
 and such as seemed possible some years ago when the rage for Venetian 
 Gothic was at its height, must be regarded as the result of mere caprice, 
 and cannot be defended on reasonable grounds. But it is quite possible 
 to avoid this extreme without running into the opposite one of excessive 
 insularity. 
 
 A similar kind of tolerance may fairly be recommended to those 
 ultra-purists who are alarmed at what they consider an anachronism 
 involved by the use of mouldings and other details belonging to one 
 period of old art, in structures of which the general form is borrowed 
 from another epoch. In such cases the only genuine test which we can 
 apply is one of educated but independent taste. Is the compromise 
 offensive to the eye ? Does it represent an incongruity of form as well 
 as an inconsistency of date ? If so, the designer is indubitably at fault, 
 but if not, there is little harm done. The antiquary may grumble, but 
 the artist will be satisfied. 
 
 To this conclusion many architects came some ten or fifteen years 
 ago, and on this principle not a few of their works have since been 
 executed. The concession was not, indeed, universal, and it showed 
 itself in various forms. There were those who, while strictly adhering 
 to the traditions of English art, had no chronological scruples. There 
 were others who thought less of crossing the Channel for a suggestion, 
 than of bridging over a gap between the thirteenth and fifteenth 
 centuries. But between them, the pharisaism of architectural design — 
 the superstitious reverence for limits of time and place which had 
 hitherto prevailed, fell gradually out of favour, and gave place to a 
 bolder and more artistic treatment of Gothic, as we shall presently see. 
 
 It has been observed that one unfortunate drawback to the progress 
 
336 Mr. T. Hudson Turner. 
 
 of the Revival in England was occasioned by the popular and deep - 
 rooted but thoroughly erroneous impression that Gothic architecture is 
 only suitable for buildings of an ecclesiastical character. The origin of 
 this impression is easily explained when we remember not only that 
 most of the richest and most remarkable relics of the Middle Ages 
 which have been preserved in this country are represented by our 
 churches and cathedrals, but that they are, from the very circumstances 
 of their public nature and uninterrupted use, always more accessible and 
 open to inspection than Mediaeval structures of a domestic class. The 
 latter are for the most part private property — sometimes country 
 mansions separated by broad acres of park land and plantation from 
 the rest of the world, and sometimes half-ruinous houses standing in 
 the poorest quarters of a country town, or if in a tolerable state of 
 preservation given up to commercial purposes which rob them of half 
 their ancient dignity. Even in places where, as at Chester and Shrews- 
 bury, a few remain intact, they cannot be planned and professionally 
 examined without intruding on the privacy of their inhabitants. 
 
 These causes naturally kept the best examples of old secular ar- 
 chitecture from the careful study and illustration which they deserved. 
 The perspective views published by Nash and others were interesting 
 from an artistic point of view, but the architect and the antiquary 
 wanted more than this. It was therefore with much pleasure that the 
 lovers of Mediaeval art hailed in 185 1 the publication of the first volume of 
 a work by Mr. T. Hudson Turner, entitled, c Some account of Domestic 
 Architecture in England from the Conquest to the end of the Thirteenth 
 Century.' It had long occurred to the author that our national records 
 might be made available for such a history, and no one was better 
 qualified than himself to conduct the search and turn it to practical 
 advantage. For many years of his life he had been gleaning materials 
 from every possible source, literary and pictorial. Mr. R. C. Hussey, 
 an architect, who had undertaken, but subsequently abandoned, a 
 similar task, made over to him the result of his own labours, while 
 
Parker s History of Domestic Architecture. 337 
 
 Mr. Twopeny, Mr. Blore, and Mr. Nesbitt placed their sketches at his 
 disposal. It was the intention of the author to extend his history 
 from the thirteenth to the fifteenth century ; but a sad fate interrupted 
 the task. Soon after the completion of the first volume Mr. Hudson 
 Turner died of consumption, and it was left to his friend and able 
 coadjutor, Mr. J. H. Parker, to add the useful and entertaining 
 volumes which have since been published. 
 
 It is the special characteristic of this work that it unites in a succinct 
 and compendious form two distinct kinds of information, viz. that 
 which is serviceable to the architect and that which is interesting to the 
 antiquary. The social habits and ordinary life of our Mediaeval ances- 
 tors are of course intimately associated with their domestic architecture, 
 and indeed it is almost necessary for the explanation of the last to under- 
 stand the former. Mr. Hudson Turner and Mr. Parker left no chan- 
 nel unexplored to arrive at this information, and the consequence is that 
 these volumes, while furnishing a vast store of technical details, may be 
 read with equal advantage by the student of art or the student of 
 history. The text is profusely illustrated by woodcuts executed by the 
 careful hand of Mr. O. Jewitt, whose knowledge of the subject enabled 
 him also to contribute some valuable notes and suggestions. Plans, 
 sections, and elevations of many a noted hall and mansion, enlarged 
 and accurate studies of doors, windows, roofs, and fireplaces abound 
 throughout the book. Even the minutiae of furniture and dress 
 receive in turn their proper share of attention. The examples of 
 domestic architecture are for the most part English, but when it 
 served their purpose neither Mr. Turner nor Mr. Parker hesitated to 
 enrich their pages with descriptions and illustrations of Mediaeval 
 France. 
 
 The truth is that even at this period the taste for French Gothic was 
 steadily gaining ground, and when, a few years afterwards, from causes 
 which have been already mentioned, its special characteristics received 
 closer and more accurate study, many of the younger English architects 
 
 z 
 
338 Unpopularity of early Art. 
 
 were naturally attracted towards a style which, in addition to its intrinsic 
 merits, had all the charm of novelty to recommend it. 
 
 Among the designs submitted for the Manchester Assize Courts that 
 of Messrs. Nesfield and Shaw found great credit among professional 
 critics for the scholarlike manner in which early French details had been 
 adapted to the requirements of a modern municipal building, and when 
 at a later period Mr. Shaw entered the lists as a candidate in the Brad- 
 ford Town Hall Competition, his conception of that building was in 
 many respects marked by a similar treatment. 
 
 But in both these cases it may be said that the taste of the designers 
 was of too quaint and archaic a fashion to find favour with that section 
 of the British public which is usually represented on a Competition Com- 
 mittee. The quality of such work is too exotic and far-fetched for 
 ordinary appreciation. It stands in the same position towards the world 
 of architectural taste as the inventions of Mr. Burne Jones or Mr. 
 Simeon Solomon occupy in regard to our modern school of painting, 
 and, bating its foreign origin, as the poems of Mr. Morris fill in 
 the field of literature. It is the prettier, more familiar, less recondite 
 art which pleases the ordinary amateur. The admirers of Wordsworth 
 and Longfellow, the admirers of Maclise and Landseer, the admirers 
 of Auber and Verdi, will always have their corresponding represen- 
 tatives among architectural dilettanti, to whom the return to earlier 
 types and more subtle conditions of structural grace seems as pedantic 
 and unintelligible as an attempt to imitate the manner of Van Eyck, the 
 versification of Chaucer, or the scientific harmonies of Palestrina's music. 
 It is strange, in these enlightened days, but none the less true, if we 
 may believe those whose acquaintance with art gives weight to their 
 opinion, that the specimens of modern house-building and church- 
 building which receive the greatest meed of praise, which are described 
 at length in public journals, and which all the world runs to see, 
 are, in the majority of cases, but commonplace inventions which owe 
 their popularity to the mere scale on which they are executed, or to the 
 
A Reaction in favour of 'Late Pointed' 339 
 
 multiplication of ornamental features which an upholsterer might have 
 devised. 
 
 B tween such work as this and that of the advanced and most 
 exclusive school of modern purists there are of course many ranks 
 creditably and honourably filled by architects whose early studies, whose 
 taste or whose range of practice may prevent their inclining to extremes. 
 It is from such men that we may expect a steady development of the 
 Revival. The morbid love of change, the restless striving after effect 
 and originality of treatment which some years ago characterised the 
 efforts of certain designers, has worked no good for the cause of Gothic 
 art, and may, if renewed at the present stage, threaten its extinction. 
 
 It is remarkable that some of the youngest English architects, who 
 at the outset of their professional career seemed pledged to the adoption 
 of foreign Gothic in its earliest form, should have since rendered them- 
 selves conspicuous by their devotion to our own national types of Late 
 Pointed work. From French art of the twelfth century to the English 
 c vernacular ' which prevailed at the close of the sixteenth, is a bold leap, 
 indicating, indeed, the unsettled state of architectural taste at the present 
 day, but also proving the remarkable power possessed by such de- 
 signers as Mr. Shaw and Mr. Nesfield, who can acquire so speedily and 
 so thoroughly the special characteristics of any style which they may 
 select for imitation. 
 
 And this peculiar ability is shown not only in the design of works 
 which from their size and costliness admit of architectural display, but 
 extends to those which not many years ago were considered beyond or 
 rather beneath the range of artistic study. Whether Mr. Nesfield has 
 to deal with a large and important country house, such as that of 
 Combe Abbey, for the Earl of Craven, or with a gate-keeper's lodge, 
 such as that lately erected in the Regent's Park ; whether Mr. Shaw is 
 planning a Thames-side warehouse or a sumptuously appointed man- 
 sion like Leyes Wood in Sussex (the seat of Mr. J. W. Temple) ; the 
 result in each case is distinguished by a picturesque management of 
 
 z 2 
 
340 Cloverley Halt \ Shropshire. 
 
 proportions, a careful modelling of details, and an ingenious use of 
 features which recall in every line the character of ancient work. 
 
 In respect of size, originality of design, and artistic treatment of 
 decorative detail, it would be difficult to select a better example of the 
 latest phase into which the Revival has entered than Cloverley Hall, 
 begun in 1862, and recently completed from Mr. Nesfield's design for 
 Mr. J. Pemberton Heywood. To describe a modern building by the 
 general remark that its style can be properly referred to no precise 
 period in the history of styles, would, not many years ago, have been 
 equivalent to pronouncing its condemnation, and even at the present 
 time there are but few designers who can depart from recognised 
 canons of taste without arriving at a result more original than satis- 
 factory. But in this admirable work Mr. Nesfield has succeeded in 
 realising the true spirit of old-world art, without hampering himself 
 by those nice considerations of date and stereotyped conditions of form 
 which in the last generation were sometimes valued more highly than 
 the display of inventive power. 
 
 Cloverley Hall is erected on a wooded slope overlooking a lake in one 
 of the most picturesque parts of Shropshire. The nature of the site 
 made it essentially a hill-side house, and thus involved an uneven dis- 
 tribution of floor-levels in its internal arrangement. Under ordinary 
 circumstances this condition of things naturally results in an irregularity 
 of elevation more compatible with artistic effect than domestic con- 
 venience. But by the ingenious planning of staircases, and a judicious 
 association of rooms en suite, this difficulty has been overcome, and the 
 peculiarity of the levels is scarcely noticeable. 
 
 The main entrance to the house is from a courtyard on the upper 
 level. It consists of a spacious vestibule panelled throughout in oak. 
 Thence access is obtained under the music gallery to the great hall, 
 about fifty-five feet long and twenty-eight feet high, the general plan 
 of which, with its ample fireplace and large bay window, is not unlike 
 that adopted in the old manor-house at Ockwells in Berkshire. The 
 
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Decoration of Clove rlcy II all. 341 
 
 walls are lined to a height of seventeen feet, with small oak panels, the 
 ceiling being trabeated and moulded in the same material. The bay 
 window is of eight lights divided horizontally by five transoms, and filled 
 with stained glass of an heraldic character, executed with great ability by 
 Messrs. Heaton, Butler, and Bayne, by whom the staircase windows, 
 &c, were also painted. The fireplace is of stone enriched with mould- 
 ings and crowned with a band of panels containing rilievi representing 
 nine of ^Esop's fables, carved by Forsyth. Above this, the oak panel- 
 ling, which reaches to the ceiling, is decorated with carved work of a 
 quaint and intricate pattern. 
 
 It is to be observed that the scheme of this pattern, like that of 
 others in the house, is eminently suggestive of a Japanese origin. 
 The introduction of this motif in a modern specimen of the Revival 
 may seem anomalous, but it has long been held by the most liberal of 
 the Mediaeval ists that there are elements in decorative design common 
 to good art of all ages, and certainly in this instance the oriental graft 
 is most fruitful in effect.* 
 
 From the great hall a short flight of steps, groined overhead, leads 
 down to the lower hall, which serves as a garden entrance and also 
 communicates with adjoining apartments. This hall is panelled with 
 long amber-coloured tiles, and enriched with a frieze of the same ma- 
 terial representing birds, &c, painted on a white ground. A second 
 flight ot steps leads upwards from the great hall to the dinino--room, 
 drawing-room, and library. The ceilings of the latter rooms are 
 executed in plaster, elaborately decorated in low relief. That over 
 the dining-room is of a constructional type, revealing large beams and 
 moulded joists, while a broad plaster frieze, representing hariers in full 
 chase, is carried round the apartment. The fireplaces in these rooms 
 — as indeed throughout the house — are richly carved and panelled. 
 
 Externally the house possesses, in addition to the general picturesque- 
 
 * A pleasant hope is entertained by some modern Gothic architects, who, like Mr. 
 Burges and others, have studied ' the figure' for decorative purposes, that as time goes on 
 the character oi" Greek sculpture may be revived in association with the Pointed arch. 
 
342 Exterior of CI over ley. 
 
 ness of its composition, many distinctive characteristics of construction 
 and design. The bricks of which the main masses of the wall are built 
 were manufactured expressly for this building on the estate, and are far 
 thinner than is usual. They are laid with a thick mortar joint, resembling 
 the style. of work in old houses of the time of Henry VIII. The parapets 
 (about three feet high) are of wood, covered with lead, which is beaten 
 outwards at intervals in the form of large rose-shaped ornaments, 
 quaintly intersecting each other. Above this parapet, on the main 
 front, rise lofty dormers, bearing in their gables sculptured represen- 
 tations of the seasons, carved by Forsyth from designs by Mr. A. 
 Moore. The effect of these figures, which are about two-thirds of life 
 size and are executed in very low relief, is very striking. 
 
 The windows throughout the house are large and boldly treated, 
 with stone mullions and square heads, the architect having evidently 
 preferred this simple type of lintel construction to a multiplicity of 
 small arches and elaborate fenestration. Indeed, the nature of the whole 
 design, refined and skilful as it is, may be described as the reverse of 
 pretentious. Its graces are of a modest, unobtrusive kind. The work is 
 homely rather than grandiose, and though it bears evidence of widely 
 directed study it certainly derives its chief charm from its unmistakably 
 national character. 
 
 It is a special aim of this school to revive, when occasion permits, 
 the distinctive traditions of style which in former days belonged to 
 certain districts of England. Thus at Leyes Wood Mr. Shaw has done 
 his best to introduce in his design the elements of old Sussex architecture. 
 The half timber construction, the tile-weathered walls, lofty chimney 
 shafts, steep roofs, and overhanging gables of this building reflect not 
 only national but local peculiarities. 
 
 If we compare a work of this description with the so-called Tudor 
 mansions which were supposed not many years ago to have realised the 
 true spirit of Mediaeval design, the extraordinary advance in at least the 
 imitative power of our architects in the present generation becomes 
 apparent. Time was when a few mullioned windows, a battlemented 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
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Mr. R. Norm an Shaw's Works. 343 
 
 parapet, and a judicious sprinkling of buttresses and pinnacles presented 
 even to people of acknowledged taste a fair embodiment of all that was 
 excellent in Gothic art. In point of real fact such features simply- 
 parodied the style from which their forms were ostensibly derived. But 
 at Leyes Wood and mansions of a similar kind there is absolutely nothing 
 in external appearance to distinguish the design and workmanship from 
 those of a building executed when this type of architecture was in 
 ordinary use. The irregularity of plan, the random intersection of 
 roofs, the dormer windows half hidden in odd corners, the fenestration 
 introduced at external angles of the house, the open defiance of those 
 principles of symmetry which were once considered essential to grace in 
 the old and academical sense of the word, all promise a complete and 
 thorough change in the aspect of our rural architecture, at least if such 
 work as this becomes popular, of which there is every probability. For 
 with all its quaintness there is nothing in the interior of the house 
 at Leyes Wood incompatible with modern ideas of comfort and con- 
 venience. 
 
 For instance, it was once assumed that the orthodox ceiling for a Gothic 
 room must be of a constructional type, or in other words that it was 
 proper to exhibit the beams and rafters overhead — a picturesque arrange- 
 ment, indeed, but one to which there were many practical objections. 
 At Leyes Wood the ceilings are of plaster enriched with delicately 
 moulded ornament in low relief. A frieze of the same material is carried 
 round the walls of the principal rooms and decorated at intervals with 
 panels in which rilievi of admirably designed foliage are introduced. 
 Again, though c pattern glazing ' is adopted for the upper portions of 
 the windows, the lower halves are filled with plate glass, thus meeting 
 the natural objection which is frequently raised against a Gothic window 
 of the primitive type, viz. that no one can look out of it with comfort. 
 These details are mentioned here, not of course as being peculiar to 
 Leyes Wood, but to illustrate a few out of numberless instances in which 
 the style adopted by Mr. Shaw admits of necessary modification without 
 the slightest sacrifice of artistic effect. 
 
344 Ley'cs Wood and Glen And red. 
 
 Nor is the application of this style at all limited by the size of the 
 house for which it is adopted. Not far from Leyes Wood is ' Glen 
 Andred,' the country residence of Mr. E. W. Cooke, R.A., also de- 
 signed by Mr. Shaw, and realising on a smaller scale all the picturesque 
 elements of old Sussex architecture. It is a special evidence of some 
 architects' ability that the character with which their works are invested 
 finds expression in minute details. The wooden architraves, door panels, 
 staircase railings, &c, which were once allowed to take their chance at 
 the contractor's hands, or were only selected from a series of patterns 
 submitted for approval, have of late years become to architects the ob- 
 jects of as much attention as the plan of a room or the proportions of a 
 facade. De minimis non curat lex is a maxim which does not apply to 
 the laws of design, and for this attention to small matters we are 
 indebted to the Gothic school, and especially to its youngest repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 There is perhaps no feature in the interior of even an ordinary dwel- 
 ling-house which is capable of more artistic treatment than the fireplace 
 of its most frequented sitting-room, and yet how long it was neglected ! 
 The Englishman's sacred ' hearth,' the Scotchman's * ain fireside,' the 
 grandsire's ' chimney corner,' have become mere verbal expressions, of 
 which it is difficult to recall the original significance as we stand before 
 those cold, formal slabs of gray or white marble enclosing the sprucely 
 polished but utterly heartless grate of a modern drawing-room. 
 
 How picturesque and interesting an object a fireplace may become 
 when designed by an artist's hand Mr. Nesficld has shown in Mr. H. 
 Vallance's house at Farnham Royal, of which the annexed woodcut 
 is an illustration. Features of a somewhat similar kind may be seen 
 at Glen Andred and in Mr. Craik's house at Shorthands, both, for their 
 size and in their respective ways, excellent examples of Mr. Shaw's skill. 
 To draw round such a cosy hearth as this is rarely given to modern 
 gossips. 
 
 The reaction in favour of English Gothic was by no means universal, 
 
Fireplace at Farnham Royal. 
 
 345 
 
 and even at the present time there are many architects whose work is 
 strongly influenced by Continental study. Among those on whom 
 study of French art has had a decided and permanent influence may be 
 mentioned Mr. George Goldie. This gentleman, formerly as a partner 
 of Messrs. Hadfield and Weightman, and subsequently on his own 
 
 account, has been chiefly employed in the design of Roman Catholic 
 churches and conventual establishments. 
 
 The part which the Church of Rome has taken in the Revival 
 is a peculiar one and not devoid of historical interest. In early 
 days, as we have seen, Dr. Milner was one of the first and most 
 
346 The Church of Rome and the Revival. 
 
 zealous supporters of the Gothic cause, which was afterwards ably- 
 advocated by the pen of Carter and sustained by the professional ability 
 (continued through three generations) of the Buckler family, whose 
 name is creditably associated with the works at Costessy Hall, under- 
 taken for a Roman Catholic nobleman (Lord Stafford). The Earl of 
 Shrewsbury, another member of the same Church, found in Pugin an 
 enthusiast whose ecclesiastical zeal was only equalled by his Mediaeval 
 sympathies ; and at the time that St. Chad's at Birmingham, St. Barnabas' 
 at Nottingham, and St. George's pro-cathedral in London were being raised 
 there is no doubt that the Church of England was far behind its rival 
 in the encouragement of Gothic art. Even at a later period the Roman 
 Catholic churches built by Mr. C. Hansom at Erdington and Liver- 
 pool, by Mr. W. Wardell at Brook Green, Clapham, Greenwich, and 
 Poplar, by Mr. Hadfield at Sheffield, Manchester, &c, and the graceful 
 chapel in Farm Street, London, by Mr. J. Scoles, were all model 
 works in their day, and equal, if not in some cases superior, to any 
 similar structures erected for the Establishment. But for all this, the 
 Church of Rome has never been so earnestly or consistently identified 
 with the Revival as the Church of England. It is well known that 
 Pugin's views on ritual and ecclesiastical usage towards the latter end of 
 his life gave offence to many who shared his faith, and after his death 
 there was a reaction in the artistic predilections of the Romish clergy 
 from the influence of which they have never been thoroughly relieved. 
 
 This reaction may be ascribed to three principal causes. The first 
 was the Irish immigration, in consequence of which the Roman Catholics 
 were suddenly called on to provide churches for nearly a million of 
 their poorer brethren, and this too in districts which could ill afford the 
 expense. Schools, priests' houses, and convents had to be erected 
 throughout the land, and in nearly every case for the smallest possible 
 amount of money. 
 
 The congregation for whose benefit these works were proposed 
 could of course contribute little or nothing towards their cost. 
 
Obstacles to R. Catholic encouragement of Gothic. 347 
 
 The wealthy Catholics had had their purses drained by subscriptions 
 levied for the richer and more artistic churches of the Revival, and the 
 consequence was that the structures which were now required had to be 
 executed in any style or no style — it mattered little — so long as they 
 were built and occupied. 
 
 The second cause which operated adversely to the interests of Gothic 
 — so far as the Church of Rome is concerned — was the introduction 
 into England of certain religious orders of an Italian origin or character. 
 Such were the Redemptorists, the Oratorians, the Passionists, &.c, 
 communities through whose influence and taste such works as the 
 Brompton Oratory (which cost no less than 22,000/.) and the Pas- 
 sionist Church at Highgate were raised. Even when Gothic was 
 adopted, the unfortunate architect found himself trammelled by specific 
 conditions which too frequently marred the effect of his design. 
 Shallow chancels, naves of disproportionate width, thin piers, and altars 
 planned after an Italian fashion became necessary, and finally, after a 
 fierce controversy, that beautiful feature in church architecture — the 
 rood-screen — was condemned.* 
 
 The third obstacle to Roman Catholic encouragement of the Revival 
 was the preference which Cardinal Wiseman entertained for Renaissance 
 art. It is true that for a time and while guided by the advice of such men 
 as the late Mr. Pugin and Dr. Rock, he offered no opposition to Gothic, 
 but his private tastes were directly at variance with Mediaeval ism, and 
 during the latter part of his life he made no secret of the fact. For 
 some years before he died most of the churches erected under his 
 authority were of a quasi-Italian character, and by no means satisfactory 
 examples of that school. 
 
 Since the Cardinal's death there has been manifest evidence of a 
 desire among the Roman Catholics to return to Pointed Architecture 
 
 * To such an extent was this form of prejudice carried, that at Clapham a rood-screen 
 of very beautiful workmanship, which was in course of completion, is said to have been 
 taken down and destroyed. 
 
348 Abbey of St. Scholasfica, Teignmouth. 
 
 for their churches, schools, and convents ; but unfortunately the de- 
 mand for cheap showy buildings has not abated, and the consequence 
 is that in this direction the artistic aspect of the Revival has consider- 
 ably suffered. There are, however, some notable exceptions. Messrs. 
 Clutton, Hadfield, Goldie, Hansom, Buckler, Willson, and Nicholl have 
 each in their several ways done their best to secure honest and sub- 
 stantial work — and to keep clear of that tawdry superficial style of 
 design which brings discredit on the Gothic cause. 
 
 The Roman Catholic Abbey of St. Scholastica at Teignmouth is a 
 very creditable example of Mr. Goldie's skill. Symmetrical in its 
 general plan, broad and massive in its constructive treatment, and pure 
 in its decorative details, it wears an appearance at once of grace and 
 solemnity eminently characteristic of the purpose for which it was 
 erected, and well adapted to its picturesque site, on a hill overlooking 
 the coast of South Devon. The principal front faces the sea and con- 
 sists of three stories, whereof the second is enriched by mural arcuation, 
 the alternate voussoirs of each arch as well as the engaged shafts on 
 which they are carried being of red sandstone. From this front two 
 wings project southwards. That on the left hand (including some of 
 the reception rooms, &c.) presents a well-proportioned gable on which 
 the arcade is repeated, with a trefoil-headed window above. The right 
 wing is a chapel, from the end of which rises a cleverly treated bell- 
 turret. Between these two wings, which reach a lower level on the site 
 than the intermediate block, a broad terrace walk is formed, intersected 
 in the centre by a flight of steps. Fastidious critics have pointed out 
 that these steps lead to no entrance doorway, that a blank dormer on 
 the left wing is improperly used as a chimney shaft, and that the upper- 
 most windows on the same side are unfortunately close to the eaves ; 
 but these are minor faults amply redeemed by more prominent excel- 
 lences in the work, which without the slightest approach to archaism or 
 pedantry realises some of the most valuable and attractive qualities of 
 Mediaeval art. 
 
jTJ- 
 
 • : 
 
 
 
 r O 
 
R. C. Church of St. Mary, Kensington. 349 
 
 The pro-cathedral of St. Mary at Kensington, also designed by Mr. 
 Goldie, is another and later evidence of the favour with which Gothic 
 architecture has been regarded by Roman Catholics during Dr. Man- 
 ning's Archiepiscopate. The external effect of this church is much 
 marred by the surrounding buildings which hem it in on every side. 
 These, however, will, it is to be hoped, disappear in due time, and allow 
 the fine proportions and rich sculpture of the western porch to be seen 
 to greater advantage than at present. 
 
 The interior is remarkable for the height of its nave, which is pro- 
 vided with a clerestory and unpierced triforium. The nave arcade is 
 pointed, but the arch soffits are flat and simply enriched by a single bead 
 moulding at the edge. The shafts are cylindrical, about two feet in 
 diameter, and of polished granite, divided at about half their height 
 by a richly-moulded stone band. The abaci and large boldly under 
 cut foliage of the capitals are decidedly French in character. The 
 carving of these features, as indeed throughout the church, is executed 
 with remarkable vigour, and is a striking contrast to the small frittered 
 style of work which passed for decorative sculpture in Pugin's days, 
 and which in a town church, where dust and soot quickly accumulate, 
 is for obvious reasons unsuitable. The roof, which is ceiled, follows 
 the outline of a trefoil-headed arch — a form not often adopted, but 
 here peculiarly effective. The bays of the south aisle are recessed for 
 altars and lighted by circular windows, each under a pointed arch. 
 The aisle walls are of brick, plastered internally. This fact, together 
 with the pure whiteness of the stone-work, gives the interior a some- 
 what cold appearance, which will no doubt be removed in time by 
 fresco painting or other chromatic decoration. There are many in- 
 cidents in the design of this church — such as the corbelling out of the 
 chancel arch — which are very ingenious and original. Every detail 
 throughout the work — even to the novel gas-standards — bears evidence 
 of artistic care, and though purists may regret the rendering of groins 
 in plaster, and the unorthodox position of the organ-loft, it would be 
 
350 IVorks of Mr. Go f die, and of Mr. Hadficld. 
 
 manifestly unfair to hold the architect responsible for conditions of 
 arrangement and economy, against which, as we know, professional 
 protests are usually of small avail. 
 
 Mr. Goldie may be said to hold a middle place between the old and 
 modern school of design. He had the advantage of starting in his 
 profession when the study of Gothic was considerably widened and re- 
 lieved from the bondage which some twenty years ago still limited its 
 range to national examples. But it is curious to mark the extraordinary 
 progress which the revived style has made in the hands of another 
 Roman Catholic architect, Mr. M. E. Hadrleld, who as a contemporary 
 of Pugin has seen a complete revolution in the principles of Mediaeval 
 art, and has managed in spite of old prejudices and early influence to 
 keep pace with the times and hold his own in competition with younger 
 rivals. The Church of St. Marie at Sheffield, opened for service in 
 1850, was then considered a model of excellence. But if we compare 
 its details with those of any of Mr. Hadneld's more recent works — that 
 of the chapel erected for the Notre-Dame Sisterhood at Liverpool, for 
 example — we shall see how great a change has taken place not only in 
 the absolute forms but in the spirit and character of Gothic since 
 Pugin's days. The apsidal end of this chapel, the plate tracery, the 
 marble shafts from which the groining springs, the fleche which rises 
 from the roof ridge, the very weathering of the buttresses, gathered up 
 in masses instead of being tamely distributed throughout their length 
 — all these indicate an advance in architectural taste which augurs 
 well for the future of the Revival, especially when we remember that 
 it is exemplified not only in the works of the rising generation of 
 architects, but in the works of those whose age and experience naturally 
 tend to keep them aloof from the extravagances of a fleeting fashion, 
 and who may be therefore supposed to have remodelled their manner 
 of design under a conviction that such a change is to be justified on 
 artistic grounds. 
 
 Regarded broadly, the association of Roman Catholicism with the 
 
Western Doorway of St. Marys (R. C.) pro-Cathedral Church. 
 
 George Goldie, Architect, 1867. 
 
The Revival independent of Religions Creed. 351 
 
 Revival may be attributed more to the accident that many eminent 
 architects, including Pugin, have belonged to that faith than to any 
 supposed sympathy between the Church of Rome and Mediaeval art. 
 Gothic architecture is now constantly adopted by Dissenters for their 
 schools and chapels, and it would be as foolish to suppose the percep- 
 tion of its merits limited to a particular sect as it certainly would be 
 bigoted to desire such a limit in any direction. The belief in good 
 art is at least a harmless creed which may be shared in common by 
 many who differ from each other on more important matters. There 
 was a time when the Pointed arch bade fair to become a symbol of ex- 
 treme views in theological controversy. But that period has long since 
 passed. The application of Mediaeval principles to the design of 
 secular buildings has tended to remove many foolish prejudices on this 
 score, and the day may be not far distant when, so far as external ap- 
 pearance is concerned, it will be difficult to distinguish the church from 
 the conventicle. 
 
352 A.D. i860 to 1870. 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 URING the last ten years to which this history extends, viz. 
 from i860 to 1870, the list of Gothic architects has reached 
 an extraordinary length, while the number of buildings par- 
 taking more or less of a Medieval character which have been erected 
 within that period is probably double that of the preceding decennium. 
 Nor is the difference of quality in this class of design less remarkable 
 than the increased range of its application. There are architects now in 
 practice, whose professional career dates from more than thirty years ago, 
 who remember what may be called the pre-Puginesque aspect of the 
 Revival, and whose works have been marked by a steady improvement 
 in artistic taste from that time to the present. But there are many more 
 who began to design under advantages which were unknown to the pre- 
 vious generation, who have learnt by degrees to distinguish between the 
 faults and merits of Pointed architecture, and who, having studied the 
 style with respect to its local and national characteristics, are enabled to 
 attain an individuality of treatment to which their predecessors could 
 
 not aspire. 
 
 In addition to the architects already mentioned there are several whose 
 work may be recognised by special traits of taste either distinctly per- 
 sonal or represented by that unconscious mannerism which results from 
 the common sympathies and artistic fellowship of a particular clique. 
 To one or other of these classes belong Messrs. Burges, E. W. Godwin, 
 Bodley, Blomfield, Seddon, Brooks, Champneys, and G. G. Scott jun. 
 
 It would be difficult, even if it were within the scope of this work, to 
 attempt so much as a general definition of the several qualities of excel- 
 
The Works of Mr. IV. B urges. 353 
 
 lence for which these artists' designs are remarkable. Disparity of age, 
 unequal opportunities, differences of professional education or line of 
 practice, would render a comparison, and even an analysis of such 
 qualities, fallacious. Of all, however, it may be said that they have 
 become known to fame, if not exactly as contemporaries, yet at short 
 intervals within the last ten years. 
 
 If the extent of an architect's practice were always in proportion to 
 his artistic ability the works of Mr. W. Burges might ere this have 
 been found in every part of England to which the Revival has ex- 
 tended. No student of his time devoted himself more earnestly and 
 sedulously to master the principles of Mediaeval design. No member 
 of his profession has striven more persistently and thoroughly to uphold 
 those principles, to advocate their general adoption, and, whenever he 
 has had an opportunity, to give them material expression. 
 
 Yet it is only since i860 that any building of importance has been 
 erected from his design. We have seen that in a competition open to 
 all Europe, after carrying off", in conjunction with Mr. Clutton, the first 
 prize for Lille Cathedral, he and his colleague were unfairly excluded 
 from the honour of erecting it. Mr. Burges has since played a prominent 
 part in more than one public competition, but in one case only has he 
 traversed this always arduous road to fame with anything like substantial 
 success. And even the cathedral church of St. Finbar, Cork, the com- 
 mission for which he gained in 1863, affords little scope for his ability, 
 not because, for its purpose, the building is a comparatively small one, 
 but because the sum set apart for its cost renders it impossible at present 
 to complete the structure in accordance with the architect's original 
 intention. 
 
 Mr. Burges's design may generally be distinguished by two leading 
 and strongly marked characteristics, viz. the tendency towards an 
 early type of French Gothic, and the attention bestowed on figure 
 drawing in decorative sculpture. The various essays which he has 
 written and the lectures which he has delivered contain ample apology, 
 
 A A 
 
354 Cathedral Church of St. Finbar, Cork. 
 
 if apology be needed, for both these peculiarities, and if, as seems likely, 
 they hereafter become the peculiarities of a school, it will be mainly due 
 to his influence and example. 
 
 Simple and severe as the west front of St. Finbar is, Mr. Burges 
 could not resist the opportunity which it afforded for the exercise of that 
 art which he holds to be the one indispensable attribute of architectural 
 effect. The spandrils of the wheel window, which occupies a central 
 position in the facade, are filled with life size rilievi of the four 
 evangelistic symbols carved in the solid masonry of the wall. In the 
 gable above a seated figure of Christ is to occupy a vesica-shaped panel 
 with angels censing on either side. Of these works, executed by Mr. 
 Thomas Nicholls from Mr. Burges's design, it is not too much to say 
 that no finer examples of decorative sculpture have been produced 
 during the Revival. They exactly represent that intermediate condition 
 between natural form and abstract idealism which is the essence of 
 Mediaeval and indeed of all noble art, and they possess the further 
 merit of being admirably adapted to their position. 
 
 Mr. Burges has done much to dissipate the frivolous extravagance of 
 detail and wilful irregularities of plan which once found favour with 
 those younger architects who for a while mistook license for freedom 
 in design and conceived that the conditions of Gothic art were not 
 thoroughly fulfilled unless one half of an elevation differed from the 
 other and every edge in masonry or woodwork were notched or cham- 
 fered. 
 
 His own work, careful and scholarlike in its treatment, never con- 
 descends to such vagaries. While devoted to the archaeological aspect 
 of architecture, and especially to the study of all the decorative arts with 
 which it is allied, he can deal effectively when occasion demands with 
 plain bricks and mortar, tempering his inventive power in such instances 
 to conditions of site and purpose which are generally considered incom- 
 patible with artistic design. A model lodging-house for the poor in 
 St. Ann's Court, Soho, and a warehouse in Upper Thames Street, 
 
New Tower at Cardiff Castle. 355 
 
 erected between 1864 and 1866, have tested this ability to the full, 
 and with a result which is hopeful for our city lanes and alleys. 
 
 One of Mr. Burges's most recent works is the new tower at Cardiff 
 Castle, recently erected for the Marquis of Bute, and perhaps no better 
 subject could have been suggested for the exercise and illustration of 
 his peculiar talents. 
 
 A tower in itself is essentially a Mediaeval structure, and this one 
 happens to unite all the architectural severity usually associated with 
 such a feature to graces of sculptured and pictorial decoration, which 
 in its internal appointments have given full scope for the designer's 
 luxuriant fancy. The outside of the tower, up to a height of about 
 sixty- five feet from the ground, is a rectangular block of masonry 
 pierced with narrow windows on three sides. At that level each wall 
 is divided into arched panels, whereof the centre is given up to the 
 clock-face and the rest are occupied by life-size figures symbolising the 
 principal planets. 
 
 The topmost story of the tower overhangs the substructure, the walls 
 being machicolated or corbelled outwards to the necessary width, and 
 the whole is surmounted by a highly picturesque roof broken into two 
 slopes by a lantern light of trefoil-headed windows. On this apartment, 
 which is appropriated as a summer smoking-room, and on those below, 
 devoted to winter occupation, the architect has lavished his utmost care. 
 Stained glass, mural painting, marble, encaustic tiles, and wood inlay of 
 a rich and delicate description will, when the work is finished, present an 
 appearance of artistic beauty which, since the Middle Ages, has rarely 
 been realised in this country. 
 
 As a rule the architect's labour terminates with the structural com- 
 pletion of the building which he is commissioned to design. The 
 interior is given up to upholsterers and decorators, who too frequently 
 are allowed to execute their work independently of his control. It is 
 to this cause that we may attribute the melancholy bathos which exists 
 between what we call fine art and industrial art in modern days. We 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 l Knight shay es! Devon. 
 
 enter a Renaissance palace or a Gothic mansion and find them 
 respectively fitted up in the style of the nineteenth century, which in 
 point of fact is no style at all, but the embodiment of a taste as 
 empirical, as empty, and as fleeting as that which finds expression in a 
 milliner's fashion book. 
 
 This goodly tower of Cardiff Castle is an excellent and notable ex- 
 ception to a foolish custom. Its interior, from roof to basement, has 
 been the object of as much care to Mr. Burges as its external aspect, 
 and down to the minutest detail exhibits evidence of thoughtful study. 
 Knightshayes, near Tiverton, the residence of Mr. J. H. Amory, 
 M.P., is another example of this architect's skill in the field of domestic 
 architecture. A reference to the illustration of this building will show 
 that, though the main front is uniform in its general masses, the entrance 
 doorway is not precisely in the centre. This slight deviation from what 
 is commonly called symmetry in design was no doubt adopted for con- 
 venience of internal arrangement, and is an instance of the ease with 
 which a Gothic elevation may accommodate itself to exigencies of plan 
 without sacrifice of artistic effect. In the case of an Italian villa such a 
 license would have been almost impossible. 
 
 The class of art to which Knightshayes belongs is of a severer type 
 than that adopted at Eatington, and less emphatically national than that 
 which characterises Leyes Wood. The reddish local stone employed 
 for the masonry is extremely hard, and there is a kind of sympathy 
 between its stern unyielding nature and the robust rather than refined 
 character of the work with which it is associated. 
 
 Massive walls, bold gables, stout mullions nearly half the width of 
 the lights which they divide, large and solid looking chimney shafts, 
 corbelled from the walls or riding on the high pitched roofs, are the 
 principal incidents which give this building dignity and effect. Such 
 gentler graces as are imparted into the design by aid of mouldings or 
 decorative sculpture (as in the central dormer) indicate a French origin. 
 The great feature of the interior is a large hall to be used for the re- 
 
1~J '■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
The Dangers of Liberty in Design. 357 
 
 ception of the owner's tenantry. This is fitted up with a gallery and 
 rostrum at one end, and is eminently picturesque both in plan and pro- 
 portions. For this quality of design as well as for a certain vigour of 
 treatment, Knightshayes may be considered a typical example of the 
 
 Revival. 
 
 There is perhaps no better sign of the extent to which architectural 
 taste has been cultivated and refined within the last ten years than the 
 marked and steady increase of simplicity in the design of Gothic — at 
 least among the most accomplished of our Mediaeval school. In the 
 earliest days of the Revival, when architects were content to copy, and 
 while a belief still lingered that the distinctive features of Pointed archi- 
 tecture could be measured out bit by bit and applied to this or that 
 facade under a system as complete, as infallible, and as decorous as that 
 which had been devised for the Five Orders during the late Renaissance, 
 dullness and formality necessarily prevailed. Then came a reaction. 
 Under the influence first of Pugin and afterwards of Ruskin, architects 
 found themselves suddenly emancipated from the conditions and restric- 
 tions which had hampered their efforts, and the result was at first 
 a reckless extravagance of design. It was delightful to invent new 
 mouldings, to revel in fresh whims of fenestration, to enliven walls with 
 local colour and sculptured ornament, to reverse accepted rules of pro- 
 portion, to set at defiance those prosy principles of art whose last-born 
 offspring had been respectable insipidity. Freedom from precedent, 
 freedom from national traditions, freedom from structural and decorative 
 conventionality, these were the watchwords of our youngest and most 
 enthusiastic reformers. They had their liberty, and like all liberty thus 
 suddenly and lawlessly attained it was wofully misused. The absurd 
 and barbarous specimens of modern architecture which have been erected 
 in this generation under the general name of Gothic have done more to 
 damage the cause of the Revival than all that has been said or written 
 in disparagement of the style. 
 
 As a matter of course educated designers recoiled from this condition 
 
358 Mr. E. W. Godwins Works. 
 
 of things, and from that time down to the present the best and most 
 scholarlike work has been also the most simple and unobtrusive in its 
 character. 
 
 It is probable that Mr. Ruskin's plea for Italian Gothic would have 
 had a more lasting and more favourable influence on our architecture 
 but for the hasty response with which it met and the manner in which 
 it was misinterpreted. Real artists shrank from the adaptation of 
 structural features and the ornamental detail which had been copied 
 ad nauseam and had been vulgarised in the copying. A single instance 
 may suffice, by way of illustration. Among those modern architects 
 whose work has always aimed at a refined and elevated standard 
 is Mr. E. W. Godwin. The Town Hall at Northampton, begun in 
 1 86 1, is an excellent example of his early taste. Its plan is at once 
 simple and ingenious. The conditions of its site admit of only one 
 facade, but that is treated with becoming dignity. Now, it is im- 
 possible to examine this front without feeling that at this period the 
 designer was strongly influenced by the then prevalent taste for Italian 
 Gothic and by the principles of design which Mr. Ruskin had lately 
 advocated. The fenestration of the principal story, the sculptured and 
 star-pierced tympana of the windows below, the character of the 
 balconies, inlaid work, and angle shafts of the tower — all suggest an 
 Italian origin. 
 
 A few years later the same architect was employed to erect the Town 
 Hall at Congleton, and a marked difference is at once observable in 
 the character of his work. Venetian angle shafts and Italian tracery 
 have become common property, and Mr. Godwin disdains to adopt 
 them. The general outline of the central tower and the open arcade 
 on the street level still indicate a lingering affection for southern art ; 
 but a French element predominates in the design, which is simpler and 
 more ascetic in its character. This tendency to shun the minutiae of 
 decorative detail, to aim at effect by sturdy masses of unbroken wall 
 space, and by artistic proportion of parts, is perhaps the main secret of 
 
Three Schools of Modern Gothic. 359 
 
 Mr. Godwin's artistic power, and has been exemplified to the full in 
 his design for Dromore Castle — lately built for the Earl of Limerick 
 — one of the most picturesque and interesting examples of domestic 
 architecture which has yet graced the Revival. 
 
 Definitions are difficult and dangerous things to employ in recording 
 the progress of modern art, but if, by way of classifying the works of 
 modern Gothic architects, it were possible to arrange them for con- 
 venience of description in three general divisions or schools, such a 
 classification might not inappropriately take the following form. We 
 should have : 
 
 First. The Traditional or Correct School, which aims as far as pos- 
 sible at a literal reproduction of art in the Middle Ages : admitting 
 no compromise, abhorrent of eclecticism, selecting one style for absolute 
 imitation, excluding on the score of taste nothing for which there is 
 authentic precedent, inclining to primitive types, tolerant of obsolete 
 contrivances, and sternly sacrificing all notions of modern comfort 
 which interfere with the conditions of ancient design. 
 
 Second. The Adaptational or Artistic School, which holds Mediaeval 
 art in high respect, but considers that it may be modified to suit the 
 requirements of the present age : testing the character of every feature 
 and the motive of every composition by abstract and aesthetic principles, 
 rejecting even traditional forms which will not bear that test, and, 
 while preserving the main unities of style, tolerant of occasional license 
 in regard to the use of details. 
 
 Third. The Independent or Eclectic School, which is regardless of 
 authority, of local peculiarities, of dates and proprieties of design, so 
 long as it satisfies individual taste : not hesitating to unite in one 
 building the distinctive characteristics of English and foreign Gothic, 
 and using Mediaeval architecture as a mere mask to modern work, fond 
 of variety and despising antiquarian considerations, inclined to start- 
 ling proportions, and not unfrequently to extravagance in decorative 
 features. 
 
360 The University College of IVales. 
 
 Between these three groups of designers there are, of course, inter- 
 mediate ranks, occupied by men who are pledged to no fixed principles 
 of taste, and who have passed from one extreme to the other as the 
 circumstances of their practice or the fleeting fashions of the day have 
 guided them. There are indeed but few Medievalists of whom it 
 may be said that they have from first to last pursued one aim unaffected 
 by the strange and conflicting influences which have been brought to 
 bear on the Revival. 
 
 Among the most notable examples of secular Gothic which have been 
 raised within the last ten years, the University College of Wales at 
 Aberystwith may be mentioned. It was begun in 1864 by Mr. J. P. 
 Seddon, an architect who was conspicuous at the outset of his career 
 as a zealous supporter of Mr. Ruskin's views, and who, with certain 
 modifications suggested by experience, has apparently adhered to the 
 principle that a free and unfettered adaptation of Mediaeval forms to 
 the practical requirements of the day is preferable to that severer and 
 more archaic type of design which is adopted by some of his contem- 
 poraries. This building, originally designed for a large hotel, was erected 
 under circumstances which must have considerably taxed the designer's 
 ingenuity and patience. It was the result cf a sudden and imperfectly- 
 matured scheme— required to be executed without an hour's delay; 
 and leaving little or no time for that forethought which every archi- 
 tect needs for his designs. So hurried was the work in its com- 
 mencement that its foundations were actually being excavated from a 
 sketch plan before the working drawings had been prepared. The 
 walls arose as if by magic : alterations were proposed and executed 
 while the structure was in progress. Here another story was added : there 
 a new wing was thrown out. Five hundred men were to be kept em- 
 ployed, and the architect had to c rough out ' his ideas as best he could 
 on paper or by means of models. It would be absurd to expect a 
 building designed and erected under these conditions to bear evidence 
 of careful study, but it is an ill wind that blows no good even to 
 
3 
 
 ?0 
 
 SJ 00 
 
 is* Vj 
 
 
 
 *, 
 
 ^ 
 
Balliol College, Oxford. 361 
 
 architectural design. The composition is exceedingly bold and uncon- 
 ventional — qualities which may to some extent have resulted from the 
 necessarily swift conception of the project, and from the piecemeal 
 character of its execution. It would be difficult to identify the building 
 generally with any definite period or local character of ancient art. 
 The nature of its fenestration — an important element in the design — 
 may be called Italian. But in the main outline its lofty tower, its roofs, 
 dormers, and other details, as well as in the type of mouldings employed, 
 the influence of French example is apparent, while the south wing, with 
 its timber framed upper story, might pass for old English work. In 
 spite of these apparently conflicting elements, the whole design is well 
 and harmoniously knit together, and if completed in accordance with 
 Mr. Seddon's intention will form a very effective group.* 
 . The year 1867 found many architects engaged on buildings which 
 either from their site, their size, or their character, represent interesting 
 points in the history of the Revival. The new buildings for Balliol 
 College, Oxford, for example, show that Mr. Waterhouse kept up 
 with the stream of advancing taste without losing that individuality of 
 design which every true art ; st wishes to retain. A marked improve- 
 ment is observable in the breadth and vigour with which this work is 
 treated as compared with earlier examples of his skill. It contrasts 
 strangely, indeed, with the old buildings by which it is surrounded, but 
 as a matter of sentiment it may be questioned whether such a contrast is 
 not an advantage when it is explained by a difference of style as well as 
 of date, while as a matter of taste posterity alone will fairly judge 
 between Oxford of the fifteenth and Oxford of the nineteenth century. 
 Is a high pitched roof more picturesque than one raised at an obtuse 
 angle ? Is an equilateral arch better than a four centred flat one ? Is 
 
 * In consequence of circumstances on which it is unnecessary to enter here, this 
 building, in an unfinished state, passed out of the hands of its original proprietor and 
 became the property of a committee, to whom the management of the proposed university 
 is entiusted. 
 
^62 ' Humewood' Co. IVicklow. Ireland. 
 
 such a lintel as Mr. Waterhouse has used for his windows — we need not 
 say the comeliest which might have been devised, but — more comely 
 than the ordinary type of Tudor window-head ? Does the building 
 altogether present a richer variety of features, a greater refinement of 
 mouldings, and on the whole more indication of artistic study than 
 if it had been a mere imitation of Brasenose or All Souls ? If these 
 questions can be answered in the affirmative — and he must be a bold 
 critic who would answer them otherwise — we may safely leave the 
 rest to the hand of time, whose artistic touch has exercised, perhaps, 
 a more potent influence than we suppose on the opinion of modern 
 amateurs. 
 
 Mr. White's name has hitherto been mentioned only in connection 
 with church architecture, and it is with this department of design that 
 it has become most generally associated. But he has also been en- 
 gaged in the design and erection of many Gothic buildings of a 
 domestic character, among which that of f Humewood ' in Ireland is one 
 of the most notable. It was begun in 1867 for Mr. W. Fitzwilliam 
 Dick, M.P. for Wicklow, and represents for special reasons a combina 
 tion of Scotch and Irish characteristics in its design. It is built of 
 granite, a material obviously involving a plain massive treatment, in 
 which the lintel must supersede the arch, and delicate mouldings become 
 impossible. To compensate for this deficiency in refinement of detail, 
 the mansion has been most picturesquely grouped with projecting bays, 
 angle turrets, stepped gables, and high pitched roofs, rising above which 
 a square tower, surmounted by a battlemented parapet, gives great 
 dignity to the composition. Though much given to antiquarian re- 
 search, and especially orthodox in the internal arrangement of his 
 churches, Mr. White has not allowed his acquaintance with Mediaeval 
 architecture to affect the character of his plan, which is studied 
 with great attention to modern convenience and requirements, nor 
 has less care been bestowed on the details and fittings whether of 
 a constructional or ornamental character. They exhibit, in many 
 

 
 
77/e Works of Mr. y antes Brooks. 363 
 
 features of the house, evidence of that artistic design by which alone 
 we can hope to revive in these degenerate days the true spirit of 
 ancient handiwork. 
 
 There are perhaps few professions, and certainly none within the 
 realm of art, exposed to such unequal chances of that notoriety which 
 should attend success as the profession of architecture. The works of 
 painters and sculptors, whose taste, whose aim, and choice of subject 
 lie widely apart, meet in an exhibition-room on common ground, and 
 appealing though they may to totally opposite classes of admirers, will 
 each in turn command such attention as they deserve. 
 
 Not so with the works of architects. One man's practice may take 
 him for years of his life into remote rural parishes, where, except by the 
 squire or parson, his work may long remain unappreciated, while his 
 luckier rival with far less ability may be called on to design a public 
 institution in some populous town, which speedily attracts attention and 
 helps him on the road to fame. There are districts and suburbs in 
 London in which if a new building is raised it stands no more chance 
 of being visited by people of taste than if it had been erected in 
 Kamschatka. What amateur or dilettante would ever think of exploring 
 such neighbourhoods as Shoreditch, Hoxton, and Plaistow in search of 
 architectural beauty ? Yet those outlying regions in the far east of 
 London contain some of the largest and most remarkable churches 
 which have been built during the Revival. Mr. James Brooks, by 
 whom they were designed, had no easy task before him. It was required 
 to make these structures the head quarters of mission work in poor and 
 populous localities. There was but little money to spend on them, 
 yet they were to be of ample size and, for obvious reasons, dignified 
 and impressive in their general effect. These conditions are admirably 
 fulfilled. One of the favourite axioms enunciated by Mr. Ruskin is 
 (or was) that there could be no artistic quality in architecture which 
 was not sculpturesque. If this element were wanting, all the rest, he 
 argued, went for nought. 
 
364 Sf. Chad's Church, Haggerston. 
 
 T The fallacy of this theory could not be better exemplified in modern 
 design than by a critical examination of these churches. There is 
 scarcely one of them in which decorative carving is a conspicuous feature, 
 and it so happens that where it is intended to be introduced as a mere 
 accessory the work has in several instances been left unfinished. 
 
 The buildings may be said therefore to depend for their effect entirely 
 on their plans and proportions, and it must be admitted that the effect 
 in each case is extremely fine. There is much in the character of Mr. 
 Brooks's work which reminds one of Butterfield. An utter absence of 
 conventionality in the treatment of features whose appearance has of late 
 years become stereotyped, a studied simplicity of details which are else- 
 where elaborate, a tendency to quaint outlines and unusual subdivision 
 of parts — such are the chief characteristics which distinguish the design 
 of both these architects, who manage to attain originality without conde- 
 scending to extravagance, and to secure for their works a quiet grace in 
 which there is less of elegance than of dignity. 
 
 St. Chad's, Haggerston, one of the group above mentioned, is a 
 lofty church faced internally with brick, and having a round open chan- 
 cel groined with the same material. The nave piers are of stone, circular 
 in plan and short in proportion to the arches which they carry. These 
 arches are obtusely pointed, and very simple in their mouldings. The 
 aisles, which are low and narrow, could not be provided with windows 
 on account of the adjacent buildings, but four large windows admit 
 ample light from the clerestory on each side of the church. The nave 
 roof is ceiled and polygonal, supported at intervals by semicircular ribs, 
 the prolongation of which, at a tangent drawn towards the clerestory 
 walls, gives them a peculiar and not very satisfactory appearance. A 
 narrow board pierced with quatrefoils does duty as a cornice. The 
 chancel is provided with a stone reredos detached from the wall and 
 enriched with diapered carving, as well as with an inlay of tiles and 
 marble excellent in taste and workmanship. South of the chancel is a 
 chapel intended for daily service, and groined, like the chancel, in brick 
 
*£HiTr.eccosc. 
 
 Church of St. Chad, Haggcvston. 
 
 James Brooks, Architect, 1 867. 
 
Church of St. Columba, Kingsland Road. 365 
 
 with stone ribs. Externally the western narthex is a striking feature, 
 and the bold fenestration of the north transept tells to advantage; but 
 the real excellence of this work consists in its grand masses of roof and 
 wall planned and proportioned with true artistic ability. 
 
 The same may be said of Mr. Brooks's other Haggerston church, 
 St. Columba, which, seen from the Kingsland Road, at its north-west 
 corner, presents an exceedingly picturesque composition, even though 
 the tower is still left incomplete. In this building the floor of the chan- 
 cel is considerably higher than the floor of the nave, and is crossed by 
 steps raised at broad intervals, and leading up to the altar. The effect 
 of this arrangement lends great dignity and interest to the interior. 
 Here the nave piers are of the < compound ' type, the aisles are spanned 
 by brick arches, the crux is groined for a central tower, the chancel has 
 a square end, and the nave roof is open timbered. In other respects 
 the general f motive ' of the interior is not unlike that of St. Chad's, 
 though the details are perhaps of a more decorative character. 
 
 The Plaistow church (St. Andrew's), which is built of Kentish rag, 
 with freestone dressings, has an arcaded clerestory, lancet windows being 
 introduced in the alternate arches. The roof is of a very simple c king- 
 post ' type, the intermediate rafters being strengthened by semicir- 
 cular ribs. 
 
 In the early days of the Revival the king-post and tie-beam were 
 rarely used — probably from some erroneous impression that they were 
 not legitimately Gothic features. It is curious to note how in this and 
 some other details the artistic conditions of Mediaeval design have been 
 widened and modified within the last few years. For example, it was 
 formerly de rigueur that the glazing of a pointed window should consist 
 of lozenge-shaped c quarries,' or in other words that the lines of lead- 
 work should cross each diagonally at an acute angle. In the churches 
 just described, and in many others of recent date, the quarries are nearly 
 square, and are separated from the window jambs by narrow borders of 
 lead- work, arranged in rectangular patterns. It is difficult to say how 
 
366 Church of the Annunciation, Chislehurst. 
 
 far such changes as these recommend themselves by their novelty, but at 
 present they certainly seem to infuse a new spirit into features which 
 have long appeared monotonous. The attention which Mr. Brooks 
 bestows on the constructive character of his work is very remarkable. 
 Nothing is more uninteresting than the cold neat look of recently 
 executed masonry. This is in a great measure owing to the uniform 
 finish and flushing of the joints, which admit of no play of light upon 
 the outer edges of each course. In St. Andrew's Church the joints were 
 raked out before the mortar had set, and the result, so far as appearances 
 and effect are concerned, is most satisfactory.* 
 
 The Church of the Annunciation at Chislehurst exhibits all the 
 qualities of good proportion and repose in its design which distinguish 
 most of this architect's works, coupled, except in one instance, viz. the 
 notching of the wall plates, with greater refinement and beauty of detail. 
 Its fenestration is, however, marked by great peculiarities. The west 
 window consists of a number of round lights associated in triple groups 
 and enclosed by a circle. This arrangement, owing to the judicious dis- 
 tribution of external mouldings, looks well from outside, but is scarcely 
 so well adapted for internal effect. The design of the western doorway 
 is very quaint and original. It has no real porch, but the masonry by 
 which it is enclosed projects slightly from the wall behind, and is carried 
 up in the form of a gable on the arch mouldings. Two other 
 features in this church may be mentioned, if only to indicate the advance 
 which we have made in what may be called the common-sense treatment 
 of Gothic. 
 
 There is a flying buttress on the south side of the chancel, where it 
 is required to resist the thrust of the chancel roof. But the plan of 
 the church renders this unnecessary on the north side, where the walls of 
 the sacristy afford sufficient abutment. 
 
 There is also a chimney shaft rising from the chancel wall, which, 
 
 * This method could not be universally adopted without incurring practical objections 
 on which it is unnecessary to enter here. 
 
^ 
 
 ■^ 30 
 
 ^ 00 
 
 
 ^s 
 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 V 
 
 o 
 
French and English Types. 367 
 
 though by no means an unpicturesque object, is unmistakably designed 
 to carry off smoke and nothing else. Now, if this church had been 
 planned in the early days of the Revival, the architect's aim would have 
 been to secure uniformity, and what was then considered elegance, at a 
 sacrifice of more practical considerations. We should have had two 
 sacristies or two flying buttresses, one on each side of the chancel, and 
 the chimney shaft would have been converted into a decorative feature of 
 some kind terminating perhaps in an open turret or pierced pinnacle — 
 some wretched compromise between use and ornament, but really serving 
 neither one purpose nor the other. Let us be thankful that we have 
 arrived at an age when architectural taste seeks higher objects than to 
 make two sides of a church precisely alike, and when no part of a 
 building which serves its purpose honestly is considered undignified. 
 
 There seems to be no reason for supposing that the present struggle 
 for pre-eminence between French and English types of Gothic in this 
 country will terminate for some time to come ; and indeed so long as 
 both schools of art find able representatives among our architects, they 
 might be maintained side by side with mutual advantage — the English 
 supplying a standard of sobriety, repose, and refinement, while the 
 French might serve as a model of strength, boldness, and breadth in 
 design. As years roll on a style may arise which shall represent a fusion 
 of these distinct qualities, with additional characteristics marking the 
 epoch of their union, and affording more scope for originality and in- 
 ventive power than has yet been possible. 
 
 Meanwhile it is interesting to note that in proportion as the taste for 
 Continental Gothic gains influence in one direction, a steady reaction 
 propitious to home traditions of style is spreading in another. Count- 
 less examples of this influence and this reaction might be quoted ; 
 but two will perhaps suffice, each being the work of a veil-known 
 architect and recently completed, to illustrate these opposite extremes 
 of contemporary taste. 
 
 In the suburbs of London no church has of late deserved or won more 
 
368 Sf. Stephens Chuvch, Hampstcad. 
 
 notice than that of St. Stephen, erected at Hampstead by Mr. S. S. 
 Teulon. Its picturesque site, on a slope rapidly inclining from west to 
 east, the novelty of its proportions, and the beauty of the materials used 
 in its construction, present in themselves no small attractions, even to 
 the ordinary observer, but for architects and amateurs it has a deeper 
 interest in the strongly-marked assimilation of an early French character 
 which its design reveals. The walls are mainly built of fine hard brick 
 ranging in colour from pale gray to Indian red, the admixture of which 
 tints gives them at a little distance a rich stippled texture which is very 
 agreeable. Stone and granite are also largely employed for the quoins 
 and dressings. The illustration which is appended to this chapter 
 renders a description of the exterior unnecessary ; but it may be well to 
 explain that the central tower has yet to be finished, and that the west 
 end is provided with a wide porch or narthex, which forms a picturesque 
 feature in the composition. 
 
 The interior is sumptuously decorated, especially at the east end, 
 where the apse is groined, and its walls are inlaid with gilt mosaic work. 
 The chancel arch is corbelled out on panelled blocks enriched with 
 sculpture in high relief, illustrating the life and death of St. Stephen. 
 The pillars of the nave arcade are cylindrical, supported on high plinths, 
 and crowned with boldly carved capitals varying in design. The 
 arches are admirably proportioned to the height and plan of the church, 
 and though fastidious critics may object to the notched and billet- 
 moulded edges of the brickwork introduced, it must be remembered 
 that this mode of decoration has been approved and adopted by some of 
 the leading architects of the Gothic school. The open-timbered roof 
 over the nave is an excellent example of constructive skill, and we need 
 only compare it with the poor lean-looking specimens of frame-work 
 which shelter some of the early churches of the Revival, to feel that in 
 the design of those features whose effect depends on a judicious com- 
 bination of art and science we have left the last generation far behind. 
 
 To select this building as an example of the extent to which modern 
 

 Church of S. Stephen, Hampstead. 
 
 S. S. Tiidon, Arc lulcct, i860. 
 
Church of St. John the Baptist, Liverpool. 369 
 
 Gothic has been, or may be, affected in this country by Continental 
 study would be unfair both to the designer and to some of his con- 
 temporaries. In many respects it retains a national character, while 
 certain details — as, for instance, the ornamental brickwork of its in- 
 terior — can scarcely be referred to any precedent but that of modern 
 fashion. At the same time it represents a sufficiently wide departure 
 from English tradition to be fairly contrasted with works in which 
 respect for that tradition is conspicuous. 
 
 The church of St. John, in Tue Brook, a suburb of Liverpool, is an 
 admirable model of the latter class, recently completed from the design 
 of Mr. G. F. Bodley, whose earlier work, St. Michael's, at Brighton, 
 was one of the first to attract attention by its quaint and original cha- 
 racter, but who in this instance has returned to that type of Middle 
 Pointed art which reached its highest grace towards the middle of the 
 fourteenth century. 
 
 Carefully and ably as the leading elements of that style have been 
 revived by the architect, accurate and refined as the treatment of form 
 throughout the church assuredly is, whether we examine the outline and 
 proportions of its tower and spire, the fashion of its window tracery or 
 the profile of its mouldings, it is probable that these merits would have 
 received respectful rather than enthusiastic admiration, but for one 
 additional element of beauty which pervades the whole buildino- from 
 its primary construction to the last touch of its embellishment. This 
 element is the charm of colour. 
 
 The walls are built of red and white sandstone — not arranged in 
 formally alternate courses, nor yet with studied irregularity, but inter- 
 mixed in such a manner as to relieve the eye by variety without 
 fatiguing it by repetition. For this happily unconscious treatment of the 
 material, Nature herself offers the best authority, seeing that the red 
 sandstone is streaked with veins of white and the white with veins of 
 red. Not all the scientific treatises on polychromy could have supplied 
 a better scheme. 
 
 B B 
 
370 Internal Decoration of St. John's Church. 
 
 Internally, for reasons which will presently appear, this variety 
 of natural tint is avoided, and where the stone is visible its prevailing 
 hue is light Indian red. The seats and wood fittings throughout the 
 church are stained black. This simple chord of colour forms a fitting 
 prelude to the interesting harmonies which follow. Almost the whole 
 of the interior is given up to pictorial decoration. The chancel screen, 
 of a type well known in Yorkshire, is groined out with delicate ribs of 
 wood to support the rood loft above, which is divided into panels 
 enriched with figure subjects and foliage admirably designed and exe- 
 cuted. The clerestory is occupied between the windows by mural 
 paintings (executed in tempera) of the twelve Apostles, the four Evan- 
 gelists, &c. A more conventional but still chromatic treatment is 
 reserved for the aisle walls and roof, both of which are, with sound 
 judgment, kept in a light key of colour. 
 
 But it is on the space usually occupied by the west window and on 
 the wall above the chancel arch that the artist, Mr. C. E. Kempe, has 
 reserved his greatest care. On the former appears a large and grandly 
 treated painting of the Tree of Jesse in which the figures introduced 
 are nearly life size. 
 
 In composition, in delineative power, in judicious choice and associa- 
 tion of colour, as well as in attention to the proprieties of costume and 
 other details, this work is worthy of all praise, but it is rivalled, if not 
 surpassed, in excellence by that which is executed on the •chancel wall. 
 Among the sacred allegories which have found expression in Christian 
 art there is none more significant or beautiful than that of the Tree of 
 Life as symbolised by the Crucifixion. Mr. Kempe has approached 
 this subject in a manner befitting its dignity and pathos, neither aiming 
 at unnecessary archaism nor adopting a mere pictorial and naturalistic 
 treatment. The design is, in the highest aesthetic sense of the word, 
 conventional, but it belongs to that order of conventionalism in which 
 the element of beauty predominates. The Tree of Life is of course the 
 Cross, at the foot of which stand the Virgin Mary and St. John with 
 
Future Prospects of the Revival. 371 
 
 angels on either side bearing gold censers. These last figures are 
 draped in robes of white and salmon colour, which, relieved on a back- 
 ground of dark olive-green foliage, produce a most lovely combina- 
 tion of tints. Above, the Tree blossoms into fruit representing the 
 Virtues, and the allegory is rendered complete by medallion portraits 
 of the Prophets, and the sacred emblem of the pelican, introduced as 
 decorative adjuncts. 
 
 In this truly admirable work the genuine grace of Medieval art 
 seems at length to have been reached. In the architecture which it 
 decorates no appreciable inferiority, whether of design or execution, to 
 the type selected for imitation, can be discerned. Our too sophisticated 
 age may want the rich instincts of inventive genius, which in days of 
 yore made our streets interesting, our houses loveable and our churches 
 sublime. It may want the simplicity of popular faith, nay, the very 
 social conditions which would render a return to Mediaeval principles 
 universally acceptable. But at least we have learnt, or there are those 
 among us who have learnt, in what those principles consist. 
 
 That is something to have attained. A more difficult problem, how- 
 ever, still remains to be solved. Is this quaint old-world fashion of 
 structural design which for thirty years past has engaged the attention 
 and bewitched the fancy of so many practical men — members of a pro- 
 fession which is now no less a business than an art — is this long-lost 
 tradition of the Middle Ages destined, as time rolls on, to reach and 
 influence the taste, not only of our architects and amateurs, but of 
 everyone who builds a house or owns a shop throughout the land ? If 
 not, it is to be feared that our neo-Mediasvalism will share the fate of 
 the Classic Renaissance, which rising to magnificence in Whitehall has 
 descended to meanness in Baker Street. A style of architecture which 
 cannot accommodate itself to the common requirements of social life 
 which is beyond the reach of ordinary means, and which is reserved for 
 a special class or for a special purpose, can have no genuine, and there- 
 fore no permanent, existence. On the other hand, to drag Gothic down 
 
372 Conclusion. 
 
 to the level of a cockney villa, to parody its characteristic features in 
 plaster and cast iron, to degrade its fairest details, as the details of Greek 
 and Roman architecture have already been degraded in this country, 
 would be intolerable. The only escape from this dilemma lies in 
 a twofold reform — Architects must learn to sacrifice something of 
 their antiquarian tendencies : the Public must learn to sacrifice some- 
 thing of their conventional taste. 
 
 By dint of earnest study and endless experiments, by help of theory 
 and precept, by means of comparison and criticism, the grammar of an 
 ancient art has been mastered. Shall we ever be able to pronounce its 
 language — not in the measured accents of a scholastic exercise, but 
 fluently and familiarly as our mother-tongue ? Will a time ever arrive 
 when, freed from the idle prejudices, the pedantry, the false sentiment, 
 and the vulgarisms which have hampered its utterance and confounded 
 its phraseology, this noble and expressive language shall be used 
 throughout the land, retaining here and there provincial idioms — rising 
 to eloquence in our towns and majestic emphasis in our public buildings, 
 telling of rural beauty in the village homestead, exciting devotion in 
 every church, proclaiming comfort in every home, and stability in every 
 warehouse ? Then and not till then shall we possess — if it be worth 
 possessing — a really national architecture. Then and not till then will 
 the Gothic Revival be complete. 
 
SELECTED 
 EXAMPLES OF GOTHIC BUILDINGS 
 
 ERECTED BETWEEN 1820 AND 1870. 
 
 C C 
 
374 Selected Examples of Gothic Bui I dings 
 
 No. 
 
 1 
 2 
 
 5 
 6 
 
 7 
 8 
 9 
 
 lO 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 Date 
 
 1824 
 1825 
 
 1825 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 St. Luke's Church Chelsea 
 
 The Hall, Christ London 
 Church Hospital 
 
 Costessy Hall . Norfolk 
 
 826-28 St. Peter's Church Brighton 
 
 1826 
 1827 
 
 1828-32 
 1828-38 
 1829-31 
 
 1830 
 
 1831-33 
 
 1831 
 1832 
 
 1832 
 
 1832-34 
 
 St. Katherine's 
 Hospital 
 
 The Scotch Church 
 
 Moreby Hall 
 
 Mamhead . 
 
 St. Dunstan\s-in- 
 the-West 
 
 South Borough 
 Church 
 
 St. Peter's Church 
 
 Riverhead Church 
 St. George's Ch. . 
 
 Westminster Hos- 
 pital 
 
 St. Peter's Colle- 
 giate Church 
 
 London 
 
 Regent Square, 
 London 
 
 Near York . 
 Near Exeter 
 Fleet St., London 
 
 J. Savage 
 J. Shaw 
 
 J. C. Buckler 
 
 SirC.Barry,R.A. 
 
 A. Poynter. 
 SirW.Tite, F.R.S. 
 
 Perpendicular 
 Tudor . 
 
 Tudor . 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 Tudor . 
 Perpendicular. 
 
 Kent . 
 
 Great Yarmouth 
 
 Near Sevenoaks 
 
 Woburn Square, 
 London 
 
 Brond Sanctuary, 
 Westminster 
 
 Stonyhurst, Lan- 
 cashire 
 
 A. Salvin, F.S.A. Tud 
 A. Salvin, F.S.A. 
 J. Shaw 
 
 lor 
 
 D. Burton 
 J. J. Scoles 
 
 D. Burton . 
 L. Vulliamy 
 
 J. Inwoods 
 J. J. Scoles 
 
 Tudor . 
 Perpendicular 
 
 Early English. 
 Perpendicular 
 
 Early English. 
 Perpendicular . 
 
 Tudor 
 
 Perpendicular 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 375 
 
 Remarks 
 
 1. The earliest groined church of the modern Revival. (See p. 141.) 
 
 2. Foundation stone laid May 25, 1825, by the Duke of York. This was considered a magnifi- 
 
 cent work at the time. Portions of the old edifice had fallen into decay, and it was found 
 necessary to rebuild them. (See p. 126.) 
 
 3. Erected for the Earl of Stafford. Built of red and white brick, with stone dressings. The 
 
 old mansion (of Queen Mary's time) still occupies the site of the intended hall and prin- 
 cipal staircase. The gallery is 109 ft. long, with draped panelling of oak round the walls ; 
 drawing-room, 43 x 26 ft., communicating with library of like dimensions; dining-room, 
 50 x 30 ft. ; machicolated and embattled tower, 132 ft. high. The principal apartments and 
 offices are picturesquely arranged round the fountain court and belfry court, the north side 
 being bounded by a river. (See p. no.) 
 
 4. The principal feature in this church is the quasi-west (really south) tower, which consists of 
 
 two separate structures, one inside the other, the space between being groined over. The 
 inner tower is carried up two stages higher than the outer, with which it is connected 
 by flying buttresses, and terminates with four octagonal turrets. The main entrance 
 porch is beneath this tower. The nave has apsidal end, but there is no chancel. The 
 interior is fitted up with galleries, and is groined throughout in plaster. Although very 
 unorthodox in plan, the building exhibits evidence of study in many of its details. 
 
 5. One of the first public works with which the architect's name was associated. (See p. 128.) 
 
 6. A singular instance of the adoption of Gothic for a London church at this time. Sii W. 
 
 (then Mr.) Tite was also employed, under Mr. Laing, to re-erect the church of St. Dun- 
 stan's-in-the-East. 
 
 7. Erected for Henry Preston, Esq. Built of brick faced with stone. (See p. 129.) 
 
 a. Mansion erected for Sir R. W. Newman, Bart. Built of stone. (See p. 130.) 
 
 9. The internal plan of this church is octagonal, the sides of the octagon forming a series of 
 recessed bays, which are alternately groined and waggon-vaulted ; that on the north side 
 is used as a quasi-chancel. The clerestory is lighted by eight windows filled with stained 
 glass, above which rises a groined dome with a central pendant. On the south side is a 
 square tower crowned by an octagonal lantern. The main entrance to the church is under 
 this tower. 
 
 10. Built of local freestone. Nave, 63 x 40 ft. ; chancel, 17 x 9 ft. ; tower, 9 ft square. 
 
 11. One of the 'Commissioners' Churches.' Cost 7,600/. Nave, aisles, chancel (with oak 
 
 screen), clerestory, and panelled roof with porch and lofty square tower, in five stories, at 
 west end. Built of white Suffolk brick, with Bramley Fall stone dressings. General 
 dimensions, 120 x 60 ft.. Height of tower, 90 ft. ; to top of spire, 107 ft. Constructed 
 to accommodate 1,800 persons. 
 
 12. Erected for the Trustees. Built of rag-stone, &c. 
 
 The plan of this church is quasi-cruciform, and the interior is fitted up with galleries placed 
 •vts-a-vu. The west front has five doorways, of which three are real and two are sham 
 The tower occupies a central position and is surmounted by a stone spire. Middle pointed 
 windows, filled with late tracery Flat roof of pseudo-Gothic type. Walls of brick, with 
 stone dressings, piers, &c. There is no chancel. 
 
 A commonplace design, presenting a large front with mullioned windows, central porch, &c. 
 Gothic (such as it is) was probably selected for this building on account of its proximitv 
 to the Abbey. r j 
 
 13. 
 
 lft. 
 
 15. 
 
 Erected for the Society of Jesus. Built of stone. Nave (121x29 ft.), aisles, and transepts ; 
 clerestory windows and panelled root, with principals carried on corbels. East window 
 hlied with stained glass by Miller. Described in the ' Oithodox Journal ' of May 16, 1 8 35 
 
 C C 2 
 
376 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 18 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 21 
 
 22 
 23 
 
 24 
 25 
 
 26 
 
 27 
 28 
 
 29 
 
 30 
 31 
 32 
 
 33 
 
 34 
 
 35 
 
 Date 
 
 1833 
 
 ^35 
 
 '835-45 
 
 1837 
 
 1838 
 
 18^8 
 1838 
 
 1838-40 
 1839 
 
 1839 
 
 1839 
 1839 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 R. C. Ch. of Our i St. John's Wood, \ J. J. Scoles . 
 Lady London 
 
 R. C. Church of 
 St. Ignatius 
 
 Baynard's Park . 
 
 1836-38 Goring Church . 
 
 Scotney Castle 
 
 R. C. Ch. of St. 
 Marie 
 
 Trinity Church . 
 
 School for Indi- 
 gent Blind 
 
 R.C.Ch ofS.Chad 
 
 HoushS of Par- 
 liament 
 
 Ch.ofSt. Matthew 
 
 Queen's College . 
 Parish Church 
 
 Preston , Lanca s h i re 
 
 Near Cranleigh, 
 Surrey 
 
 Near Worthing . 
 
 Sussex 
 Liverpool . 
 
 Eastbourne, Sussex 
 
 St. George's Fields, 
 London 
 
 Birmingham 
 
 Westminster 
 
 Listei Street, 
 Birmingham 
 
 Bath . 
 
 Leeds, Yorkshire 
 
 1839-56 DorsetshireCounty Dorchester 
 Hospital 
 
 1840 St. Augustine 
 Chapel 
 
 1840 Magdalen College 
 Gaieway 
 
 St. Peter's Church 
 
 1840 
 
 1 840-41 
 
 Lean Side Church 
 
 1 841 Trinity Church . 
 
 1841 
 
 Martyrs' Memorial 
 
 Flinwell, Kent . 
 
 Oxford 
 
 Fleetwood, Lanca- 
 shire 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 Oxford 
 
 J. J. Scoles . 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 D. Burton, F.R.S. 
 
 A. Salvin, F.S.A. 
 A. W. Pugin . 
 
 D. Burton . 
 
 J. Newman, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 A. W. Pugin 
 
 Sir C. Barry, R. A. 
 
 Thomas 
 
 J. Willson . 
 
 R. D. Chantrell . 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 D. Burton, F.R.S. 
 
 A. W. Pugin 
 
 D. Burton, F.R.S. 
 
 G. G. Scott, R. A. 
 H. J. Stevens 
 
 G.G.Scott, R. A. 
 
 Early Engli>h 
 
 Perpendicular . 
 Tudor . 
 
 Decorated 
 
 Tudor . 
 
 Decorated 
 
 Early EnglUh 
 Tudor . 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 Tudor . 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 Norman 
 XIV. century 
 
 Manorial 
 Gothic 
 
 Early English 
 
 Temp. Henry 
 VI. 
 
 Early English 
 
 Early English 
 Early English 
 
 Decorated 
 
16 
 
 17. 
 18. 
 
 erected between 1820 and 1870. 377 
 
 Remarks 
 
 This church is remarkable for having been mentioned by Billings in his ' History of the 
 Temple Church,' as the best modern work then designed on that model. It is built of 
 brick with stone dressings, and vaulted, but the groins are executed in lath and plaster ! 
 The nave piers are formed with a stone core in the centre, and small cast-iron shafts 
 attached. General dimensions, 113 x 43 ft. ; height, 34 ft. 
 
 Built of stone. Cruciform plan with tower and spire. Clerestory windows and porch under 
 tower. General dimensions, 96 x 48 ft. ; height of spire, 112 ft. 
 
 Additions to an old mansion, originally built for Sir George More, but disfigured by modern 
 alterations. Mr. Ferrey added the clock-tower, staircase, music-room, offices, &c, and 
 restored the hall to its original design, with oak roof, minstrels' gallery, &c. Rickman 
 had been previously employed, but died during the progress of the works. 
 
 19. Erected for David Lyon, Esq. Walls of rubble-work (stone and flint) stuccoed externally; 
 
 roofed with slates; wooden spire covered with copper. Chancel, 35x20 ft.; nave, 
 59 x 23 ft. ; aisles, 46 x 14 ft. 
 
 20. Erected for Edward Hussey, Esq. Built of stone. This mansion is, for its date, a very credit- 
 
 able specimen of revived Tudor Gothic. (See p. 1 30.) 
 
 21. An excellent example of a town church. (See p. 161.) 
 
 22. Built of stone and brick. Nave, 60 x 40 ft. ; chancel, 14 x 9 ft. ; tower, 13 ft. square. 
 
 23. Built of white brick, with Park Spring stone dressings. The architect of this building also 
 
 designed the Roman Catholic church at Finsbury Circus. 
 
 24. One of Pugin's most important works. (See p. 156.) 
 
 25. The first stone of this great work laid 'without ceremony,' March 5, 1839. (^ ee P- '75-) 
 
 26. Open timber roof. Tower and spire 125 ft. high. This was the first of a series of ten 
 
 churches erected in this town. 
 
 27. Erected on Claverton Down. Estimated cost 30,000/. 
 
 28. The same architect designed a church at Middleton, Yorkshire, and the 'Poole' Chapel, 
 
 near Otley. 
 
 29. This building was erected by degrees. The chapel, forming part of south wing, in the Second 
 
 Pointed style, was erected at the expense of N. Williams, Esq., then M.P. for Dorchester. 
 Dimensions: Centre part, 110x30 ft., with projecting porch and wings, 65x28 ft.; 
 chapel, 65 x 28 ft. Very picturesquely situated. 
 
 30. Built of local freestone. Nave, 52 x 27 ft. ; chancel, 12 x 6 ft. ; tower, 9 ft. square. 
 
 31. A pure and graceful example of the architect's skill. 
 
 32. Erected for Sir H. P. Fleetwood, Bart. 
 
 33. One of the earliest works executed by the architect. Built of Coxbench stone. 
 
 34. A galleried church, with nave, aisles, raised chancel, west tower, and spire ; open timbered 
 
 roof of nine trusses carried on corbels ; five triple lancet windows in clerestory ; wheel 
 window at east end, with lancet light on each side. Nave, 80 x 54 ft. ; chancel, 25 x 19 
 ft; spire, 172 ft. high. Cost 10,000/. 
 
 35. Designed on the model of an 'Eleanor' Cross. Divided in three stories with canopied 
 
 niches, pinnacles, &c, richly carved. Figures executed by Mr. H. Weeks. This 
 monument was greatly admired and attracted much notice at the time of its erection. It 
 is generally admitted to be a mo^t creditable work tor its date. 
 
378 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 36 
 
 1841-43 
 
 Ch. of St. Giles . 
 
 Camberwell, 
 London 
 
 G. G.Scott, R. A. 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 37 
 
 1841-43 
 
 Clyffe House 
 
 Toncleton, near 
 Dorchester 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 Manorial 
 Gothic 
 
 38 
 
 1841-43 
 
 Ch. of St. James 
 
 Mansfield, Sussex 
 
 R. C. Carpenter . 
 
 Early Pointed . 
 
 39 
 
 1842 
 
 Ch. & Monastery 
 of St. Bernard 
 
 Leicestershire 
 
 A. W. Pugin 
 
 Early Pointed . 
 
 40 
 
 1842 
 
 R. C. Chinch . 
 
 Stockton-on-Tees 
 
 A. W. Pugin 
 
 Early English . 
 
 41 
 
 1843 
 
 Lincoln's Inn Hall 
 
 London 
 
 P. C. Hardwick, 
 F.SA. 
 
 Tudor 
 
 42 
 
 1843-44 
 
 Hildenboro' Ch. 
 
 Near Tunbridge, 
 Kent 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Early English . 
 
 43 
 
 1844 
 
 R. C. Ch. of St. 
 Francis Xavier 
 
 Liverpool . 
 
 J.J. Scoles . 
 
 Decorated 
 
 44 
 
 1844 
 
 St. John's Hospital 
 
 Alton, Stafford- 
 shire 
 
 A. W. Pugin 
 
 Perpendicular . 
 
 45 
 
 1844 
 
 R. C. Church of 
 St. Barnabas 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 A. W. Pugin 
 
 Early English . 
 
 46 
 
 1844-46 
 
 Ch.of St. Andrew 
 
 Wells Street, W. 
 London 
 
 S. W. Dawkes . 
 
 Third Pointed . 
 
 47 
 
 1844-49 
 
 R. C. Ch. of the 
 Immaculate 
 
 Conception 
 
 Farm Street, W. 
 London 
 
 J. J. Scoles . 
 
 Late Decorated 
 
 48 
 
 1S45 
 
 R C. Church of 
 St. Wilfrid 
 
 Manchester . 
 
 A. W. Pugin 
 
 Early English . 
 
 49 
 
 1845 
 
 Butleigh Court . 
 
 Near Glastonbury 
 
 J. C. Buckler 
 
 Henry VI. 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 379 
 
 Remarks 
 
 36. Built of Sneaton stone, with Caen stone dressings. (See p. 221.) 
 
 37. Erected for the late Charles Portlier, Esq. Built of" Portland and local stones, brick, tiles, 
 
 &C. General dimensions, 100 x 62 ft., the centre portion and wings slightly projecting 
 from the main front. 
 
 38. This was considered, at the time, one of the most correctly designed churches of the 
 
 Revival. The plan consisted of a nave and chancel, south aisle and south porch, with a 
 small vestry on the north side of the chancel. 
 
 39. Erected for the Roman Catholic Community of English Cistercians. These buildings, 
 
 which are picturesquely situated, consist of a cloister, church, chapter-house, refectory, 
 dormitory, guest-house, prior's lodgings, &c. The design of the whole is simple to 
 severity, the massive walls of rubble granite, long narrow windows, steep roofs, and gables 
 being thoroughly characteristic of old monastic architecture. 
 
 40. A small but elegantly proportioned church, of which the design is considerably in advance 
 
 of its date. 
 
 41. Built of red brick with groins and dressings of Anston stone; wainscot fittings throughout, 
 
 and open oak roofs over hall and library. Hall, 120 x4.5 ft. and 62 ft. high ; vestibule, 
 58 x 22 ft ; council chamber and drawing-room each 32 x 24 ft. ; library, 80 x 40 ft. and 
 44 ft. high. (See p. 21 1. ) 
 
 42. Erected by subscription. Built of Kentish rag and local sandstone. Fittings of deal. 
 
 43. Erected for the Order of Jesuits. Nave, aisles, and chancel. Iron columns used for nave 
 
 arcade. The altars and internal fittings of this church are very rich in sculptured decora- 
 tion, and were designed at a later period by Mr. S. J. Nicholl, a pupil of Scoles. (See 
 p. 244.) 
 
 44. Erected, for the Earl of Shrewsbury, on a steep rock some hundred feet in height. The 
 
 buildings were planned to surround three sides of a quadi angle, but the design was net 
 carried out in i f s entirety. They include a chapel, school, warden's lodgings, cloister, &c, 
 all built of stone ; the principal roofs, floors, &c, being of English oak. The chapel is 
 richly decorated internally. 
 
 45. A large cruciform church, in which the choir and high altar are surrounded by aisles, with a 
 
 Lady chapel beyond. Beneath the choir is a crypt, of which the vaulting is carried on 
 two rows of short columns. The interior is sumptuously fitted up with a large rood-loft, 
 and oak screens of open tracery and panelled work enclosing the chapels, &C. The choir 
 and sanctuary are paved with encaustic tiles. 
 
 46. Nave, aisles, and chancel, with engaged tower and spire at west end of north aisle. Though 
 
 late in style and fitted up with galleries, this church was one of the best erected in London 
 at this time. It is carefully designed throughout. (See p. 247.) 
 
 47. Nave, aisles, and chancel. Richly treated west front with angle turrets, and circular 
 
 window in gable ; lofty arcade and clerestorv ; polveonal panelled roof ; chancel decorated 
 with colour and gilding under direction of Mr. Buhner. Stained glass by Wailes. This 
 church was one of Mr. Scoles's most successful works. Nave, 102 x 27 ft. ; chancel, 
 27 x 26 ft. ; aisles, 45 x 13 ft. 
 
 48. The cost of this church, with the priests' house attached to it, did not exceed 5,000/. (See 
 
 p. 160.) 
 
 49. Erected for the Hon. and Very Rev. G. Neville Granville. The hall is entered by a lofty 
 
 porch. The elevations are varied in design, and embellished with buttresses, turrets, 
 battlements, and other features suited to the style and to their positions. Built o* blue 
 lias and Doulting -tone. Doors of English 0:1k rich in mouldings and ornament .. 
 
380 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 so 
 
 1845 
 
 Ch. of St. John the 
 Baptist 
 
 Cookham Dean . 
 
 R. C. Carpenter . 
 
 Decorated , 
 
 51 
 
 1845-47 
 
 Ch. of" St. Stephen 
 
 Westminster 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 Decorated 
 
 52 
 
 1845 
 
 R. C. Church of 
 St. George 
 
 Southwark . 
 
 A. W. Pugin 
 
 Decorated 
 
 53 
 
 1845-47 
 
 Ch. of St. Thomas 
 
 Douglas, Isle of 
 Man 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Early English . 
 
 54 
 
 1845-50 
 
 St. Augustine's 
 College 
 
 Canterbury . 
 
 W. Buiterfield . 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 55 
 
 1846 
 
 St. Andrew's Ch. 
 
 Birmingham 
 
 R. C. Carpenter . 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 56 
 
 1846-47 
 
 Ch. of St. Paul . 
 
 Alnwick. 
 
 A. Salvin, F.S.A. 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 57 
 
 j 846-48 
 
 St. Paul's Church 
 
 Brighton 
 
 R. C. Carpenter . 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 58 
 
 1 846-48 
 
 Ch. of All Saints 
 
 North Ferriby, 
 Yorkshire 
 
 J. L.Pearson, F.S.A. 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 59 
 
 1846-48 
 
 Ch. of St. James . 
 
 Weybridge, 
 Surrey 
 
 J. L.Pearson, F.S.A. 
 
 Decorated 
 
 60 
 
 1846-49 
 
 St. Mary's R. C. 
 Cathedral Ch. 
 
 Burnley, Lanca- 
 shire 
 
 Hadfield and 
 Weightman 
 
 Very Earl) 
 Decorated 
 
 61 
 
 1846-50 
 
 H. C. Church of 
 St. Mary 
 
 Sheffield . 
 
 Hadfield and 
 Weightman 
 
 English Deco- 
 rated 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 381 
 
 Remarks 
 
 50. A small but well studied church. Nave, aisles, chancel, south-west porch, and bell turret. 
 
 Built to hold 300 persons. Cost, 1,300/. 
 
 51. One of the most complete and costly churches erected at this time in London, and one of 
 
 Mr. Ferrey's most successful works. It was founded by the Baroness (then Miss) Burdett 
 Coutts. (See p. 247.) 
 
 52. The most important work executed by Pugin in London. (See p. 155) 
 
 53. Erected near the shore. Built of local rubble and black limestone. Internal fittings of 
 
 deal. 
 
 54. Erected for A. J. B. Beresford-Hope, Esq., and a Committee. The first important work 
 
 undertaken by the architect. Built of Caen stone, flint, and Kentish rag. (See p. 225.) 
 
 55. Built of red sandstone. Nave arcade of five arches ; well-proportioned window of four 
 
 lights at west end ; sacristy at south-west of chancel ; parapet of tower pierced with 
 trefoils and decorated with ball flower ornament ; octagonal stone spire and gabled spire 
 lights. Dimensions : Chancel 38 ft. and nave 86 ft. North aisle and engaged tower 
 at west end. (See p. 223.) 
 
 56. Erected for the Duke of Northumberland. The plan consists of a lofty nave, with aisles and 
 
 clerestory ; an aisled chancel ; a western tower ; north porch, and sacristy on south of 
 chancel ; east window of five lights, and flowing tracery. The mouldings of this church 
 are well studied. 
 
 57. A large church, capable of holding 1,200 people. It consists of a nave, two aisles of 
 
 unequal size, a chancel, and north-east tower. The chancel is of unusually grand 
 proportions for the time at which it was built. It has a seven-light east window, and 
 three windows on the south side of three lights each. Stalls and chancel screen (one of 
 the few sanctioned) of oak and richly carved. No clerestory but lofty nave arcade. 
 Open timbered roof. The windows throughout the church are filled with stained glass 
 by Hardman from designs by A. W. Pugin and Mr. Carpenter. Tower at present 
 only carried up to belfry stage. It was the architect's intention to add a lofty spire 
 of stone. 
 
 58. Built on the site of an old church, some portions of which were worked up with present 
 
 building. Nave of four bays ; clerestory lighted by round windows j low aisles ; well- 
 developed chancel, with east window of five lights ; tower about 54 ft. high, surmounted 
 by a lofty broached spire, one of the first which was constructed with an entasis. The 
 church is built of local ' rubble,' with dressings of Mexborough stone. 
 
 59. As originally built, this church consisted of a nave and aisles 63 ft. long and 50 ft. across, 
 
 with north and south porches. West tower with lofty stone spire, chancel (34 x 17 ft.) 
 with vestry on the north side. It has since been enlarged by the addition of a second 
 south aisle to nave. Short aisles have also been added to the chancel. The peculiarity of 
 this structure is the use of chalk for all the pillars, arches, and ashlaring. The chalk was 
 obtained from quarries near Guildford, and is veined like white marble. The effect of 
 this material is very striking. 
 
 60. Built of stone. Spire not yet completed. N.B. In the reference to this church, p. 243, line 
 
 4, for latter read former. 
 
 61. The design of this building is, with certain modifications, based on a study of Heckington 
 
 Church. It is cruciform in plan, with a tower and spire at the south-west end. The 
 chancel is richly fitted up with a reredos, stone and metal parcloses, oak stalls, sedilia, and 
 a handsome rood screen. The nave consists of six bays, lighted by clerestory windows. 
 A mortuary chapel is added to the north side of the north aisle, to which it is open under 
 a double arch, and contains an altar tomb, with a recumbent erfigy of the founder. Many 
 of the windows are filled with stained glass of excellent quality. Dimensions: 143 ft. 
 long j 90 ft. across transepts \ tower and spire 195 ft. high, built of stone. (See p. 243.) 
 
382 Selected Examples of Got /lie Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 62 
 
 1847 
 
 R. C. Church of 
 
 St. Giles 
 
 Cheadle 
 
 A. W. Pugin . 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 63 
 
 1847 
 
 Landwade Hall . 
 
 Cambridgeshire . 
 
 J. C. Buckler . 
 
 XV. century . 
 
 64 
 
 1847-48 
 
 Ch. of the Holy 
 Trinity 
 
 Leverstock, Herts 
 
 R. & J. Brandon 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 65 
 
 1847-48 
 
 Ch. of St. Matthew 
 
 City Road, Lon- 
 don 
 
 G. G. Scott, R.A. 
 
 Early Pointed . 
 
 66 
 
 1847-48 
 
 Ch. ofS. Philip . 
 
 Leeds . 
 
 G. G.Scott, R.A. 
 
 Early English . 
 
 67 
 
 1 847-49 
 
 Penn Wood Ch. 
 
 Near Amersham 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 68 
 
 1847-50 
 
 Peckforton Castle 
 
 Near Tarporley, 
 Cheshire 
 
 A. Salvin, F.S.A. 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 69 
 
 1848-49 
 
 Ch.of S. Barnabas 
 
 Pimlico, London . 
 
 T. Cundy . 
 
 Early English . 
 
 70 
 
 1848-50 
 
 Treberfydd House 
 
 Near Brecon, 
 South Wales 
 
 J. L.Pearson, F.S.A. 
 
 Manorial Go- 
 thic 
 
 71 
 
 1848-50 
 
 Aldermaston 
 Manor 
 
 Berkshire . 
 
 P. C. Hardvvick, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 Manorial Go- 
 thic 
 
 72 
 
 1848-51 
 
 Subdeaneiy Ch. . 
 
 Chichester . 
 
 R. C. Carpenter . 
 
 ' Flowing ' 
 Decorated 
 
erected between 1820 ami 1870. 383 
 
 Remarks 
 
 62. This church, erected at the expense of the Earl of Shrewsbury, was perhaps the most costly- 
 
 one for its size which Pugin executed. The interior is completely covered with decorative 
 painting. The rood screen is of a very elaborate design. The east window is of five 
 lights. In the wall, on either side, are stone niches richly canopied, and containing statues 
 of the Blessed Virgin and St. Giles. Over the altar is placed a stone screen of tabernacle 
 work, with figures of the Apostles. The church has a lofty tower and broached spire at 
 its west end. 
 
 63. Erected for Alexander Cotton, Esq., on the site of an old moated mansion, portions of 
 
 which were retained and incorporated with the new building. A large embattled tower 
 stood at the inner angle of the front. At the south-west angle, on the edge of the moat, 
 an octagonal turret was added for strength to the ancient wall. The interior is fitted with 
 oak screens, panelled work, carved chimney-pieces, &c. The approach is over a bridge 
 of three arches. Built of red brick, with richly-ornamented chimneys and stone dressings. 
 
 64. Erected for the Earl of Verulam and other subscribers. Walls of flint, with Caen stone 
 
 dressings. Nave, 4.9x19 ft.; chancel, 26x16 ft., with sacristy on north side. Small 
 clerestory; open timbered roof. Cost, j,6oo/. 
 
 65. Nave of five bays, with clerestory and aisles ; raised chancel, sacristy, and tower at east end 
 
 of south aisle, with stone spire and angle spirelets ; open timbered roof over nave ; chancel 
 roof polygonal ; east window of five lights. 
 
 66. Built for J. G. Marshall, Esq. Nave of five bays, with aisles and clerestory ; chancel, 
 
 with sacristy on north side ; south tower and spire. Walls are of ' Bramley Fall ' stone 
 externally, and Caen stone inside. The church is vaulted with stone throughout. 
 
 67. Built for the Earl Howe on a spot selected by the late Queen Adelaide, who presented a 
 
 stained-glass window to the church. Materials used in construction were flint, Bath stone, 
 and indurated chalk of the neighbourhood. It is m ft. long, and has a lofty central 
 tower and spire. 
 
 68. Erected for J. Tollemache, Esq., M.P. Built of stone with interior fittings of oak. View 
 
 engraved in 'Illustrated London News/ 
 
 69. Erected for the Rev. W. J. E. Bennett, now Vicar of Frome. (See p. 248.) 
 
 70. Erected for Robert Raikes, Esq. Mr. Pearson was at first employed to make a small 
 
 addition to a square-built modern house, but from time to time further alterations were 
 required until at last nearly the whole of the original house was pulled down. Unfor- 
 tunately, however, some of the old arrangement of rooms, Sec, had to be retained, which to 
 some extent interfered with the architect's intentions in design. The materials used in 
 the construction were red sandstone and Bath stone dressings. The garden and grounds 
 were carefully laid out in character with the architecture by Mr. Nesfield. 
 
 71. Erected for Higford Burr, Esq. The first country house on which the architect was 
 
 engaged. The site is very picturesque. The house stands on a natural terrace over- 
 looking a park filled with oak trees and the valley of the Kennet. The tower is the 
 most conspicuous object, and groups well with the gables and other portions in eveiy 
 direction. The materials used were red brick and Bath stone. Dimensions: 170 x60 ft., 
 exclusive of stables. 
 
 72. This church was built to supply the place of one found in the north transept of the Cathedral, 
 
 but which was incorporated with the Cathedral when that building was restored. 
 The church is built of Caen stone throughout, with richly-moulded windows on the 
 south side and larger windows at the east end. The nave and chancel are nearly of 
 the same width as the south aisle and chancel aisle, and extend to the same length. A 
 tower was proposed for erection at the west of the south aisle, but has not yet been built. 
 The nave arcade is of lofty proportions. The details have been worked out with great 
 care and the flowing tracery of the windows is very beautiful. 
 
384 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 73 
 
 74 
 75 
 76 
 
 77 
 
 78 
 
 79 
 80 
 
 81 
 
 82 
 83 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 1 849-50 
 
 1849-51 
 1849-52 
 1849-51 
 
 1849-51 
 
 1849-51 
 
 1849-52 
 1849-52 
 
 Ch. of St. Matthew 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 Lanscove, Devon . J.L Pearson, F.S. A. E.irly Decorated 
 
 Ch. of the Holy Haverstock Hill, 
 Trinity London 
 
 Sketty, near Swan- 
 sea 
 
 Church of St. Paul 
 Ch. of St. James . 
 
 Choristers' School 
 
 Church of the 
 
 Holy Innocents 
 
 Tortworth Court 
 
 Church of the 
 Holy Trinity 
 
 1849-51 St. Mary Magda- 
 len Church 
 
 1849-51 
 1849-59 
 
 Devonport 
 
 Magdalen Coll., 
 Oxford 
 
 Highnam, near 
 Gloucester 
 
 T. H. Wyatt 
 H. Woodyer 
 J. P. St. Aubyn 
 
 J. C. Buckler 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 
 Geometrical 
 Pointed 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 Second Pointed 
 
 XV. century 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 Gloucestershire 
 Westminster 
 
 S. S. Teulon . Tudor 
 J.L. Pearson, F.S. A. Early Decorated 
 
 Merthyr Manor 
 Church 
 
 All Saints' Ch. 
 and two houses 
 
 Munster Square, 
 London 
 
 R. C. Carpenter . 
 
 Near Bridgend, J. Piichard 
 
 Glamorganshire 
 
 Margaret Street, 
 London 
 
 Decorated 
 
 W. Butteiricld . 
 
 First Pointed 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 385 
 
 Remarks 
 
 73. The details of tliis church are very simple. The south aisle has a pointed roof, like the nave, 
 
 and abuts at the east end against the tower, which is square in plan, and about 4.0 ft. high, 
 with spire 53 ft. high. Chancel of full dimensions, and properly stalled. Walls of local 
 stone, with Bath stone dressings. 
 
 74. Nave, aisles, and chancel. Tower and broached spire, with gablets, &c, at west end. 
 
 Built of Swanage stone. General dimensions, 133 x 73 ft. (See p. 301.) 
 
 75. Length, 120 ft. ; spire (of shingled oak), 100 ft. high. Walls of limestone, with Bath 
 
 stone dressings. 
 
 76. Erected for the Rev. A. B. Hutchinson at a cost of 6,288/. ; will hold 1,093 persons. It 
 
 has a tower and spire on south side, with porch below ; nave arcade of five bays, clustered 
 piers; clerestory has five two-light windows; roofs open timbered and of good pitch. 
 Built of limestone, with Bath stone dressings. Nave, 80x27 ft.; aisles, 80x15 ft.; 
 chancel, 37 x 24 ft. ; steeple, 125 ft. high. The parsonage house and schools form with 
 the church three sides of a quadrangle, and are built of the same materials. 
 
 77. The front towards High Street presents an elevation of five bays divided by buttresses, and 
 
 containing a range of square-headed transomed windows. The north elevation is distin- 
 guished by a central porch, with a book-room over, approached by a turret staircase. The 
 parapet is embattled, and the east and west walls terminate in gables. Open timbered 
 roof, with arches springing from stone corbels. Walls of Bladon stone, with Park Spring 
 and Box Hill stone dressings. General dimensions, 70 x 25 ft. 
 
 78. Lofty tower of three stages, and octagonal spire. Below the belfry stage there is a deep band 
 
 of ornamental panelling, with shields, &c. The buttresses, cornice-mouldings, &c, are 
 well studied. The interior, which is very complete in effect, includes a lofty chancel 
 with a ceiled roof, a rich chancel arch and oak screen, nave arcade of five bays, clerestory 
 lighted by quatrefoil windows, &c. Length, 130 ft. ; spire, 200 ft. high. Built of gray 
 stone, with. Bath stone and Devonshire marbles. Contains decorative paintings by T. 
 Gambier Parry, Esq., at whose expense it was erected. 
 
 79. Built for the Earl of Ducie. The walls are of stone from the estate. Dimensions, 
 
 200 x 115 ft. 
 
 80. Cruciform plan, with aisles to the nave and chancel. A central tower and spire, nearly 200 
 
 ft. high. The tower is open internally to a height of 55 ft., and forms a lantern, which 
 is groined over. There is a spacious sacristy on the north side. The chancel is raised on 
 steps and richly paved with encaustic tiles, the altar itself being placed on a footpace. 
 The organ stands in the north chancel aisle ; the east window is of seven lights. Stone 
 pulpit elaborately carved, and enriched with black marble shafts. 
 
 81. The plan consists of a nave and chancel with wide south aisle. The north aisle was pro- 
 
 posed to be of the like dimension but was never built. A south-west tower and spire. 
 The motif of this design was the Church of Austin Friars. It has no clerestory, but 
 nave arcades of great height. The windows are filled with stained glass, the east 
 window having been designed by Pugin. The west window (by Clayton and Bell) 
 was filled with stained glass as a memorial to the architect by his friends. The 
 chancel has mural arcuation, with marble shafts and richly-decorated canopies. This 
 church is one of the few in which the architect was enabled to carry out his views 
 completely without being hindered by pecuniary considerations. (See p. 250.) 
 
 82. Erected for the Right Hon. John Nicholl. Built of a local flat bedded stone, with dress- 
 
 ings of Sutton stone. Nave, 41 x 22 ft. ; chancel, 26 x 16 ft. 3 in. 
 
 83. This church, one of the most unique and sumptuously-decorated buildings of its class in 
 
 London, was erected at the cost of Mr. Henry Tritton and other subscribers. It was. 
 the first important modern structure for which brick was used in a decorative and 
 artistic manner. Stone, granite, marbles, alabaster, and tiles were also employed. The 
 interior is further enriched with inlaid patterns in mastic, and with fresco paintings 
 by the late Mr. Dyce, R A. The east and north walls are built against other struc- 
 tures, and were therefore unavailable for windows. (See p. 252.) 
 
386 Selected Examples of GotJiic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 84 
 
 85 
 
 86 
 
 87 
 
 89 
 90 
 
 91 
 
 92 
 93 
 
 94 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 1850-52 St. Matthias's Ch. Stoke Newington, W. Butterfield 
 
 London 
 
 1850-59 
 
 1850 
 
 1850 
 
 Ch. of St. Stephen 
 
 Ch. Sec. of St. Serf Burntisland 
 
 Devonport 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 J. P. St. Aubyn . Second Pointed 
 
 Abbey Mere 
 
 88 1850-53 St. Peter's Church 
 
 1850-53 
 
 1850-54 
 
 1851 
 
 1851-53 
 1851-53 
 
 1851-53 
 
 Westroof Hall . 
 Ch. of St. John . 
 Ch. and College . 
 
 Ch. of St. John . 
 St. John's College 
 
 Plymouth 
 
 R. C. Carpenter . Early Scotch, 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 W. Butterfield 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 Elsted, nr. Peters- B. Ferrey, F.S.A. Geometrical 
 field, Hampshire Second 
 
 Pointed 
 
 Diocesan Tiinity 
 School 
 
 Near Leek, Staf- 
 fordshire 
 
 Weymouth, Dor- 
 set 
 
 Isle of Cumbray, 
 Scotland 
 
 Kenelwark, Kent 
 
 Hurstpierpoint, 
 Su-sex 
 
 Hadfield.Weight- ', XVI. century 
 man & Goldie Domestic 
 
 Saltley, near Bir- 
 mingham 
 
 T.T.Bury.F.S.A 
 
 W. Butterfield 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Decorated 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 Decorated 
 
 R. C. Carpenter . j Early XIV. 
 century 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 XIV. century 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 387 
 
 Remarks 
 
 84. A very original and grandly-proportioned work, which attracted much notice on its comple- 
 
 tion. It is built Or common white brick with but little stone dressing. The plan consists 
 of a nave with lofty clerestory ; rather low aisles, and a massive gabled tower, which rises 
 over junction of nave with chancel, and is carried on two arches which span the church 
 transversely ; the sanctuary is waggon-vaulted in red brick, with stone ribs ; the east 
 window is of five cinquefoiled lights with a traceried circle. The church is provided with 
 gas standards, elegantly designed and wrought. General dimensions, 135 x 45 ft. ; height 
 to ridge of roof, 70 ft. The parsonage was added a few years later. 
 
 85. Erected for the Rev. G. Proctor. The site of this church is bounded on three sides by 
 
 streets, and the whole area is occupied by a square plan, comprising nave and north aisle, 
 without clerestory ; chancel and large east tower. The chancel is fitted up with stalls 
 and subsellte. The window tracery is varied, but rather late in style. Built of limestone, 
 with Bath stone dressings. Chancel fittings oak; roof timbers deal. Nave, 66 x 20 ft. ; 
 aisles, 66 x 16 ft. 5 chancel, 35 x 16 ft. ; tower and spire, 160 ft. high. The south aisle is 
 still unbuilt. 
 
 86. This group of buildings includes a church, schools, parsonage, and baptistery. The three 
 
 latter are complete, and the church is in progress. The style of the house is after the 
 ancient Scottish model, with stepped gables, &c. The baptistery, which forms a distinct 
 building at the west end of the church, is octagonal, and groined with stone. The design 
 of the house is on a grand scale, with nave, aisles, apsidal chancel, and north-west tower 
 and spire. It is to be erected at the cost of the incumbent. 
 
 87. Various buildings, including residences, gateway, hall, large printing-rooms, &c, erected for 
 
 Miss Sellon. Materials used : local stone, with Bath stone dressings. (See p. 256.) 
 
 88. Elected at great cost by the late Rev. L. Vernon-Harcourt. Mr. Sharpe, the author of 
 
 ' Architectural Parallels,' describes it as one of the best modern churches of its time. It 
 stands on the slope of one of the South Down hills, and is a conspicuous object from the 
 surrounding country. The materials used in construction were local stone and Caen stone, 
 with Minton's tiles for internal decoration. The woodwork is of oak throughout. 
 Nave, 56 x 20 ft. ; chancel, 36 x 17 ft. ; aisles, 9 ft. wide ; tower and spire, 96 ft. high. 
 
 89. A large and important pile of buildings, constructed of red sandstone. 
 
 90. Built of rubble, faced, and Bath stone dressings. Nave and aisles, 75 ft. long, and 49 ft. 
 
 across; chancel, 30 x 19 ft. ; tower, 19 ft. square, and 140 ft. high to top of spire. 
 
 91. Erected for the Hon. G. H. Boyle (now Earl of Glasgow). The buildings are terraced on 
 
 the side of a hill at several levels. Materials used : local stone, with some Aberdeen 
 granite ; mosaic work of tiles, &c. 
 
 92. Built of local ' rag ' and white sandstone. General dimensions, m x 48 ft. 
 
 93. The first of the great schools erected by Canon Woodard in connection with the College at 
 
 Lancing. It accommodates 350 boys. The buildings are planned in two quadrangles, 
 measuring respectively 118x150 ft. and 123x150 ft. The dormitories accommodate 
 fifty boys each. There is a large dining hall with an open timber roof. The chapel 
 (at present unfinished as regards the ante-chapel) was designed by Messrs. Slater and Car- 
 penter. A flight of fourteen steps leads to the altar. The reredos (partly completed) is 
 of alabaster and marbles richly carved by Forsyth. Walls of the main building are of 
 flint, with Caen stone dressings. Roof of brown tiles. 
 
 94. Planned in a quadrangle ico x 82 ft., surrounded by buildings 30 ft. wide, with slightly 
 
 projecting wings, bay-windows, &c. Built of Bath stone and rag stone of the neigh- 
 bourhood. Cost about 12,000/. 
 
388 
 
 s 
 
 elected Examples of Goi 
 
 V/ir Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 95 
 
 1851-55 
 
 ' Holy Catholic & 
 Apostolic Ch.' 
 
 Gordon Square, 
 London 
 
 R. Brandon 
 
 Early English . 
 
 96 
 
 1851 
 
 Danesfield Church 
 
 Berkshire 
 
 A. W. Pugin . 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 97 
 
 1852 
 
 St. John's Church 
 
 Eton, Windsor . 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 98 
 
 1852 
 
 Estbury Alms- 
 houses 
 
 Lambourne, Berks 
 
 T.T.Bury,F.S A. 
 
 Tudor . 
 
 99 
 
 1852 
 
 Forest Hill . 
 
 Christchurch, 
 Kent 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Decorated . . 
 
 100 
 
 1852-61 
 
 Ch. of All Saints 
 
 Kensington Park, 
 Notting Hill 
 
 W.White, F.S.A 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 101 
 
 1852-62 
 
 Ch. of St. Stephen 
 
 Tunbridge, Kent 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Early English 
 
 102 
 
 1852-53 
 
 Oxford Diocesan 
 Training College 
 
 Culham 
 
 J. Clarke, F.S.A. 
 
 XIV. century . 
 
 103 
 
 1852-54 
 
 Ch. of St. Stephen 
 
 Redditch, Wor- 
 cestershire 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 104 
 105 
 
 1852 
 1853-70 
 
 Christ Church . 
 Ch. of St. Peter 
 
 Glanogwen, near 
 Bangor 
 
 Bournemouth 
 
 T. H. Wyatt . 
 G. E. Street, R.A. 
 
 Early Pointed . 
 
 Early Middle 
 Pointed 
 
 106 
 
 1853-60 
 
 Ch. of St. Mary 
 
 Buckland St. Mary, 
 Chard, Somerset 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 Late Second 
 Pointed 
 
 107 
 
 1853-54 
 
 Theological Col- 
 lege 
 
 Cuddesdon, Wheat- 
 ley, Oxford 
 
 G.E.Street, R. A. 
 
 Early Middle 
 Pointed 
 
 108 
 
 1853 
 
 St. Aidan's Theo- 
 logical College 
 
 Birkenhead 
 
 T. H. Wyatt and 
 D. Brandon 
 
 Tudor . 
 
 109 
 
 1853 
 
 1 
 
 Dunstall Church 
 
 Burton-on-Trent 
 
 H. Clutton . 
 
 XIV. century . 
 
erected between 1820 and 1S70. 389 
 
 Remarks 
 
 95. One of the largest and most imposing modern churches in England. It contains an area 
 
 of 20,000 square ft. Its internal length is 212 ft. 5 width from north to south of 
 transepts, 77 ft. ; width of nave and aisles, 56 ft. Built of Bath stone, with groined 
 chancel and presbytery, &c. When completed, the church will be extended 40 ft. west- 
 ward, and the central tower and spire will be carried up 300 ft. high. 
 
 96. Erected for Mr. Scott Murray. This was the last work, which Pugin executed. 
 
 97. Erected for the Provost and Fellows of Eton College. The foundation stone was laid by 
 
 the late Prince Consort, who took much interest in the building. Nave, 101 x 23 ft. 
 Tower and spire, 160 ft. high. Built of Bath stone, Kentish rag, and brick. 
 
 98. These buildings occupy four sides of a quadrangle, with a cloister on each side, into which 
 
 the rooms open. The entrance is in the centre, with a tower above. Built of brick, with 
 stone dressings. General dimensions, including principal's house, 90 x 80 ft. 
 
 99. Erected by subscription. Built of Kentish rag and Box stone dressings. General dimen- 
 
 sions, 146 x 60 ft. 
 
 100. A large church treated with much originality. The tower, which is at the west end, has 
 
 an octagonal belfry stage in stone of varied tints. After the completion of the main 
 fabric it stood unfinished for some years. It then passed into other hands, when the 
 fitting and decorative portions were carried out under the supervision of a civil engineer ! 
 (See p. 291) 
 
 101. In plan a broad parallelogram under a low pitched roof, with no external distinction 
 
 between nave and chancel. To^erat east end of south side. A group of five lancet 
 lights forms the east window. Roofs open timbered, but ceiled over chancel. Nave 
 arcade of five bays and a half. Plain cylindrical shafts with well-moulded caps and 
 bases. Built of Kentish rag and local sandstone. General dimensions, 104 x 66 ft. 
 
 102. Quadrangle with chapel, principal's and masters' house. Calculated to accommodate about 
 
 1,000 pupil teachers. 
 
 103. Length, 165 ft.; width, 96 ft. ; spire, 148 ft. high. Built of local sandstone and Bath stone. 
 
 104. Built of stone. Nave (with clerestory), chancel, and aisles. Tower and broached spire at 
 
 south-west. One of many churches erected by Mr. Wyatt in Wales. 
 
 105. This work consisted in the remodelling of an inferior modern structure. The plan com- 
 
 prises a nave of five bays with aisles, a groined chancel with aisles, and western tower. 
 The west portion of the north chancel aisle, used as an organ chamber, opens with a 
 single arch to the chancel. The clerestory has two-light windows in each bay. The 
 tower and spire are at the west end, with a small staircase at the north-east angle. The 
 chancel is richly decorated with marble, &c. The works are still in progress. 
 
 106. Built of flint and Hamden Hill stone. This is one of the first modern churches which con- 
 
 tain sculptured figures in niches. The pulpit, chancel screen, &c, are richly decorated. 
 
 107. Built for the Bishop (Wilberforce) of Oxford. A simple but picturesque pile of buildings, 
 
 chiefly depending for effect on artistic proportions. The upper story is lighted by large 
 dormers with hipped gables. Most of the windows are square-headed, and arranged in 
 long rows with discharging arches above. An octagonal staircase turret, and an open 
 cloister running the whole length of the structure, are conspicuous features in the design. 
 Further additions and a larger chapel are proposed. 
 
 108. A large and important group of buildings, three stories in height. Built of brick, with 
 
 stone dressings. The principal fronts haveoriel windows, stepped gables, &c. General 
 dimensions, 240 x 190 ft. 
 
 109. Erected for John Hardy, Esq. A small church, built of Dufneld Bank stone, and Holling- 
 
 ton stone. 
 
 D D 
 
390 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 no 
 
 11 
 
 112 
 
 113 
 
 114 
 
 Date 
 
 i853-55 
 1853-65 
 
 i853-55 
 1854-65 
 
 i854-55 
 
 Building 
 
 Ch. and College 
 of St. Raphael 
 
 House of Mercy, 
 Orphanage, and 
 Hospital 
 
 Ch. of St. John . 
 
 Church, Parsonage, 
 Schools, Alms- 
 houses, Sec. 
 
 Ch. of St. Luke . 
 
 Situation 
 
 115 
 
 1854-70 College of SS. 
 Mary & Nicho 
 las 
 
 116 
 
 117 
 
 118 
 
 Bristol 
 
 Bovey Tracey, 
 Devon 
 
 Bedminster, Bris- 
 t 1 
 
 Boyne Hill, near 
 Maidenhead 
 
 Marylebone, 
 London 
 
 Lancing, Sussex 
 
 1854. Jesus College 
 
 1854-55 
 
 1S54-55 
 
 119 1854 
 
 120 
 
 1855-57 
 
 Clergy Orphan 
 School 
 
 Ch. of St. John . 
 Ch. of St. James. 
 
 Church of SS. 
 Simon and Jude 
 
 Oxford 
 
 Architect 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 H. Woodyer 
 
 J. Norton . 
 G.E. Street, R.A. 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Style 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 Early Middle 
 Pointed 
 
 R. C. Carpenter, 
 & continued by 
 W. Slater & R. 
 H. Carpenter 
 
 St. Thomas's Hill, 
 Canterbury 
 
 Lewisham Road, 
 Deptford 
 
 Plymouth . 
 
 J. C. Buckler 
 
 Decorated 
 
 Geometrical 
 Pointed 
 
 XV. century 
 
 P. C. Hardwick, Pointed 
 F.S.A. 
 
 P. C. Hardwick, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 J. P. St. Aubyn . 
 
 Earl's Hilton, R. C. Carpenter 
 
 Leicestershire and W. Slater 
 
 Pointed 
 
 Decorated 
 
 Decorated 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 391 
 
 Remarks 
 
 1 
 
 IO. Almshouse for seamen, erected by the Rev. Robert Miles, Rector or' Bingham, Notts. 
 Front of college, 150 ft. long. (See p. 329.) 
 
 111. Area, including quadrangle, 37,000 square ft. Built of red brick, and Bath stone. Erected 
 
 for the Clewer Sisterhood. (See p. 331.) 
 
 112. Built of Hanham s f one, with Bath stone dressings. Roofed with green slates. General 
 
 dimensions, 171 x 82 ft. 
 
 • _ 
 
 113. These buildings occupy three sides of a quadrangle. The walls are of red brick relieved 
 
 by bands of stone, and the roofs are of red tiles. The church has a clerestoried nave and 
 aisles of four bays, chancel, &c. Piers alternately circular and quatrefoil in plan. In the 
 spandrils of the arcade are circular panels enriched with stone carving. At the back of 
 the stalls rise iron screens very gracefully designed. The chancel "is richly decorated 
 with an elaborate reredos. The church has a detached tower and spire. 
 
 114. Erected by subscription as a thank-offering after the cholera year. Built of Kentish rag, 
 
 with Bath stone dressings. The site of this church was a difficult one to deal with, its 
 breadth from north to south being greater than its length. The plan includes a nave 
 and aisles of three bays, with a shallow sanctuary beyond. The south aisle is fitted up 
 with a gallery containing the organ. The construction of the roof is very peculiar. The 
 entrance porch is on the south side, in Nutford Place, under a square tower, which 
 is surmounted by four massive pinnacles. The arch and mouldings of this porch are 
 enriched with carving designed and executed with great refinement. General dimensions, 
 100 x 71 ft. 
 
 115. Still in progress. Buildings planned in three quadrangles, of which one and part of 
 
 another are finished. The dining hall (101 x 3 6 ft) has a lofty open roof, with an 
 oak-shingled lantern. On each side are large stone dormers richly treated. Below 
 these is a row of two-light windows. The library has an open panelled roof, with a 
 series of gabled windows. The chapel has just been begun, and will be on a very grand 
 scale. It will consist of nine bays (groined), besides an ante-chapel of three bays and 
 the apse. A crypt will extend under its whole length. There will be a triforium gallery 
 at the west end, a tower 300 ft. high at the south-west angle, and an entrance cloister. 
 
 116. Erected for the Principal and Fellows. The new front presents a straight line of building, 
 
 but the treatment of certain features in the elevation has produced a picturesque effect. 
 The gateway rower is in the centre, rising to a considerable height, with a square turret 
 at one angle, and embattled parapet. Over the archway is an oriel window. The 
 details are refined and well executed. Built of Box Hill and Taynton stone. 
 
 117. Built of Kentish rag and Bath stone. Frontage, 230 x 170 ft. Consists of chapel (64.x 
 
 23 ft.), school-room (75 x 25 ft.), with class-room and residence for the master and a 
 matron. Sleeping accommodation is provided for 125 boys. This building occupies a high 
 and commanding position to the north-west of Canterbury. Its details are comparatively 
 plain, owing to restrictions as to cost. 
 
 118. Built of Kentish rag. General dimensions, 140 x 70 ft. Design of church well adapted for 
 
 hearing, this having been made an important point in the commission. 
 
 119. Erected for the Rev. J. Bliss. Peculiar in plan, the nave being double, with clerestory 
 
 and aisles. Built of limestone, with Bath stone dressings ; chancel fittings of oak. 
 Double nave, 56 x 22 ft. each ; aisles, 56 x 14 ft. ; apsidal chancel, 38 x 20 ft. The 
 church is still in progress. 
 
 120. Built of rough Mount Sorrel granite, with Ancaster stone dressings. A reconstruction — 
 
 tower and spire of ancient church retained. Wide gabled aisles and chancel aisles. Nave 
 arcade low in proportion. 
 
 D D 2 
 
392 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. Date 
 
 121 
 
 1355-56 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Ch. of St. Andrew Stamford Street, 
 
 Blackfriars 
 
 Architect 
 
 S. S. Teuton 
 
 Style 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 122 
 
 1855-68 
 
 123 
 
 124 
 
 125 
 
 125 
 
 University Museum 
 
 1855 
 
 1855-5; 
 
 127 
 
 128 
 
 129 
 
 130 
 
 131 
 
 1855 
 
 i»55-57 
 
 1855-57 
 1855-61 
 
 1855-63 
 
 1855-58 
 1855 
 
 Ch.of St. James. 
 Ch. of St. George 
 
 Oxford 
 
 Crown Life As- 
 surance Office 
 
 R. C. Church of 
 St. Mary 
 
 All Saints' Church 
 
 R C. Ch. of SS. 
 
 Mary Si Patrick 
 
 R C. Church of 
 St. John (now 
 the Cathedral) 
 
 Leyland, near 
 Preston 
 
 Doncaster . 
 
 Deane and Wood- 
 ward 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 G. G. Scott, R.A. Early Decorated 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 Decorated 
 
 New Bridge St., 
 Blackfriars 
 
 Lanark, Scotland 
 
 Park. Road, Clap- 
 ham 
 
 Bandon, Ireland 
 
 Deane and Wood- 
 ward 
 
 G. Goldie . 
 
 Limerick 
 
 College & Church I Tcnbury, 
 
 of St. Michael Worcestershire 
 
 Orchardleigh 
 House 
 
 Frome, Somerset- 
 shire 
 
 T.T. Bury,FS.A. Second Pointed 
 
 Italian Gothic 
 
 Geometrical 
 Pointed 
 
 G. Goldie 
 
 P. C. Hardwick, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 
 T. H. Wyatt 
 
 English Deco- 
 rated 
 
 Pointed . 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 Manorial 
 Gothic 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 393 
 
 Remarks 
 
 121. This church (which stands north and south) is short in proportion to its breadth. The 
 
 plan comprises a clerestoried nave and aisles of four bays. The nave piers are circular. 
 Roof open timbered. The interior is decorated with red and white brick. The reredos 
 consists of seven trefoiled arches, carried on serpentine shafts, with discs of the same 
 material in the spandrils, and a bold cornice above, enriched with a band of encaustic 
 tiles. The chancel is parclosed by screens. The external walls are of brick and ragstone. 
 The tower, which is on the east side of the church, terminates in four gables and a slate 
 spire. Dimensions, 96 x 65 ft. 
 
 122. One of the most important modern buildings in Oxford. It cost 60,000/. In style it 
 
 is a free adaptation of Gothic, strongly influenced by Continental study. The principal 
 front consists of a three-storied building, from the centre of which rises a tower. The 
 details of the entrance doorway and of the windows are richly decorated with carving in 
 low relief, very original in design, and executed with great refinement and artistic taste. 
 The contents of the museum are deposited in a quadrangle, roofed with iron and glass, 
 and surrounded by an open cloister of brick and stone, the shafts of the arcade bein°- 
 of coloured marble. On the right hand of the principal front is the chemical labora- 
 tory, resembling in general outline the Glastonbury Abbey kitchen. (See p. 283.) 
 
 123. Erected for Mrs. Ffarington. Built of local sandstone. General dimensions, 100 x 70 ft. 
 
 124. Built of magnesian limestone. One of the largest and most successful churches which 
 
 Mr. Scott has erected. It is cruciform in plan, with a grandly vaulted central lantern, 
 lofty nave, transepts, and a deep chancel. The spandrils of the nave arcade are enriched 
 with panels enclosing rilievi. The capitals, &c., are boldly carved; roofs open timbered ; 
 eight-light east window. The south chancel aisle is groined and paved with encaustic 
 tiles. Ai>les spanned by stone arches at intervals. Total length, 167 ft.; width, 92 ft. 
 
 125. One of the most original and carefully designed street house-fronts in London, not exactly 
 
 referable to any particular period of architectural style, but suggestive of early Venetian, 
 or at least of Italian Gothic. It cost 60,000/. 
 
 126. Built of local sandstone faced with Glasgow freestone. Finished as to interior with unusual 
 
 sumptuousness, though as yet not wholly completed. High altar, pulpit, and communion 
 rails richly sculptured, with much use of marble and alabaster. Fine series of stone statues 
 representing the twelve Apostles. All windows filled with stained glass. Chancel decorated 
 in colour. This building is picturesquely situated, and overlooks the valley of the Clyde. 
 
 127. Built of brick, faced with Kentish rag and Bath stone dressings. Length, 120 ft. ; width 
 
 across from aisle to aisle, 63 ft., with transepts extending 15 ft. beyond. 
 
 128. Built of local sandstone, with limestone dressings. One of the most important Roman 
 
 Catholic churches in the south of Ireland ; finely situated over the town of Bandon. The 
 interior fittings are now in progress. The tower is unfinished. 
 
 129. This church is in one of the poorest parishes of any city in Ireland ; part of it being the 
 
 celebrated ' Garry Owen.' It was the first attempt to erect a Roman Catholic church in 
 Limerick. It is constructed of limestone. External length, 178 ft. ; width, 80 ft. Tran- 
 septs, 125 x 65 ft., with side chapels. The spire has not yet been finished. 
 
 130. Founded by Sir Fred. Gore Ouseley, Bart., chiefly as a place for education in music. It is 
 
 built of 'old red ' sandstone and Bath stone. The college is 160 x 80 ft. in plan, the 
 church about 130 x 80 ft. (See p. 329.) 
 
 131. Erected for William Duckworth, Esq. Built of stone. Geneial dimensions, 150 x 100 ft. 
 
 (See p. 302.) 
 
394 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 132 
 
 133 
 134 
 135 
 
 136 
 
 1856 
 
 1856-60 
 1856 
 1856 
 
 1856 
 
 Building 
 
 Sodality Chapel 
 
 Varney Hall 
 
 Balliol College 
 Chapel 
 
 Dwelling-house 
 
 Haley Hill Church 
 
 137 
 
 138 
 139 
 
 140 
 
 1856 
 
 1856 
 1856 
 
 Situation 
 
 Stonyhurst Coll., 
 Lancashire 
 
 Near Ludlow, 
 Salop 
 
 Oxford 
 
 Upper Phillimore 
 Gardens 
 
 Halifax, Yorkshire 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 C. A. Buckler . 
 
 Ch. of the Imma- 
 culate Concep- 
 tion 
 
 Pippbrook House 
 
 Dwelling-house . 
 
 1856-67 I Addington Manor 
 
 141 
 
 142 
 
 143 
 
 144 
 
 1856-60 
 
 1856-58 
 
 1856-59 
 
 i»57-5> 
 
 Strood, Glouces- 
 tershire 
 
 Dorking, Surrey . 
 
 Llyschelas, An- 
 glesea 
 
 Buckinghamshire 
 
 J. Norton . 
 
 W. Butterfield . 
 
 Deane and Wood- 
 ward 
 
 G. G. Scott, R.A. Middle Pointed 
 
 XV. century 
 
 Elizabethan 
 Middle Pointed 
 Italian Gothic 
 
 Shadwell Court 
 
 Baldersley Ch., 
 Schools, and 
 Parsonage 
 
 New Lodge 
 
 Ch. of St. Leonard 
 
 C. A. Buckler 
 
 G. G. Scott, R.A. 
 
 Deane and Wood- 
 ward 
 
 P. C. Hardwick, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 Norfolk 
 
 Near Thirsk, 
 Yorkshire 
 
 Windsor Forest 
 
 Scorboro', near 
 Driffield, York- 
 shire 
 
 XIII century. 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 Domestic 
 Pointed 
 
 S. S. Teulon 
 
 W. Butterfield 
 
 T.T.Bury,F.S.A. 
 
 J. L.Pearson, F.S.A. 
 
 XIV. century, 
 with Belgian 
 Renaissance 
 detail 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 English Do- 
 mestic 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 395 
 
 Remarks 
 
 132. Apsidal end. The altar has wreathed columns of alabaster and carved shrine. Reredos of 
 
 stone and alabaster, with statue andcanopy. Sculptured figures of saints and angels by 
 Earp. Windows filled with stained glass by Havdman. Oak traceried panelling round 
 apse Choir seats and screens of richly carved oak. Roof arched and panelled. The 
 whole tastefully decorated in polychrome. 
 
 133. Erected for W. Hurt Sitwell, Esq. Built of brick, with Bath stone dressings. General 
 
 dimensions, 167 x 14.2 ft. 
 
 134. A refined and well-studied work, very characteristic of the architect's style of design. (See 
 
 p. 261.) 
 
 135. A curious example of a suburban villa residence treated to a certain extent in a Mediaeval 
 
 spirit. The front is of red brick, with stepped gables. A picturesque staircase turret is 
 on the right hand of the building, and a Venetian-looking balcony projects from one of 
 the windows. It cost 3,000/. 
 
 136. Erected for Colonel Akroyd. Built of stone, marble used for decorative purposes. Cruci- 
 
 form plan, consisting of a clerestoried nave with gabled aisles of five bays, aisled chancel, 
 low transepts, engaged tower, and lofty spire. The clerestory has a continuous arcade. 
 The west door is of five orders, with cinquefoil arcading on each side. The tympanum 
 above this door is filled with sculpture representing our Lord and the Blessed Virgin. 
 The exterior is rich in carved figures. Nave, 88 x 54 ft.; chancel, 37 x 24. ft. 
 
 137. Erected for the Dominican Friars. Nave, 80 x 25 ft. ; north and south aisles, 12 ft. wide. 
 
 North porch and baptistery. Built of Rodborough, Box Hill, and Painswick stone. 
 Choir not yet executed. 
 
 138. Erected for J. Forman, Esq., at a cost of 20,000/. 
 
 139. Erected for Lady Dinorben, at a cost of about 6,000/. 
 
 140. The first Gothic house erected by the architect without mullions to the windows ; one of 
 
 the conditions of its design being that large sheets of plate glass should be used. This 
 was accomplished (without sacrificing the general effect) by a careful attention to the 
 mouldings of the window 'jambs,' and by associating the windows in groups as far as 
 possible. The design of this house, owing to the necessities of its plan, is more symme- 
 trical and formal than other works of the same class executed by Mr. Hardwick, who has 
 nevertheless managed to obtain a broken and effective sky-line for the exterior. 
 
 141. Erected for Sir Robert J. Buxton, Bart. Main building, about 190x80 ft. Built of 
 
 various materials, nearly all local, viz. flint, red and white brick, and freestone. 
 
 142. Erected for Viscount Downe. Built of local stone externally, with brick and stone inter- 
 
 nally 5 two stones of different colours being used. 
 
 143. Erected for His Excellency S. Van de Weyer, at a cost of 35,000/. A large building, 
 
 occupying three sides of a quadrangle. The principal front is 150 ft. long, the others 
 130 ft. each. Built of white Suffolk bricks, with Bath stone dressings. The whole of 
 the internal fittings are of oak, and of a very elaborate kind. 
 
 144. A small but highly enriched church. The nave and chancel are of the same width and 
 
 height ; the separation being marked internally by coupled marble pillars and double 
 roof principals. A triple lancet window, richly moulded, at east end. The tower, which 
 is of considerable size, is carried up square to the base of the belfry st;ige, where it 
 becomes octagonal, with lofty angular pinnacles stretching up into the spire, which is 
 128 feet from the ground. Walls lined with a light gray stone of fine textuie ; marble 
 of various colours used for internal decoration. 
 
396 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 145 
 
 1857-58 
 
 Ch. of the Holy 
 Trinity 
 
 Hastings 
 
 S. S. Teulon 
 
 XIV. century 
 
 146 
 
 i857-59 
 
 R. C. Church of 
 St. Peter 
 
 Scarborough 
 
 Geo. Goldie 
 
 Geometrical 
 Gothic 
 
 147 
 
 1857-67 
 
 Episcopal Chapel 
 of" St. Peter 
 
 Edinburgh . 
 
 W. Slater and R. 
 H. Carpenter 
 
 XIV. century . 
 
 148 
 
 1857 
 
 Quontock . 
 
 Near Bridgewater 
 
 H. Clutton 
 
 Tudor . 
 
 149 
 
 i857 
 
 Quar Wood 
 
 Near Stour-on- 
 the-Wold, 
 Gloucestershire 
 
 J. L. Pearson,F.S. A. 
 
 Early XIV. cent. 
 
 150 
 
 1857-60 
 
 New Schools 
 
 Eton College 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 
 Tudor 
 
 151 
 
 1857-70 
 
 The College 
 
 Winchester. 
 
 W. Butterfield . 
 
 Early XV. cent. 
 
 152 
 
 1857-59 
 
 Wickham Rectory 
 
 Hungerford, Berk- 
 shire 
 
 T.T.Bury.F.S.A. 
 
 XV. century . 
 
 153 
 
 1858-60 
 
 Ch. of St. Peter . 
 
 Rochester, Kent 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 154 
 
 1858-61 
 
 Ch. of St. Alban, 
 and houses 
 
 Baldwin's Gar- 
 dens, Gray's Inn 
 Lane, London 
 
 W. Butterfield . 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 155 
 
 1858-59 
 
 Chapel of the Sa- 
 cred Heart 
 
 R.C Ch.,FarmSt. 
 Berkeley Sq. 
 
 H. Clutton . 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 156 
 
 1858-62 
 
 Kelham Hall . 
 
 Near Newark, 
 Notts 
 
 G. G. Scott, R.A. 
 
 Modified Vene- 
 tian Gothic 
 
 157 
 
 1858 
 
 Christchurch 
 
 Reading, Berks . 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 397 
 
 Remarks 
 
 146. 
 
 147. 
 
 148. 
 149. 
 
 ISO. 
 151. 
 
 152. 
 
 153. 
 154. 
 
 145. This church is cleverly adapted to an awkward site. It has a broad nave and spacious 
 chancel with apsidal end. A square tower over porch in the angle between chancel and 
 north aisle. A perforated and stepped gable rises between the nave and chancel. The 
 exterior is richly decorated with crosses in stone and metal ridge crests, roof gablets, 
 pierced parapets, &c. The tower is elaborately designed. Built of stone. Internal 
 length, 132 ft.; width of nave, 35 ft.; aisle, 25 ft. 
 
 Unfinished as to internal fittings and tower ; apsidal chancel built without windows and 
 intended for fresco decoration. One of the first designed on this plan. A large and pic- 
 turesque presbytery executed in Domestic Gothic of the same period adjoins. The situa- 
 tion is fine. The church is seen from the South Bay, standing a clwval on the isthmus 
 connecting the Castle Rock with Scarborough. It is built of local wall_ stone, with 
 Whitby ashlaring. The nave and aisles measure 53 x 88 ft. The chancel is 27 x 23 ft. 
 Total length, 115 ft., and 50 ft. high internally. 
 
 Peculiar in plan. Nave<corumns are of red granite. The cloister and baptistery roofs are 
 decorated with colour. Windows filled with stained glass executed by Clayton and Bell. 
 Oak slatts. Encaustic tiles expressly designed for chancel. Walls of stone. 
 
 Erected for Lord Taunton. A large and well-appointed mansion, built of local stone. 
 Cost, 40,000/. 
 
 This house (erected for the Rev. R. W. Hippisley) includes, on the ground floor, three recep- 
 tion-rooms, with kitchen and all the usual offices, and two stories of bed-rooms above. A 
 large and steep-roofed tower contains the principal staircase and three stories of bed-rooms. 
 It is built of local stone. The woodwork used is unstained deal. (See p. 303.) 
 
 These schools will accommodate 400 boys. They are built of brick, with Bath stone dress- 
 ings. Frontage, 150 ft. ; depth, 120 ft. The hall and master's house were restored at 
 the same time ; and some works were executed in the chapel. 
 
 Rebuilding of tower, and conversion of the modern buildings of < Commoners ' into Gothic 
 library and class-rooms. These works were carried out as a < Crimean Memorial,' at 
 the expense of Wykhamists, and of the Warden and Fellows. Materials used, brick and 
 stone. 
 
 Erected for the Rev. William Nicholson. Built of red brick, with Bath stone dressings. 
 Each side is about 70 ft. long, with three large bay windows; hall, 25 x 17 ft. ; and 
 angle tower, 95 ft. high. 
 
 Erected by subscription. Built of brick, with Bath stone dressings. General dimensions, 
 105 x 62 ft. 
 
 A lofty and well-proportioned church. Erected for the poor of this district by J. G. Hub- 
 bard, Esq., on a site given by Lord Leigh. Nave divided into five bays, whereof the last 
 one at the west end is carried above the others, and forms externally a large gabled belfry. 
 Aisle walls are decorated with mural arcuation. Chancel enriched with alabaster, and 
 inlaid ornament in mastic. East wall painted in water-glass by Mr. Preedy, from cartoons 
 by Mr. H. L. Stylman le Strange. Handsome font of coloured marble. Wrought-iron 
 screen on south of chancel. Walls of brick and stone. (See p. 257.) 
 
 155. Elected for the Society of Jesus. A very refined and sumptuous work, rich in marble and 
 
 mosaics. Size, 30 x 15 ft. 
 
 156. Erected for J. H. Manners Sutton, Esq., at a cost of 40,000/. Built of brick and Ancaster 
 
 stone. General dimensions, 224 x 120 ft. 
 
 157. Built of blue Pennant and Bath stone. General dimensions, 140 x 62 ft. Spire (not yet 
 
 completed) to be 1 50 ft. high. (See p. 330.) 
 
398 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 158 
 
 1858-60 
 
 Constabulary 
 buildings 
 
 Dunster, Williton, 
 and Long Ash- 
 ton, Somerset 
 
 J. Norton . 
 
 XIV. century 
 
 159 
 
 1858-60 
 
 Kilmore Cathedral 
 
 County Cavan, 
 Ireland 
 
 W. Slater . 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 160 
 
 1858-61 
 
 Ch. of St. Mary . 
 
 Dalton Holme, 
 near Beverley 
 
 J.L.Pearson,F.S.A. 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 161 
 
 1858 
 
 Memorial Church 
 
 Bemerton . 
 
 T. H. Wyatt . 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 162 
 
 1858-70 
 
 Lyndhurst Parish 
 Church 
 
 New Forest, Hamp- 
 shire 
 
 W.White, F.S. A. 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 163 
 
 1858-62 
 
 Minley Manor 
 House 
 
 Hampshire . 
 
 H. Clutton . 
 
 French Gothic 
 
 164 
 
 1858-62 
 
 Walton Hall 
 
 Near Warwick 
 
 G. G. Scott, R.A. 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 165 
 
 1858-59 
 
 Female Training 
 College 
 
 Ripon 
 
 G. F. Bodley . 
 
 Middle Pointed J 
 
 166 
 
 1858 
 
 R. C. Ch. of St. 
 Alph. Liguori 
 
 Limerick, Ireland 
 
 P. C. Hard wick, 
 F.S. A. 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 167 
 
 1858-59 
 
 Additions to 
 mansion 
 
 Nuffield, Surrey . 
 
 J. Norton . 
 
 XV. century . 
 
 168 
 
 1858 
 
 Exeter Col Cha- 
 pel, Library, & 
 Rector's Lodge 
 
 Oxford 
 
 G. G. Scott, R.A. 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 169 
 
 1858-63 
 
 Eatington Park . 
 
 Near Stratford- 
 on-Avon 
 
 J. Prichard . 
 
 Firs* Pointed 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 399 
 
 Remarks 
 
 158. Erected for the magistrates of each division. Built of local stone, with Bath stone dress- 
 
 ings. General dimensions, 96 x 66 ft. 
 
 159. Built of local black limestone. 122 ft. long x 82 ft. wide at transepts. A fine Romanesque 
 
 doorway from the old cathedral (the only feature of any interest which remained) was 
 removed to the new building. 
 
 160. Erected for Lord Hotham. The plan consists of a nave with north and south transepts (no 
 
 aisles) ; a chancel with aisles, one of which, on the south side, is formed into a monu- 
 mental chapel. The tower, which is large, and surmounted by a spire about 200 tt. high, 
 stands at the west end of nave ; the lowest story being groined. The porch (also groined) 
 is on the south side. Built of Steetley stone, with Kildenly stone for the interior. Nave, 
 57 x 23 ft. ; chancel, 37 x 19 ft. ; width across transepts, 69 ft. 
 
 161. Erected in memory of the late Lord Herbert. Nave, aisles, chancel, and tower, the fenes- 
 
 tration of which is of very refined design. Spire not completed. 
 
 162. Erected for the Rev. J. Compton and Committee. Built of brick, with stone tracery. This 
 
 church was reduced to nearly half its cost after the first plans and estimate were prepared. 
 Reredos wall, painted in encaustic colour by F. Leighton, R.A. Fine stained glass 
 windows by Morris, Marshall, and Co. General dimensions, 120 x 50 ft. 5 height to top 
 of spire, 135 ft. (See p. 293.) 
 
 163. Erected for Raikes Currie, Esq. A large house built of brick, with stone dressings, after the 
 
 style of French chateaux in the time ot Louis XL 
 
 164. Erected for Sir Charles Mordaunt, at a cost of about 30,000/. Built of stone. 
 
 165. 'An important work. The buildings form a quadrangle 155 x 130 ft., with a well-arranged 
 
 internal cloister. The north and east sides contain the college proper, domestic offices 
 filling up the remainder. The upper story is chiefly devoted to dormitories. The 
 oratory, 48 x 20 ft., is well placed in the gable over the library and music school, and is 
 lighted by a large east window * — ' Ecclesiologist,' 1859. 
 
 166. This church was built for the Order of the Redemptorists, who devote themselves more 
 
 especially to preaching. It was therefore essential that the design should combine the 
 qualities of a building in which every part would be well adapted for seeing the preacher, 
 and would also permit the elaborate functions of the Roman Catholic ritual. In both 
 these respects the building is said to be highly satisfactory. External length (with apse), 
 182 ft. j width, 80 ft. ; height to ridge of roof, 75 ft. It is built of local limestone. 
 
 167. Erected for H. E. Gurney, Esq. Built of brick, terra cotta, and local ragstone. 
 
 168. The chapel is of great height, and, being groined, is surrounded by massive buttresses. 
 
 It is richly decorated, both internally and externally, with ornamental sculpture. The in- 
 terior, which is finely proportioned, contains a stone screen, with coupled columns and 
 open arches. The decorative sculpture (of corbels to wall-shafts, &c.) is executed with 
 great refinement. The apse windows are filled with stained glass by Clayton and Bell. 
 Below these the wall is enriched with mosaic work (figures of saints, &c, with gold 
 background). The whole of the chapel, in regard to fittings, decoration, &c, has been 
 carried out on a most sumptuous scale. (See p. 295.) 
 
 169. A mansion erected for E. P. Shirley, Esq. In this work the architect had to remodel the 
 
 exterior of an existing house, the internal arrangement of which was left intact. Built 
 of local white lias in thin courses, with quoins and dressings of Campden, Norton, and 
 Wilmcot stones. (See p. 306.) 
 
400 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 1 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 170 
 
 1859-60 
 
 Ch. of St. Peter . 
 
 Daylesford, Wor- 
 cestershire 
 
 J.L.Pearson,F.S.A. 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 171 
 
 1859-61 
 
 Parish Church 
 
 Titsey, Surrey 
 
 J. L.Pearson, F.S.A. 
 
 XIII. century 
 (Lancet) 
 
 172 
 
 1859-61 
 
 Chase Cliffe 
 
 Near Cromford, 
 Derbyshire 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 Tudor . 
 
 173 
 
 1859-60 
 
 Carlett Park 
 
 Cheshire . 
 
 T. H. Wyatt . 
 
 Elizabethan . 
 
 174: 
 
 1859-65 
 
 Chapel and Gate- 
 
 Arundel Castle, 
 
 M. E. Hadfield . 
 
 English Per- 
 
 
 
 way 
 
 Sussex 
 
 
 pendicular 
 
 175 
 
 1859-60 
 
 Ch. of St. John . 
 
 Mainden, New- 
 
 Messrs. Prichard 
 
 Geometrical 
 
 
 
 
 port, Mon- 
 
 and Seddon 
 
 Decorated 
 
 
 
 
 mouthshire 
 
 
 
 176 
 
 1859-60 
 
 Ch. of S. Michael 
 
 and All Angels 
 
 Brighton 
 
 G. F. Bodley 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 177 
 
 1859-64 
 
 Assize Courts and 
 Judges' Lodg- 
 ings 
 
 Manchester 
 
 A. Waterhouse . 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 178 
 
 1859-62 
 
 Capel Manor 
 
 Kent . 
 
 T. H. Wyatt . 
 
 Italian Gothic 
 
 179 
 
 1859-61 
 
 Masters' Court, 
 Trinity College 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 A. Salvin, F.S.A. 
 
 Perpendicular 
 
 180 
 
 1859--60 
 
 Schools 
 
 Middleboro'-on- 
 Tees 
 
 J. Norton . 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 181 
 
 1859-64 
 
 Ch. of St. Peter . 
 
 Croydon, Surrey . 
 
 G. G. Scott, R. A. 
 
 Decorated 
 
 182 
 
 1859-62 
 
 Ch. of St. James . 
 
 Castle Hill, Dover 
 
 ] 
 
 T.T.Bury,F.S.A 
 
 Edward III. . 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 401 
 
 Remarks 
 
 170. A small cruciform church, with central tower and spire, built on the site of an older 
 
 church. The tomb of Warren Hastings abuts against the east wall and limits the 
 length of the chancel, which is in consequence short. The only features in the original 
 structure which could be preserved were the old north and south doorways. These were 
 restored, and suggested the style of the present church. 
 
 171. A carefully finished work. On the north of the chancel, which is of some length, there is a 
 
 mortuary chapel groined in stone, the groining being carried on marble shafts. A rich 
 double arcade connects this chapel (in which stands the tomb of the founder) with the 
 sacrarium. The tower stands on the south side of the nave. It is square in plan and about 
 4.2 ft. high, with a bold staircase turret and an octagonal spire of wood covered with oak. 
 shingles. 
 
 172. Erected for the Messrs. Hurt, in character with the ancient domestic architecture of the 
 
 county. The site is most picturesque, overlooking the river Derwent and the hills of 
 Matlock. It is built of ' Darley Dale ' and local stone. General dimensions, 90 x 60 ft., 
 with various projecting porches, &c. Stable and kitchen court, 50 x 40 ft. 
 
 173. Erected for John Toor, Esq. Built of brick with stone dressings, mullioned windows, 
 
 stepped gables, oriels, &c. General dimensions, 120 x 60 ft. 
 
 174. This chapel, gateway, and other works formed part of a general plan for rebuilding the 
 
 castle designed by Mr. Hadfield for the late Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 175. The plan of this church consists of a nave and south aisle, with tower at south-west angle. 
 
 The aisle is divided from the nave by an arcade of four bays. There are west and south 
 porches roofed with slabs of stone on moulded ribs. The windows are large, and filled 
 with geometrical tracery. Built of thin Pennant sandstone, with Bath stone dressings. 
 Bands and arch voussoirs of blue limestone. The church will seat 500 persons. It cost 
 about 3,000/. The spire, when completed, will be 180 ft. high. 
 
 176. The plan of this church is extremely simple. It consists of a nave and chancel under one 
 
 continuous roof, a lofty clerestory, low aisles, and a western narthex, approached by a 
 flight of steps on each side, as the ground falls considerably from east to west. The east 
 window is raised to some height above the chancel floor and filled with plate tracery. The 
 nave arcade is of 4 bays with unmoulded arches, carried on short round piers with massive 
 capitals carved in low relief. In the west gable is a large wheel window, enclosing^ 7 
 plain circular lights distributed round a central one which is cusped. The church is built 
 and lined with brick relieved by bands of stone. It contains some fine stained glass by 
 Morris & Co. 
 
 177. Remarkable for a certain admixture of Italian Gothic in details. A very important and well- 
 
 planned building, the professional commission for which Mr. Waterhouse gained in open 
 competition, and thus established his reputation. It is built of Darley Dale stone. The 
 general dimensions of the courts are 256 x 166 ft. Judges 1 lodgings, 98 x 92 ft. Tower, 
 10 ft. square on plan, and 210 ft. high. (See p. 312.) 
 
 178. Erected for F. Austen, Esq. A large and picturesque mansion raised on a terrace which 
 
 is vaulted underneath with arches open towards the front. The windows of the principal 
 rooms are arranged in groups, divided by slender columns with richly carved capitals, the 
 arches above being decorated with voussoirs of dark and light coloured stone, placed 
 alternately, and panelled tympana. General dimensions, 160 x 85 ft. (See p. 302.) 
 
 179. Built of brick, faced with stone. 
 
 180. Built of brick, with sandstone dressings. Roofed with green slates. General dimensions, 
 
 176 x 69 ft. 
 
 181. Built of flint and Tonbridge stone. Extreme length, 140 ft.; extreme width, 72 ft. Tower 
 
 and spire, 146 ft. high. 
 
 182. Built of Kentish rag, with Bath stone dressings. Nave, 99 ft. long ; width across aisles, 
 
 70 ft. ; chancel, 33 x 23 ft. ; tower, 20 ft. square ; height to top of spire, 170 ft. 
 
402 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 183 
 
 184 
 
 1859-61 
 
 1860-63 
 
 185 
 
 186 
 187 
 
 188 
 
 189 
 
 190 
 191 
 
 1860-62 
 
 1860-62 
 i860 
 
 1860-^62 
 
 1860-61 
 
 1860-61 
 1860-61 
 
 192 
 
 193 
 
 194 
 
 195 
 
 196 
 
 197 
 
 Ch. of St. Ann . 
 
 Ch. of the Holy 
 Cross 
 
 Ch. of St. James 
 
 Ch. of St. Luke . 
 Dunster House . 
 
 Ch.of St. Stephen 
 
 St. John's Schools 
 
 The Library, Bat- 
 tle Abbey 
 
 Svvanley Church . 
 
 Stamford Hill, 
 London 
 
 St. Helen's, Lan- 
 cashire 
 
 Tunbridge Wells 
 
 T.T.Bury,F.S.A. 
 
 J. J. Scolts 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Heywood . . J. Clarke, F.S.A. 
 Rochdale, Lanca- J. Clarke, F.S.A. 
 shire 
 
 Spitalfields, Lon- j E. Christian 
 don 
 
 St. Pancras, 
 London 
 
 Sussex 
 
 Near Sevenoaks 
 
 1860-61 
 
 1860-61 
 1860-63 
 
 1860-64. 
 
 1860-61 
 1860-61 
 
 Ch. of St. Mary, 
 Haggerston 
 
 Fleetpond Church 
 
 Probate and Epis- 
 copal Registries 
 
 Bishopscourt 
 
 Hawkleyhurst 
 Llandogo Church 
 
 Brunswick Street, 
 London, E. 
 
 Near Aldershot . W. Binges 
 
 W. Slater . 
 
 H. Clutton . 
 E. Christian 
 
 Style 
 
 XIV. century 
 
 Perpendicular 
 
 S. Brooks 
 
 LlandafF 
 
 Sowton, near 
 Exeter 
 
 Near Petersfield, 
 Hampshire 
 
 Banksof the Wye, 
 Monmouthshire 
 
 J. Prichard 
 
 W.White, F.S.A. 
 
 S. S. Teulon 
 J. P. Seddon 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 XIV. century 
 
 XV. century . 
 
 Early Deco- 
 rated 
 
 Domestic 
 Pointed 
 
 XVI. century 
 Decorated 
 
 Decorated 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 First Pointed 
 
 First Pointed 
 
 XIV. century 
 
 Geometi ical 
 
 Decorated 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 403 
 
 Remarks 
 
 183. Erected for Fowler Newsam, Esq. Built of brick, faced with Kentish rag, and Bath 
 
 stone dressings. Length of nave and aisles, 75 ft.; breadth across, 54 ft. j apsidal 
 chancel, 37 x 23 ft. ; tower, 18 ft. square, and 130 ft. high. 
 
 184. Erected for the Order of Jesuits. The plan consists of a clerestoried nave with transepts, aisles, 
 
 chancel, Lady Chapel, sacristy. Built of Rainford stone with red sandstone dressings. 
 Columns and arches of Billinge and Yorkshire stone. The high altar is of Caen stone 
 richly sculptured. The windows are filled with stained glass by Messrs. Pilkington. 
 Panelled roof. General dimensions, 164. x 90 ft. ; height 41 ft. 
 
 185. Built of Jackwood sandstone and Wadhurst stone. General dimensions, 118 x 57 ft. 
 
 186. Designed to seat more than 1,000 persons without galleries. 
 
 187. Erected for F. Nield, Esq. Built of brick and stone. 
 
 188. Erected by subscription. Built of brick, with Bath stone dressings. General dimensions, 
 
 118 x 66 ft. 
 
 189. Parish schools for 1,000 children. The front towards John Street is in three stories (de- 
 
 voted respectively to boys, girls, and infants). The buildings towards Kirkman's Court 
 are arranged on three sides of a quadrangle enclosing an open playground. Built of 
 brick, with Bath stone dressings. Steep hipped roofs and ranges of mullioned windows. 
 
 190. Built of local stone. General dimensions, 80 x 24 ft. 
 
 191. This church, which is erected on a triangular piece of ground, presents the peculiar feature 
 
 of an apsidal west end, lighted by a double range of windows (whereof the upper one is 
 arcaded), and fitted up inside with a gallery. The aisles are gabled. The nave piers 
 are circular, raised on high bases. The windows are, for the most part, filled with plate 
 tracery. Built of Kentish rag, with Bath stone dressings. General dimensions, 
 92 x 29 ft. 
 
 192. In remodelling this church (which was originally erected by Nash in a nondescript style) 
 
 the architect has introduced a novel feature in the oblique or ' canted ' bay which 
 connects the nave arcade with the reduced width of chancel. The alterations are exe- 
 cuted in brick. Nave, 80 x 40 ft. ; aisles, 80 x 16 ft. 
 
 193. Erected for C. Lefroy, Esq. Built of brick. General dimensions : nave and aisles, 
 
 52 x 38 ft. ; chancel 30 x 16 ft. The west entrance is enriched with decorative sculpture, 
 representing our Lord and the Evangelistic symbols. 
 
 194. The Probate Registry was erected for the First Commissioner of Works ; the Episcopal 
 
 Registry for Mr. Huckwell, registrar. Built of thin Pennant stone, with Bath stone 
 groins and Bridgend bands. Street frontage of Probate Registry, 70 ft.; of Episcopal 
 Registry, 35 ft. 
 
 195. This work, executed for John Garratt, Esq., consisted in an entire remodelling and renova- 
 
 tion of the ancient Episcopal palace which had been ' modernised. ' The chapel, founded 
 in 1284., had been injured and desecrated. Mr. White has used seven or eight varieties 
 of stone in construction. 
 
 196. Erected for James J. Maberly, Esq. Built of local stone and Bath stone. Dimensions of 
 
 main building, 63 x 48 ft. 
 
 197. A small church built of sandstone, with Bath stone dressings. It consists of a nave and 
 
 aisles under one span of roof, with an arcade of three bays on either side, west and south 
 porches, chancel, and vestry. Stone of various tints is used for the internal decoration. 
 There is a bell-turret over the west gable. The church cost about 1,800/. General 
 dimensions, 80 x 40 ft. 
 
404 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 198 
 
 199 
 
 200 
 
 201 
 
 202 
 
 203 
 
 204 
 
 1860-61 
 
 1860-70 
 
 1860-61 
 
 i860 
 
 t86o 
 
 Building 
 
 Ch. of St. James 
 the Less 
 
 1860-61 
 
 i860 
 
 205 
 206 
 
 207 
 
 208 
 209 
 
 210 
 
 1860-66 
 i860 
 
 1861-70 
 
 1861-70 
 1861-62 
 
 1861 
 
 Class-rooms and 
 racket courts 
 
 Shipley Hall 
 
 Dewstone Ch., 
 Schools, and 
 Parsonage 
 
 Combe Abbey 
 
 Ch. of St. Peter 
 
 Digby Mortuary 
 Chapel 
 
 Cottages and 
 Lodges 
 
 The Village 
 
 Dairy and Lodges 
 
 Memorial Cross . 
 
 Baptistery, &c, St. 
 Francis Church 
 
 Church of the 
 Holy Trinity 
 
 Situation 
 
 Garden Street, 
 Westminster 
 
 Rugby School 
 Derby 
 
 Near Rocester, 
 North Stafford 
 
 Near Coventry, 
 Warwickshire 
 
 Great Windmill 
 Street, London 
 
 Sherborne, Dorset 
 
 Crewe Hall 
 
 Hampton-in- 
 Arden 
 
 Croxteth Park, 
 near Liverpool 
 
 West Derby, near 
 Liverpool 
 
 Notting Hill, 
 London 
 
 Knightsbridge, 
 London 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 G.E. Street, R. A. | Foreign Early 
 
 Pointed 
 
 W. Butteifield 
 
 . W. E. Nesfield . 
 
 G. E. Street, R. A. 
 W. E. Nesfield . 
 
 R. Brandon 
 
 W. Slater 
 
 Early Deco- 
 rated 
 
 Early Middle 
 Pointed 
 
 Partly Early 
 English and 
 partly XV. 
 century 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 W. E. Nesfield . English XVII. 
 century 
 
 Old English . 
 
 W. E. Nesfield 
 
 W. E. Nesfield 
 J. F. Bentley 
 
 R. Brandon 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 XII. century 
 
 French Gothic, 
 XIII. cent. 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 405 
 
 Remarks 
 
 198. One of the most original and remarkable churches in London. The design is greatly 
 
 influenced by Continental study, and partakes especially of an Italian Gothic character. 
 The nave, about 60 x 23 ft., is separated by an arcade of three wide arches from its aisles. 
 The chancel, 36 ft. long, ends in a semicircular apse, and is intercepted by gabled tran- 
 septs. The windows are filled with plate tracery, and the walls, both externally and 
 internally, are decorated with brickwork arranged in patterns. The most conspicuous 
 feature of the church is the campanile, which stands detached at the north-west angle. 
 The lowest stage of the tower forms a porch connected with the church by a short gallery. 
 (See p. 322.) 
 
 199. Bricks of various colours and stone are used in the construction. The school chapel is to 
 
 be rebuilt at once from Mr. Butterfield's design, and at the expense of old Rugbeians. 
 
 200. Erected for A. M. Mundey, Esq. An ornamental farm and dairy. General dimensions, 
 
 700 x 400 ft. Several lodges and cottages are included in the design. The ceiling of 
 the dairy is enriched with decorative paintings by Mr. Albert Moore. 
 
 201. Erected at the cost of Sir Percival Heywood, Bart. Built of stone. 
 
 202. Seat of the Earl of Craven. Estimated cost, 58,000/. The greater part of the lower 
 
 portion is early Norman work, which has been retained. The east wing, a bridge 
 over the moat, and the offices are entirely new. The frontage is 350 ft.; courtyard, 
 100 ft. square ; side elevation about 350 ft. Built of native red and white sandstone. 
 English oak used throughout. A portion of the work has still to be finished. 
 
 203. Built of Bath stone. The plan comprises a clerestoried nave and aisles of 5 bays (with a 
 
 gallery in the west bay), and a short apsidal chancel. Nave piers circular with foliaged 
 capitals of an early French type. Braced open timber roof. The aisle roof rests on a 
 transverse stone arch in each bay. Apse of 5 bays defined by an arch springing from 
 corbels. Red Mansfield stone is used for the small shafts. General dimensions, 
 100 x 50 ft. j height from floor to roof ridge 55 ft. Tower and spire not yet executed.' 
 
 204. This chapel was built in consequence of the Digby family vault having been closed. It is 
 
 constructed entirely of stone and marble. The crypt beneath the chapel is groined. The 
 chapel itself has a barrel vault, marble shafts and carved capitals, tile mosaic pavement, 
 and stained glass windows. The tympanum of the western doorway (both inside and 
 out) is decorated with sculpture. The door is of bronze. Internal dimensions, 54. x 16 ft. 
 and 26 ft. high. The crypt is 54 x 16 ft., and 19 ft. high. (See p. 320.) 
 
 205. Erected for Lord Crewe. Constructed of brick and stone Small but picturesque and 
 
 interesting examples of the return to national types of rural architecture. 
 
 206. Twenty-five cottages erected for Sir Frederick Peel (half timbered and plastered). 
 
 Alterations to the Manor House were subsequently carried out by the same architect. 
 The clock tower is still in progress. 
 
 207. Erected for the Earl of Sefton. Built of brick, stone, and marble. Ceiling painted by 
 
 Mr. Albert Moore, who also designed the figures which decorate the fountain. The 
 whole work is admirably conceived, and executed with great refinement and artistic skill. 
 
 208. Erected for the Earl of Sefton. Sculptured figure of our Lord under canopy on coupled 
 
 shafts, elaborately carved by Forsyth. 
 
 209. This work consisted in the erection of a priest's house, schools, baptistery, &c, in connection 
 
 with the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. It is an excellent example of the French Gothic 
 School which then prevailed, though the architect has since altered his style of design. 
 (See p. 321.) 
 
 210. This church is not orientated, but stands north and south. It is lofty in proportion to its 
 
 width and is provided with a wooden clerestory glazed from end to end in square com- 
 partments. The main entrance is from the street at the south end which is picturesquely 
 treated and includes a large window filled with geometrical tracery. 
 
 E E 
 
406 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 211 
 
 212 
 
 213 
 
 214 
 215 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 1861 
 
 1861-63 
 
 1861-64 
 
 1861-64 
 1861-70 
 
 R. C. Ch. of St. 
 Mary 
 
 Beauchamp Alms- 
 
 Situation 
 
 liou 
 
 ses 
 
 Brecon College . 
 
 Town Hall 
 Bulstrode . 
 
 216 
 217 
 
 218 
 
 219 
 
 220 
 
 221 
 
 222 
 22 3 
 
 224 
 225 
 
 1861-66 
 1861-63 
 
 1861-63 
 
 1861-62 
 
 1862-70 
 
 1 862-64 
 
 1862-63 
 1862-64 
 1862-64 
 1862 
 
 Hafodunos House 
 Ch. of St. John . 
 
 Ch. of St. Paul 
 
 Greenock, N.B. 
 
 Near Malvern, 
 Worcestershire 
 
 Near Brecon 
 
 Northampton 
 
 Nr. Gerrard's Cross, 
 Buckinghamshire 
 
 Near Llanrwst 
 Burgess Hill, Sussex 
 
 Wokingham, 
 Berks 
 
 Architect 
 
 G. Goldie 
 
 Style 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
 P. C. Hardwick, Middle Pointed 
 F.S.A. 
 
 Ch. of St. Martin, ■' Scarborough 
 on-the-Hili 
 
 Cloverley Hall . 
 
 Ch. of St. Wilfrid 
 (Pro-Cathedral) 
 
 Ch. of St. Thomas, 
 
 Agar Town 
 Bestwood . 
 
 Mansion ". 
 
 St. Pancras, 
 
 London 
 Nottinghamshire 
 
 Framingham, 
 
 Norfolk 
 
 Crown Life Office 188 Fleet Street, 
 
 London 
 
 Whitchurch, Salop 
 
 York 
 
 J. Prichard 
 
 E. W. Godwin, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 G. G.Scott, R. A. 
 T.T. Bury, F.S.A 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 G. F. Bodley 
 
 W. E. Nesfield . 
 
 G. Goldie . 
 
 First Pointed 
 
 Geometrical 
 Tudor . 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 Third Pointed 
 
 Late Middle 
 Pointed 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 Late XVI. 
 century 
 
 , Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 S. S. Teulon 
 S. S. Teulon 
 J. Norton . 
 T. N. Deane 
 
 Geometrical . 
 XIV. century 
 Late Pointed . 
 
 Italian Gothic 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 407 
 
 Remarks 
 
 on 
 
 211. One of the largest Roman Catholic Churches in Scotland, erected for the Rev. W. Gord- 
 
 on the Frith ot Clyde. Adjoining is a commodious presbytery (in the same style as the 
 church) adapted to domestic requisites. The general character of this church is simple 
 but dignified. Total length, 120 ft. ; nave and aisles, 60 ft. v/ide ; internal height, 60 ft. 
 Built of local stone with Glasgow freestone ashlar and red Dumbarton sandstone in parts. 
 
 212. These buildings, constructed of brick, with stone dressings, form three sides of a quadrangle, 
 
 open to the south, and consist of apartments for eight families, eight single men, and eight 
 single women (each having their separate offices), residences for the chaplain, matron, and 
 clerk. The chapel has since become the parish church of Newland. General dimensions, 
 320 x170 ft. Cost about 60,000/. 
 
 213. Erected for the Governors of the College. Not quite completed. North and south eleva- 
 
 tions, each 75 ft. long; east and west elevations, 64 ft. Built of native old red sand- 
 stone, with Bath stone dressings. 
 
 214. Frontage, 90 ft. ; 180 ft. deep ; height to ridge of roof, 63 ft. ; height to top of tower, 1 10 ft. 
 
 (See p. 358.) 
 
 215. This mansion, erected for the Duke of Somerset, occupies the site of one commenced by 
 
 the late Duke of Portland, from designs by Mr. J. Wyatt, and subsequently modified 
 under the supervision of Sir J. Wyattville, but abandoned by the Duke owing to the 
 enormous cost which the completion of the structure would entail. It is built of red 
 brick and Bath stone. The mansion occupies about 140 x 100 ft. in plan. 
 
 216. Erected for H. R. Sandbach, Esq., at a cost of 30,000/. It is built of brick. 
 
 217. Built of brick, faced with the same arranged in patterns of varied colour and design. Bath 
 
 stone dressings. Nave and aisle, 82x39 ft. ; chancel, 30 x 24 ft. ; transepts, 25 x 24 ft. 
 The tower is 16 ft. square, surmounted by a timber-framed spire, covered with bands of 
 different coloured tiles. Its entire length is 104 ft. 
 
 218. Erected for John Walter, Esq., M.P. Lofty nave with clerestory and low aisles. Tran- 
 
 septs, chancel, tower and stone spire at north-west angle. General dimensions : leno-th 
 135 ft. ; width, 63 ft. ; height to top of spire, 150 ft. 
 
 219. ' An excellent design. The plan shows a nave 94. x 26 ft., a chancel 30 x 23 ft., aisles to 
 
 the nave, half aisles to the chancel, and a sacristy at the east end of the south chancel aisle. 
 The nave has 4 bays besides an additional one to the west, which is treated as a narthex 
 and has the tower engaged at its north end . . . The specialty of the church is its unusual 
 height ; the aisles are low, but the clerestory extremely lofty and well developed. The piers 
 of the arcade are clustered shafts : the arches are well moulded.' (' Ecclesiologist,' 18 61.) 
 
 220. Erected for J . P. Heywood, Esq., of Liverpool, at a cost of 60,000/., exclusive of decoration. 
 
 This large and magnificent mansion is one of the architect's most important works, and 
 is thoroughly characteristic of his taste. It is built of brick, local stone, and English oak. 
 General dimensions, inclusive of courtyard and offices, about 450 x 400 ft. (See p. 339.) 
 
 221. One of the most perfectly finished Roman Catholic churches in England. Rich in sculp- 
 
 ture, stained glass, and fittings. The great western doorway, resembling the portails of 
 Continental churches, measures 23 ft. across its jambs by 6 ft. deep. Carved oak stalls. 
 Built of Whitby sandstone (for ashlar work) and Bradford wall stone. Shafts of 
 Carlisle red sandstone. Length, no ft. ; width, 59 ft. ; internal height, 62 ft. A view of 
 the interior appeared in the ' Illustrated London News.' Cost 15,000/. 
 
 222. Erected for the present Dean of Rochester. A brick building with plate tracery of stone 
 
 in the windows. Internal length, 122 ft. ; width of nave, 48" ft. 
 
 223. Elected for the Duke of St. Alban's. Built of red brick and Mansfield stone. Plan 
 
 dimensions about 113 x 100 ft. 
 
 224. Erected for Geo. H. Christie, Esq. Built of brick, terra cotta, and Ancaster stone. 
 
 Roofed with green slate. General dimensions, 117 x104 ft. 
 
 225. An interesting and well studied example of street architecture. Cost 15,000/. 
 
 E E 2 
 
408 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 226 
 
 1862-64. 
 
 Brent Knoll 
 
 Somerset 
 
 J. Norton . 
 
 Late Pointed . 
 
 227 
 
 1862 
 
 Brightwaltham 
 Church 
 
 Near Wantage, 
 Berks 
 
 G. E.Street, R.A. 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 228 
 
 1862-64 
 
 Manor house 
 
 Chew Magna, 
 Somerset 
 
 J. Norton . 
 
 Late Pointed . 
 
 229 
 
 1862-63 
 
 House of Charity 
 
 Rose Street, Soho 
 
 J. Clarke, F.S.A. 
 
 French XIV 
 century 
 
 230 
 
 1862-67 
 
 The Town Hall . 
 
 Preston, Lanca- 
 shire 
 
 G.G.Scott, R.A. 
 
 Domestic Pointed 
 
 231 
 
 1862-63 
 
 Ch. of St. Stephen 
 
 Guernsey . 
 
 G. F. Bodley 
 
 Early Pointed . 
 
 232 
 233 
 
 1863-65 
 1863-66 
 
 Stable buildings, 
 Newstead Abbey 
 
 Tyntesfield . 
 
 Nottinghamshire . 
 Somerset . 
 
 Hadfield and Son 
 J. Norton . 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decora* ed 
 
 Late Pointed . 
 
 234 
 
 1863-65 
 
 Christ Church 
 
 Appleton-le-Moors, 
 near Yorkshire 
 
 J. L. Pearson, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 235 
 
 1863-65 
 
 Ch of St. Wilfrid 
 
 Hayward's Heath, 
 Sussex 
 
 G. F. Bodley . 
 
 Geometrical 
 Pointed 
 
 236 
 
 1863 
 
 Benedictine Abbey 
 of St. Scholastica 
 
 Ttignmouth, 
 S. Devon 
 
 G. Goldie . 
 
 XIII. century 
 Domestic 
 
 237 
 
 1863-65 
 
 R. C. Ch of St. 
 
 Mary, Presby- 
 tery and school 
 
 East Hendred, 
 Berkshire 
 
 C. A. Buckler . 
 
 XIII. century . 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 409 
 
 Remarks 
 
 226 
 227 
 
 228. 
 
 Erected for Gabriel S. Poole, Esq. Built of limestone, with Bath stone dressings. Roofed 
 with Bridgewater tiles. General dimensions, 100x45 ft. 
 
 The plan consists of a nave, chancel, and north aisle, with a baptistery under the south-west 
 tower, which is surmounted by a spire. The interior is lofty, and of excellent proportions. 
 The floor is paved with encaustic tiles. The east window, of 3 lights, is a memorial of 
 the late P. Wroughton, Esq., of Wooley Park. Beneath the window is a reredos of ala- 
 baster finely designed and executed. (See p. 323.) 
 
 Erected for W. Adlam, Esq. Built of local sandstone, with Bath stone dressings. General 
 dimensions, 80 x 75 ft. (See the ' Building News ' of this date.) 
 
 229. Designed with eastern apse and same north and south, being part of a general scheme for 
 
 rebuilding the House of Charity. Built of various kinds of stone ; walls lined inside 
 with chalk. 
 
 230. One of Mr. Scott's most important works. Built of Longridge stone ; columns of polished 
 
 granite ; north front, 92 x 74 ft. j south front, 92 x 86 ft. ; music hall, 82 x 55 ft.j height 
 of tower 197 ft. 
 
 231. Built to seat 750 persons. In plan it is an exact rectangle subdivided into a nave of 84 x 
 
 27 ft., opening by arcades of 5 into north and south aisles, 12 ft. broad, and a chancel 
 
 28 ft. long, with chancel aisles — that to the south being used as an organ chamber and 
 sacristry. The church is built of granite, and the mouldings, &c, are of the simplest 
 kind. 
 
 232. Erected on the old site near the Abbey, for F. W. Webb, Esq., to accommodate twenty- 
 
 five horses. Court, 100 x 95 ft. Built of local stone. 
 
 233. A large and costly mansion, erected for Wm. Gibbs, Esq. (through whose munificence 
 
 several churches have been erected and endowed). Built of local stone, faced with 
 oolite from the Bath quarries, and roofed with Broseley tiles. (See the ' Builder * of 
 this date.) 
 
 234. Treated in the same manner as Scorboro' and Daylesford Churches, except that coloured 
 
 sandstone and limestone are used instead of marble. Clerestory wall enriched with inlay 
 of geometrical patterns. Semicircular apse lighted by lancet windows, high up in the 
 wall, with detached arcading inside. Tower stands at east of north aisle, and is sur- 
 mounted by a lofty square spire. Narthex at west end, with sloping stone roof. Gable 
 above lighted by large rose window. (See p. 303.) 
 
 235. A very ably treated work. ' The plan comprises a clerestoried nave and aisles, with a 
 
 chancel, over the western part of which stands a massive quadrangular tower, having a 
 vestry under a lean-to roof on its north side. The tower, which is considerably broader 
 from north to south than from east to west, is an excellent composition, with a large 
 belfry stage, having three contiguous and deeply recessed lights on each face, and" a 
 saddle-back roof above a plain parapet.' (' Ecclesiologist,' 1864.) 
 
 236. A very extensive monastic establishment, picturesquely situated, and overlooking the sea. 
 
 The plan includes the usual apartments of a convent, viz. : a refectory, chapter-house, 
 community-room, infirmary, &c. ; spacious accommodation for lady pensioners, consisting 
 of class-rooms, refectory, and dormitory; conventual church with choir and side chapels, 
 apsidal sanctuary and bell-turret, and chaplain's residence. Chief facade, about 96 ft. 
 long; wing, no ft. long; average height of front, 35 ft. Built of Bath stone and local 
 grey marble, with red sandstone shafts and bands. 
 
 237. Erected for C. J. Eyston, Esq., and the Rev. T. Luck. The plan consists of a well- 
 
 proportioned chancel with an oak rood-screen, and a sacristy on south side communicating 
 with the presbytery. The nave opens by three graceful arches into a north aisle. The 
 baptistery is in the south-west angle of the nave enclosed by a screen. An octagonal 
 belfry rises at the angle formed by the nave and sacristy. The chureli is built of Drayton 
 and Box Hill stone ; the presbytery, school, and teacher's residence are of red brick, with 
 stone dressings. 
 
410 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 238 
 
 239 
 240 
 241 
 
 242 
 
 243 
 244 
 245 
 
 Date Building 
 
 1863 
 
 1863-68 
 
 1863-66 
 
 1863 
 
 1863-70 
 
 1863 
 1863 
 1863 
 
 Merton College, 
 new rooms 
 
 Melchet Court 
 
 The Infirmary 
 
 The ■ Albert 
 Memorial ' 
 
 Situation 
 
 Oxford 
 
 Hampshire . 
 
 Leeds, Yorkshire 
 
 Hyde Park, Lon- 
 don 
 
 Surrey County 
 Schools 
 
 Church of St. Paul 
 All Saints' Church 
 Church of St. Peter 
 
 246 
 
 247 
 
 248 
 
 249 
 
 1863 
 1863-64 
 1864.-66 
 1 8 64.-6 5 
 
 Cranleigh, near 
 Guildford 
 
 Langleybury 
 Clifton, Bristol . 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 W. Butterfield . 
 
 H. Clutton 
 G.G. Scott, R.A. 
 G. G.Scott, R. A. 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 
 G. E. Street, R.A 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 XVI. century 
 Venetian Gothic 
 Italian Gothic 
 
 Vauxhall, London I J.L.Pearson,F.SA. 
 
 Royal Hants Cty. Winchester. 
 Hospital 
 
 250 
 
 251 
 252 
 
 1864 
 
 1864-66 
 1864 
 
 Ch. of All Saints 
 
 Town Hall. 
 
 Lodging-house, 
 and schools 
 
 Ch. of St. Richard 
 
 Ch. of St. Mark 
 
 Pcnarth Church 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 Congleton, Che- 
 shire 
 
 St. Ann's Court, 
 Wardour St., 
 London 
 
 Slindon, Sussex . 
 
 New Brompton, 
 Chatham 
 
 Near Cardiff, Gla- 
 morganshire 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 and Early 
 Pointed 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 Early Middle 
 Pointed 
 
 Early XIII. 
 century 
 
 W. Butterfield 
 
 G. F. Bodley 
 
 E. W. Godwin, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 W. Burges . 
 
 C A. Buckler . 
 
 J. P. St. Aubyn . First Pointed . 
 
 Decorated 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 Geometrical 
 Pointed 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 XIII. century . 
 
 W. Butterfield 
 
 Early Decorated 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 411 
 
 Remarks 
 
 238. A simply designed but characteristic work. (See p. 287.) 
 
 239. A large mansion, erected for the Earl of Ashburton. Built of brick, with stone dressings. 
 
 240. Built of brick and stone. General dimensions, 415 x 315 ft. 
 
 221. A rich and costly work erected by national subscription, but not yet completed. Sicilian 
 marble, granite, mosaic work, enamelled stones, and gun metal with profuse gilding, are 
 used in its construction and decoration. A colossal statue of the late Prince Consort will 
 occupy a central position under the canopy, and four groups of sculpture emblematical of 
 the four quarters of the globe, are to be placed at each angle of the base. Total height 
 of the monument, 175 ft.; base about 70 ft. square. 
 
 242. Constructed of red and black bricks, with Bath and red Mansfield stone, coloured marbles, 
 
 &c. This building will accommodate 330 boys and a staff of masters. Frontage, 350 ft. ; 
 depth, 90 ft.; hall, 100 x 30 ft. 5 chapel, no x 70 ft. 
 
 243. Built of squared black flint and Bath stone. Spire of shingled oak. Length, 120 ft.; width, 
 ' 50 tt. ; nave, 40 ft. high ; height of spire, 130 ft. 
 
 244. Built of local stone, Bath and Pennant stone. Works still in progress. At present the 
 
 chancel, the chancel aisles, vestries, choir, and practising room are completed. 
 
 245. Built of brick and Bath stone. This church is one of the few modern ones that have been 
 
 groined throughout. All the groining (except the ribs) is in brickwork. The plan 
 consists of a nave and aisles, large chancel with chancel aisles, and an additional large 
 aisle added on the north side of the nave. The interior effect is very striking. The chancel 
 wall decorated with figure subjects. The altar is detached from the east wall, and is rich 
 in material and workmanship. Nave, 78 x 24 ft.; chancel, 42 x 23 ft.; height of nave to 
 groining, 47 ft. The design includes a tower and spire (220 ft. high) to be erected on 
 the north side of the nave. 
 
 246. In this building many modern features, such as sash windows, &c, are introduced. Con- 
 
 structed of brick and Bath stone. Ov\ ing to the site of this building (on the side of a hill), 
 it presents one more story on the south or garden front than on the north or road front. 
 
 247. This church is an example of the architect's design after his return to strictly English types 
 
 of Gothic, from which in his earlier works he had considerably departed. It is described 
 at length in the • Ecclesiologist ' of 1863. 
 
 248. An excellent example of secular Gothic. Built of local stone and brick. General dimen- 
 
 sions : 144 x 71 ft. ; height to ridge of roof, 54 ft. ; height to top of tower, 109 ft. (See 
 P- 354) 
 
 249. Built of brick and stone. The ground floor of this building is a school-room, and the 
 
 walls of the rooms above (ten on each floor) are carried on arches. A simple but well- 
 proportioned and judicious design, admirably adapted for its homely purpose. The 
 fenestration of the lowest story is original and effective. The two central arches of this 
 building, from the ground level to the top story, are left open and unglazed to light a 
 stone staircase. The result is very picturesque. 
 
 250. Erected for the Earl of Newburgh. The plan comprises a nave (62 x 23 ft.), chancel and 
 
 sacristry, north porch and south aisle of 4 bays. Built of red brick, faced with flint and 
 dressings of Box Hill stone. The roof of the school is of oak, the principals being 
 copied from the remains of an ancient structure. 
 
 251. Erected for the Rev. R. Willis. Built of brick, with Bath stone dressings. Nave, 
 
 85 x 26 ft. ; aisles, 85 x 13 ft. ; chancel, 39 x 24 ft. The steeple is not yet erected. 
 
 252. Erected for the Baroness Windsor. Built of various local stones. 
 
412 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 253 
 
 Date 
 
 1864 
 
 Building 
 
 i54 1864.-66 
 
 255 186+-66 
 
 256 1864.-66 
 
 257 
 258 
 
 259 
 
 1865-67 
 1865-67 
 
 University College 
 of Wales 
 
 Ch. of St. John 
 the Evangelist 
 
 Beckett's Bank . 
 Bank and offices . 
 
 VineyHill . 
 
 Freeland Church 
 and Parsonage 
 
 1865-68 
 
 260 1865-67 
 
 261 
 262 
 
 263 
 264 
 
 1865-68 
 1865-66 
 
 1865-67 
 1865-68 
 
 Ch. of St. 
 
 Ch. of St. Mary 
 
 Ch.of St. 
 
 Ch. of St. Saviour 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 Aberystwith, 
 South Wales 
 
 Middlesbro'-on- 
 Tees 
 
 Leeds, Yorkshire 
 
 Lombard Street, 
 London, E.C. 
 
 Near Sydney, 
 Gloucestershire 
 
 Near Oxford 
 
 J. P. Seddon 
 
 J. Norton . 
 
 G. G Scott, R. A. 
 
 A. Watei house . 
 
 E. Christian 
 J. L. Pearson,F.S. A, 
 
 Tavistock, Devon 
 
 Chapel and cloister 
 of Convent 
 
 Ch. of St. David 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 Geometrical . 
 Venetian Gothic 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 Early English 
 
 Early XIII. & 
 
 XIV. centuries 
 
 H. Clutton. 
 
 IXIII. [century 
 
 Chetwynde, near 
 Newport, Salop 
 
 Woburn, Bedfoid- 
 shire 
 
 Aberdeen Park, 
 Highbury, 
 London 
 
 Mount Pleasant, 
 Liverpool 
 
 Neath, S. Wales . 
 
 B. Ferrey, F.S.A. 
 
 H. Clutton . 
 
 Geometrical ' 
 Decorated 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 W. White, F.S.A. Early Middle 
 Pointed 
 
 Hadfield and Son 
 
 J. Norton 
 
 Early Pointed 
 First Pointed 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 413 
 
 Remarks 
 
 253. 
 
 This large and important building was originally commenced as an hotel for T. Savin, Esq., 
 but has been since sold to the promoters of the proposed College. It is built of sand- 
 stone (yellowish-drab colour), with Combe Down and Bath stone dressings. The frontage 
 is about 440 ft. ; the average depth, 75 ft. Cost about 100,000/. It is still unfinished. 
 (See p. 360.) 
 
 254. Built of red brick, with Brotton sandstone dressings ; roofed with Bangor slates. General 
 
 dimensions, 140 x 85 ft. 
 
 255. Erected for Messrs. Beckett and Denison, at a cost of 33,000/. Built of brick and stone. 
 
 Plan dimensions, about 120 x 120 ft. 
 
 256. Erected for Messrs. Alexander, Cunlifte, and Co. Built of Portland stone, with red granite 
 
 shafts. Lombard Street frontage, 29 ft. ; Clement's Lane frontage, 63 ft. (See 'Building 
 News ' for September 1, 1865.) 
 
 257. Erected for the Rev. W. H. Bathurst. Built of local red sandstone with deal fittings. 
 
 General dimensions, 86 x 60 ft. 
 
 258. Erected for the Raikes and Taunton families. The plan of the church consists of nave and 
 
 chancel, with par<vise over. Tower and vestry on north side of chancel, which is groined 
 in stone, and has an apsidal end and painted walls. A band of figure subjects, 3 ft. 
 high, is carried all round. Below this is a rich diapered pattern, and above is another 
 band of figures extending to the window jambs. These are for the most part treated 
 in outline. An alabaster reredos, detached from east wall, contains a low relief sculpture 
 of the Crucifixion with angels on each side bearing emblems. There is a metal rood 
 screen. Nave, 44x21 ft. and 29 ft. high ; chancel, 33 x 15 ft. and 22 ft. high. Built 
 of local stone for walls, with Bath stone for dressings and interior. 
 The parsonage is built of brick and stone, with open timber work. It communicates with 
 the church by a corridor on the north side. 
 
 259. A large church, built of local stone, with Bath stone dressings. Very simple in its general 
 
 design, but with many peculiarities of detail. The nave arcade consists of obtusely 
 pointed arches, slightly stilted, and carried on piers, resembling in plan the intersection of 
 two cylinders. The chancel walls are arcuated to a height of about 10 ft. from the 
 floor, to a cornice from which a ceiled roof springs. The nave roof is open timbered, 
 with tie-beams. The pulpit is of stone, circular, enriched with diapered carving, raised 
 on a single marble column, and reached by a long flight of steps. Externally, the tower, 
 with its louvred windows and square spire, forms a striking feature. It stands apart from 
 the main body of the church. 
 
 260. Erected for Burton Borough, Esq. Built of local stone, Broxby tiles, and Devonshire 
 
 marbles. Nave and south aisle, 57 x 33 ft. ; chancel, 31 x 19 ft. j tower and spire of 
 north-east angle, 100 ft. high. The late Archbishop of Dublin (Dr. Whately) was for- 
 merly rector. (See p. 220.) 
 
 261. Finely groined throughout. Beneath the chancel is a crypt (52 x 24 ft.) to be used as 
 
 the family vault for the Dukes of Bedford. Built of Chepsham and Bath stones. 
 
 262. Cruciform plan : lofty clerestory and central lantern. Built of red and buff-coloured bricks, 
 
 with a little stone in the tracery, &c. The interior is decorated with bricks, arranged in 
 patterns. Nave arcade of 3 bays, two wide and one narrow. Piers of brick moulded 
 at angles, and crowned with capitals of peculiar form. The tower is central, and carried 
 up square to a height of 15 or 20 feet above chancel arch, and then becomes octagonal. 
 The easternmost part of the chancel is groined. Dimensions: 105 x 50 ft., and 55 ft. 
 high. 
 
 253. Erected for the Community of Sisters of Notre-Dame. Built of brick arid stone. Vaulted 
 internally. Chapel, 90 x 30 ft. and 39 ft. high. (See p. 350.) 
 
 264. Built of local Pennant, with Bath stone dressings, lined with brick. Tiled roof. General 
 dimensions, 156 * 97 ft. 
 
414 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 265 
 
 1865-66 
 
 Ch. of St. Saviour 
 
 Eastbourne, 
 Sussex 
 
 266 
 267 
 
 1865-67 
 1865-69 
 
 Cambridge Union 
 Society 
 
 Emmanuel Ch. . 
 
 Cambridge , 
 Clifton, Bristol . 
 
 268 
 
 1865 
 
 Cathedral of St. 
 Finbar 
 
 Cork, Ireland 
 
 269 
 
 1865 
 
 Font Hill Church 
 
 Wiltshire . 
 
 270 
 
 1865-68 
 
 Hutton Hall 
 
 Near Guisboro', 
 Yorkshire 
 
 271 
 
 1865-67 
 
 Ch. of St. Saviour 
 
 Hoxton, London 
 
 272 
 
 1865-67 
 
 Ch. of St. Salvador 
 
 Dundee 
 
 273 
 
 1866-68 
 
 Holy Trinity 
 Church 
 
 Bingley, near 
 Leeds 
 
 274 
 
 1866-67 
 
 Ch. of St. Michael 
 
 Shoreditch, London 
 
 275 
 
 1866-69 
 
 International Col- 
 lege 
 
 Spring Grove, 
 Isleworth 
 
 276 
 
 1866-70 
 
 All Saints' Hos- 
 pital 
 
 Eastbourne, Sussex 
 
 277 
 
 1866-68 
 
 New University 
 Club 
 
 St. James's Street, 
 London 
 
 Architect 
 
 G. E. Street, R.A. 
 A. Waterhouse . 
 J. Norton . 
 W. Bulges . 
 
 Style 
 
 T. H. Wyatt . 
 A. Waterhouse . 
 J. Brooks . 
 
 G. F. Bodley 
 
 R. N. Shaw 
 
 J. Brooks . 
 
 J. Norton and P. 
 E. Masey 
 
 H. Woodyer 
 
 A. Waterhouse 
 
 Early Middle 
 Pointed 
 
 XIII. century 
 First Pointed . 
 
 XIII. century 
 French 
 
 Early English 
 Early Domestic 
 Early Pointed 
 
 Geometrical 
 Middle 
 Pointed 
 
 Early Pointed 
 French 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 XIV. century 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 XIII. century 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 415 
 
 Remarks 
 
 265. Built of red brick. Eastern part groined in brick and stone. Steeple and decorations still 
 
 in progress. 
 
 266. Built of red brick with Casterton stone dressings. General dimensions : 140 x 90 ft. ; 
 
 debating-room, 60 x 30 ft. Described in the ' Times ' of October 31, 1866. 
 
 267. Built of local sandstone with Bath stone dressings. Roofed with green slates. General 
 
 dimensions, 147 x 96 ft. 
 
 268. This is one of the architect's most important works, but, unfortunately, much of the 
 
 building remains still unfinished. Among the more striking features of the cathedral is 
 the west front with its three portals and rose window, round which will be placed emblems 
 of the four Evangelists nobly carved. The transept door is enriched with sculpture. 
 The cathedral has a triforium gallery. The design, when completed, will include towers 
 and spires at the west end, and one over the centre at the crux, where the piers con- 
 structed to carry it are 7 ft. 6 in. square. The plan consists of a nave, choir, ambulatory, 
 and ai>les. Length, 162 ft. ; height from floor to roof, 68 it. Built of limestone, 
 Stourton (for piers), and Bath stone dressings. (See p. 354.) 
 
 269. Erected for the Marquis of Westminster. Nave, transepts, and aspidal chancel. Tower 
 
 and spire at south-east. 
 
 270. Erected for J. W. Pease, Esq., M.P. Built of red brick, with Gatherley Moor stone 
 
 dressings. General dimensions, 150 x 120 ft. ; stables, 102 x 100 ft. 
 
 271. In this church the nave and chancel (which is aspidal) are of the same height, and covered 
 
 by one continuous roof, and both are lighted by a series of plain lancet windows in the 
 clerestory. The lower part of the chancel is enriched by mural arcuation, the arches 
 being trefoil-headed, and surmounted by gablets. Open roof over nave with semicircular 
 ribs and tie-beams, ceiled roof over chancel. The capitals of nave arcade are left un- 
 carved, except those at junction of nave and chancel, where the character of the carving is 
 excellent. 
 
 272. A very originally designed church. The plan includes a long and broad nave, with low 
 
 arcades of seven, and very narrow aisles, a spacious chancel aisled on the south side, and 
 a western narthex. The church is very lofty, and effectively proportioned. On the east 
 gable of the nave roof there is a picturesque bell turret. 
 
 273. Built of a common but beautifully coloured walling stone. The plan consists of a nave, 
 
 aisles, large west porch, chancel, chancel aisles, and vestry. Tower and spire (not yet 
 built) are to rise over west portion of chancel. All the walls are very substantial, varying 
 from 3 ft. to 7 ft. 6 in. in thickness. Rather lofty clerestory. Alabaster and gold 
 mosaic reredos. Organ in black case with polished metal pipes. Oak chancel fittings. 
 Nave, 70 x 29 ft. ; chancel, 37 x 20 ft. j nave, about 50 ft. high. 
 
 274. The plan of this church consists of a chancel with transeptal chapels, a nave and aisles, with 
 
 south porch, and a narthex or west corridor. The windows are filled with plate tracery. 
 Horizontal courses, and patterns of coloured brickwork, are judiciously introduced as a 
 means of decoration. The interior is spacious and lofty. 
 
 275. Erected for the International Education Society. Built of brick, with Bath stone dressings. 
 
 Roofed with green and blue slates. Dimensions of centre and one wing completed, 
 200 x 130 ft. (See the ' Illustrated London News,' « Builder,' and « Building News.') 
 
 276. Erected for the Sisterhood of All Saints', Margaret Street, London, and consists of a home 
 
 and hospital which will contain about 300 inmates. Built of red brick and Bath stone. 
 Length of building, 348 ft., covering an area of 73,000 sq. ft. (See p. 331.) 
 
 277. The first London club erected of a Mediaeval character in design, and presenting a marked 
 
 contrast to the adjacent buildings. Portland stone front. Fire-proof floor-, the 
 construction of which is left visible. An engraving of this design appeared in the 
 'Builder' of May 16, 1868. 
 
416 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 278 
 
 1866 
 
 Ch. & Parsonage 
 
 Chigwell Row, 
 Sussex 
 
 J. P. Seddon 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 279 
 
 1866 
 
 Trinity Church . 
 
 West Cliff, 
 Folkestone 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Early English 
 
 280 
 
 1866 
 
 Warehouse 
 
 Upper Thames St., 
 London, E.C. 
 
 W. B urges 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 281 
 
 1866-67 
 
 Buxted Hall 
 
 Uckfield, Sussex 
 
 J. F. Bentley . 
 
 Tudor . 
 
 282 
 
 1866-71 
 
 College Buildings 
 
 University College, 
 Glasgow 
 
 G. G. Scott, R.A. 
 
 Early Deco- 
 rated 
 
 283 
 
 1866-71 
 
 Midland Railway 
 Terminus and 
 Hotel 
 
 St. Pancras, 
 London 
 
 G. G. Scott, R.A. 
 
 Venetian Gothic 
 
 284 
 
 1867-70 
 
 New Buildings, 
 Christchurch 
 
 Oxford 
 
 T. N. Deane 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 285 
 
 1867-70 
 
 Ch.of St. Andrew 
 
 Plaistow, Essex . 
 
 J. Crooks . 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 286 
 
 1867-70 
 
 The Clarendon 
 Laboratory 
 
 Oxford 
 
 T. N. Deane 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 287 
 
 1867-70 
 
 Hume wood 
 
 Wicklow, Ireland 
 
 W.White, F.S.A. 
 
 Baronial 
 Gothic 
 
 288 
 
 1867 
 
 Ch.of St. Michael 
 
 Lowfield'Heath, 
 near Horlty, 
 Surrey 
 
 W. Burges . 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 289 
 
 1867 
 
 R.C. Ch.of St. Mary 
 (Pro-Cathedral) 
 
 Kensington, Lon- 
 don 
 
 G. Goldie . 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 L 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 417 
 
 Remarks 
 
 278. Erected for the Rev. T. Lawrence. Church, 1-50x60 ft. and 60 ft. high; built of 
 
 Godalming stone, with Bath stone dressings. Parsonage of yellow brick, cost 4,200/. 
 Church not yet finished. 
 
 279. Erected for the Earl of Radnor. 
 
 280. One of the very few instances of the successful adaptation of Gothic for commercial purposes 
 
 at the east end of London. Mr. B urges only added the front (18 ft. wide), being limited 
 to the floor lines of an existing building. It is constructed of brick, and decorated with 
 a piece of sculpture in bas relief representing Commerce. 
 
 281. Additions to the residence of Coventry Patmore, Esq., including an entirely new front. 
 
 The portions principally studied were the drawing-room and dining-room. The former 
 is lighted by a bay window. Built of local sandstone with tiled roofs and oak fittings. 
 Frontage, 98 ft. 
 
 282. One of Mr. Scott's largest and most important works, having cost nearly 300,000/. It is 
 
 built of GriflYock and Bannockburn stone. The north frontage is 650 ft. ; the south 
 frontage, 629 ft. ; width, 325 ft. The buildings are still in progress. 
 
 233. A capacious and elaborately detailed structure of brick, stone, and iron, the first instance of 
 
 the adaptation of Mediaeval design for such a purpose in London. It is still in course of 
 erection. 
 
 234. An important block of buildings facing the Broad Walk. The details are very peculiar 
 
 and characteristic of the designer's hand, but much of the decorative carved work is left 
 unfinished, which greatly detracts from the general effect. The works cost 30,000/. 
 (See p. 287.) 
 
 285. A lofty church built of Kentish rag, with freestone dressings. The nave is divided into 
 
 4 bays by obliquely pointed arches of wide span. Semicircular apse lighted by lancet 
 windows. Chancel separated from chancel aisles by arches filled with tracery. Arcaded 
 clerestory. Total length about 160 ft. 
 
 286. A very picturesque and ably designed building treated with great refinement in detail. It 
 
 can scarcely be referred to any particular style, but bears evidence of a taste for French 
 Gothic of an early date, while a slight Italian element is represented by the use of colour 
 introduced here and there in bands of red Mansfield and a greenish local stone, the 
 main body of the walls being from Bath quarries. The interior of the laboratory is very 
 ingeniously arranged as to the timbers of its roof and floors, which are of good construc- 
 tive purpose. 
 
 287. A large mansion erected for W. W. Fitzwilliam Dick, Esq., M.P. Every portion of this 
 
 building, down to the minutest detail of the fittings, was executed from designs carefully 
 worked out by the architect, who read a paper descriptive of the work, which has been 
 published in the ' Transactions of the Royal Institute of British Architects.' General 
 dimensions, 160 x 40 ft. ; tower 80 ft. high. (See p. 362 ) 
 
 288. Erected for the Rev. T. Burmingham. This church has a narthex, or porch, extending 
 
 across its west front. Sculpture is introduced round the west (rose) window representing 
 the four ages, and over the west door (St. Michael and the Dragon). The spire is of 
 wood, covered with oak shingle. Nave, 42 x 23 ft. ; chancel, 25 x 15 ft. Built of local 
 and Bath stone. 
 
 289. This church, though yet wanting much of its internal fittings and decoration, is rich 
 
 in sculptured detail, which has been carefully designed and executed with refinement. 
 The great internal height of this building gives it a special character. The exterior 
 is, unfortunately, under the disadvantage of being almost hidden from the Hammer- 
 smith Road by intervening houses. When these are removed, the fine western doorway 
 and facade will be seen. (See p. 349.) 
 
418 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 290 
 
 1867 
 
 Ch. of St. Edward 
 
 Windsor 
 
 291 
 
 1867 
 
 Cathedral (Elphin 
 Diocese) 
 
 Sligo, Ireland 
 
 292 
 
 1867-70 
 
 Keble College . 
 
 Oxford . 
 
 293 
 
 1867-68 
 
 Ch. of St. Chad . 
 
 Haggerston, 
 London 
 
 294 
 
 1867-68 
 
 The Bank . 
 
 Farnham, Surrey 
 
 295 
 
 1867 
 
 Additions to 
 Cathedral 
 
 Bristol 
 
 296 
 
 1867-68 
 
 Ch.ofSt.CoIumba 
 
 Haggerston, 
 London 
 
 297 
 
 1867-69 
 
 Balliol College . 
 
 Oxford 
 
 298 
 
 1867-69 
 
 Easneye 
 
 Near Ware, Herts 
 
 299 
 
 1867-69 
 
 Farnham Royal 
 Church 
 
 Near Windsor 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 C. A. Buckler . j XIII. century, 
 
 G. Goldie 
 
 W. Butterfield 
 
 J. Brooks 
 
 R. N. Shaw 
 
 Norman 
 
 • • 
 
 Decorated 
 
 Earl) Pointed . 
 
 Old English 
 
 G. E. Street, R A. Middle Pointed 
 
 J. Brooks . 
 
 A. Waterhouse 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 W. E. Nesfield 
 
 XIII. century 
 Domestic 
 
 Earlv Deco- 
 ra 'ed 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 419 
 
 Remarks 
 
 290. Erected for the Rev. A. Applegarth. Built of Kentish rag and Box Hill stone. Nave of 
 
 5 bays, 80 x 24 ft., with aisles 11 ft. wide. Clustered columns and arches of Painswick 
 stone. Clerestory of cusped triangular windows. Open timber roof, of which the prin- 
 cipals rest on engaged shafts. West window of 5 lights with geometrical tracery. Tn 
 the gable above is a canopied niche containing a figure of St. Edward the Confessor. 
 Lady Chapel at east end of south aisle. 
 
 291. Remarkable both for size and character. Nave and aisles ; western tower with flanking 
 
 staircase ; turrets, for access to tiiforia (used for children) ; transepts ; deep choir ; semi- 
 circular apsidal sanctuary, with procession aisle and eastern Lady Chapel ; chapter 
 house, and extensive sacristies adjoining. Total internal length, 211 ft. j width across 
 transepts, 115 ft.; internal height, 61 ft. Built of local blue limestone, with partial 
 introduction of sandstone from Donegal. Works still in progress. 
 
 292. Built of local brick and Bath stone, with mural bands and patterns of different coloured 
 
 brick, which constitute the chief decoration of its facades. This treatment of brickwork 
 is of course a great novelty at Oxford, and has been much criticised. The details are 
 refined and artistic in design. The buildings at present erected enclose the greater part of 
 ' a quadrangle, 24.3 x 220 ft. 
 
 293. A very lofty church, faced internally with brick. It has a semicircular apse groined in 
 
 brick with stone ribs ; nave arches of wide span and simply moulded, carried on short 
 round pillars. Lofty clerestory lighted by 4 large windows on each side. The south 
 chapel is vaulted like the chancel and forms an interesting feature. (See p. 364.) 
 
 294. Bank offices, with residence above. Erected for James Knight, Esq. An excellent 
 
 example of the revival of ancient half-timbered style of work for house-building. Two 
 large bay windows project from the first floor, and are carried up three stories in height, 
 terminating with gable fronts. A stone staircase leads from ground to first floor. The 
 chimneypieces, grates, and all internal fittings are in character with the building, and 
 were expressly designed for it. Large chimney-shafts of cut and rubbed Farnham bricks 
 with carved brick panels. 
 
 295. New nave, north porch, and western steeples. Constructed of Doulting stone. Works 
 
 still in progress. 
 
 296. A remarkably original and boldly-conceived design. The east end of this church, which 
 
 abuts on the Kingsland Road, forms the sacrarium. The choir is placed under the 
 central tower, which is groined. The transepts are short and barrel vaulted. There are 
 no aisle windows, the clerestory being of lofty proportions. Built of brick, with stone 
 piers, &c. (See p. 365.) 
 
 297. New front towards Broad Street, master's house, &c. One of the most important modern 
 
 buildings of the University. Great breadth of effect gained by keeping windows small, 
 and leaving large masses of wall surface. Central portion, with groined entrance-porch 
 below, rises in a tower-like block above the rest. High-pitched roof, covered with 
 Staffordshire tiles and picturesque dormers. Built of Bath stone. General dimensions : 
 Broad Street front, 240 ft. ; front towards Trinity, 107 ft. (See p. 361.) 
 
 298. Erected for T. Fowell Buxton, Esq. Built of red brick and terra cotta, with tiled roof. 
 
 General dimensions : house, 170 x 100 ft. ; stables, 140 x 115 ft. 
 
 299. Nave and aisles erected on the site of an old church, the chancel of which is retained. 
 
 Built of flint and Bath stone. General dimensions, 60 x 40 ft. This is a small but cha- 
 racteristic specimen of the architect's skill in design. Proportions good; quiet and 
 refined in detail. The work was undertaken mainly through the exertions of H. Vallance, 
 Esq., who resides in the neighbourhood, and to whose house Mr. Nesfield has made some 
 important additions. (See p. 345.) 
 
420 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 300 
 301 
 
 Date Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 1867-70 
 1868 
 
 302 
 
 303 
 
 304 
 
 305 
 306 
 
 Allerton Priory . | Near Liverpool 
 
 Domestic Chapel 
 
 1868-69 
 
 1868 
 
 St. Mary of the 
 Angels 
 
 Roundwick Hou^e 
 
 Exton House, 
 Oakham 
 
 1868-70 Kingswalden Ch. 
 
 1868 
 1868-71 
 
 Lodges & cottages 
 Ch. of St. John . 
 
 307 
 
 308 
 
 309 
 
 310 
 
 311 
 
 1868-70 
 
 1868-70 
 
 1868 
 
 1S68- 
 
 1868-70 
 
 Huntsham Court 
 
 Ch. of St. John 
 the Baptist 
 
 Toddington Ch. 
 
 Westmoreland 
 Place, Bayswater 
 
 Near Petworth, 
 Sussex 
 
 A. Waterhouse . 
 C. A. Buckler . 
 
 Hitchin, Herts 
 
 Broadlands, Rom- 
 sey, Hampshire 
 
 Torquay 
 
 J. F. Bentley 
 J.L.Pearson,F.S.A. 
 
 W. E. Nesfield 
 
 W. E. Nesfield . 
 
 XIII. century 
 Domestic 
 
 XIII. century, 
 with later 
 detail 
 
 Transitional 
 XIII. century 
 
 Late XIII. 
 century 
 
 XV. century 
 
 Old English 
 Domestic 
 
 G. E. Street, R. A. Early M iddle 
 Pointed 
 
 St. Margaret's Ch. 
 
 Near Tiverton, 
 Devon 
 
 West Derby Road, 
 Liverpool 
 
 Toddington Park, 
 Winchcomb, 
 Gloucestershire 
 
 Liverpool . 
 
 Ch.of St. Marv . ! Carlisle 
 
 B. Ferrey, F S.A. 
 
 G. F. Bodlcy 
 
 G. E. Street, R.A 
 
 G. E. Street, R.A. 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 Tudor 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 Geometrical 
 Point d 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 421 
 
 Remarks 
 
 300. Erected for J. Grant Morris, Esq. Built of grey brick, with local red sandstone dressings. 
 
 301. Erected for the Earl of Gainsborough. Cruciform and apsidal in plan. Built over a 
 
 vaulted crypt of brick, lighted by windows in the plinth of the superstructure. An aide 
 between the sanctuary and sacristy opens into the north transept ; an apse at the end of 
 the same forms the baptistery, over which rises the bell-cote. The Lady Chapel is in the 
 south transept. The building is connected with the mansion by upper and lower tribunes 
 lined with oak panelling. 
 
 302. This work consisted principally in the addition of two chapels and baptistery to church, 
 
 and an oratory to the adjoining presbytery. The building materials used were stone, 
 brick, and grey slates. 
 
 303. Erected for Captain Penfold. Contains three reception rooms on ground floor, kitchen, 
 
 offices, &c, with large dairy and farm buildings attached. One story of bed rooms over. 
 This house is treated in a very picturesque manner, and the local materials used — viz. 
 stone, brick, tiles, and oak timber — are ingeniously intermixed in the design. It was at 
 first intended only for a farm-house, but it afterwards expanded into a small residence in 
 connection with the farm. 
 
 304. A new chancel (40 x 18 ft.). Erected for C. Cholmely Hale, Esq. The nave of this 
 
 church was restored at the same time. Materials used, flint and ' chinch, ' with English 
 oak for fittings. 
 
 305. Erected for the late Viscountess Palmerston. The entrance lodge is of half-timbered work, 
 
 and is very elaborately executed in oak. 
 
 306. This church when completed will be one of the architect's most successful works, and 
 
 certainly one of the most notable which has been erected in Devonshire during the 
 Revival. The chancel is a very spacious one, carefully groined in brick, with stone ribs. 
 It opens by two pointed arches to a north aisle used as the organ chamber. The side 
 walls of the sanctuary are arcuated and richly panelled. A bas relief, representing the 
 Crucifixion, occupies the centre of the reredos. The east window of 5 lights is filled 
 with stained glass, admirable in design and colour. (See p. 325 ) 
 
 307. Erected for C. A. Williams Troyte, Esq. The old mansion, replaced by the present 
 
 building, was entirely dilapidated, and had been much disfigured by modern additions. 
 General dimensions : 106 x 53 ft. ; office wing, 60 x 30 ft ; entrance tower, 18 x 18 ft., 
 on plan. Built of Hamden Hill and local stone ; roofed with Bridgewater tiles 3 oak used 
 in ceilings, &c. 
 
 308. Erected at the sole cost of the Rev. J. C. Reade and Mrs. Reade. For correctness of design, 
 
 refined workmanship, and artistic decoration, this church may take foremost rank among 
 examples of the Revival. It is built of red and white sandstone. The interior is sump- 
 tuously decorated with mural paintings, executed from the design and under the imme- 
 diate superintendence of Mr. E. Kempe, M.A. (See p. 369.) 
 
 309. In course of erection for Lord Sudeley. This church is mainly remarkable for having been 
 
 executed without any restriction as to cost. The architect has not, however, multiplied 
 its merely decorative feature-, but the walls are very substantial, and the mouldings 
 elaborate. The chancel, chancel aisle, tower, and chapel for monuments, are being 
 groined. The nave is to have an oak loot. The masonry throughout is of wrought 
 stone from quarries in the neighbourhood. 
 
 310. Erected at the expense of Robert Horsfall, Esq. A good example of a town church (to 
 
 hold 1,000 people), built very cheaply, as far as the exterior is concerned, in order to reserve 
 means for ensuring an effective interior. The total cost of the church and clergy home 
 was only 11,000/. Materials used, brick and marble. 
 
 311. Built of red and white sandstone, with marble columns, &c. General dimensions, 98 x 64 ft, 
 
 F F 
 
422 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 312 
 
 Date 
 
 1868 
 
 Building 
 
 Leyes Wood 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 313 
 
 312 
 
 315 
 
 1868-70 
 
 1868-69 
 
 1868-70 
 
 Ch. of St. Luke . 
 
 Near Groom- R. N. Shaw 
 
 bridge, Surrey 
 
 Style 
 
 Old English 
 
 Christchurch es- \ B. Champneys . XIII. century 
 tate, Kentish 
 Town 
 
 St. Luke's Par- 
 sonage 
 
 Dromore Castle 
 
 316 1368-70 
 
 317 
 
 318 
 
 319 
 
 320 
 
 1868 
 
 Christchurch, 
 Kentish Town 
 
 Near Pallaskenry, 
 Limerick 
 
 B. Champneys 
 
 E. W. Godwin, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 1868 
 
 1868-70 
 
 1868 
 
 Ch. of the Annun- 
 ciation 
 
 Convalescent 
 Hospital 
 
 GonvilleandCaius 
 College 
 
 Sunnydene . 
 
 St. Chad's Schools 
 
 Chislehurst 
 
 Horsforth, near 
 Leeds 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 Rockhills, 
 Sydenham 
 
 Denstone, 
 Staffordshire 
 
 Old English . 
 
 Anglo-Irish 
 Geometrical 
 
 J. Brooks 
 
 R. N. Shaw 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 Old English 
 
 A. Waterhouse . 
 
 J. F. Bentley 
 
 W. Slater and R. 
 H. Carpenter 
 
 Francois I e 
 
 Tudor and Ja- 
 cobean 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
erected between 1820^7/1870. 423 
 
 Remarks 
 
 312. Erected for James W. Temple, Esq., in the style of ancient Sussex houses. The buildings 
 
 are grouped on three sides of an open court, the access to which i> by an entrance porch 
 under a tower. The picturescpie assemblage of steep roofs, abutting on each other in 
 every variety of form, the lofty brick chimney shafts and the gabled fronts with their 
 quaintly carved barge-boards, tile-weathering, and mullioned windows, combine to render 
 this mansion one of the most interesting examples of the Revival. (See p. 3+3.) 
 
 313. Erected for the Rev. C. H. Andrews. The plan is that of a quasi-cruciform church, 
 
 tlie transepts being formed by a continuation of the aisles, 'f lie nave is of 4 bays, with 
 clerestory, lighted by lancet windows. The chancel is apsidal, lighted by 3 windows of 
 plate tracery. The tower stands in piers between apse and base. Beneath it are the choir 
 stalls. The apse is groined in brick, with stone ribs. The walls are of red Suffolk, brick, 
 with stone dressings, columns, &c. General dimensions, 127 x 60 ft. Height of tower, 
 1 1 5 ft. 
 
 314. Erected for the Rev. C. H. Andrews. In design the style is of a mixed character, being 
 
 Gothic in general grouping and some details, while certain features, such as the sash 
 windows, &c, belong to the ' Queen Anne ' period. General dimensions about 44 ft. 
 square. 
 
 315. Erected for the Earl of Limerick. A well-studied and most successful work, in the execu- 
 
 tion of which the architect was consulted on every point from the choice of site to 
 the design of furniture. It is rich in carved work, stained and painted glass, ornamental 
 tiles, marble inlay, and decorative painting, a portion of which was entrusted to Mr. 
 H. Marks, A.R.A. General dimensions: banquetting hall, 56 x 30 ft. and 36 ft. high; 
 gateway, 23 x 30 ft. and 60 ft. high ; keep tower, 37 x 32 ft. and 85 ft. high. Con- 
 structed of local limestone with brick lining. 
 
 316. One of the architect's most successful works, remarkable for the quiet dignity of its com- 
 
 position, and for the careful study of its details. The choir is placed over open areas left 
 in the foundations, in order to insure a proper effect of sound. The nave piers are 
 round, with shallow capitals and square abaci, the arches above being simply chamfered. 
 The arches which enclose the chancel on the north and south sides are moulded with 
 great refinement. (See p. 366.) 
 
 317. Erected for J. Metcalfe Smith, Esq., as a memorial to his father. To accommodate 100 patients 
 
 besides matron, servants, &c. A long building with eight wards (the largest 86 x 24. ft. 
 and 20 ft. high), a centre building with long wings extending right and left, kitchens, 
 &c, in the rear. Red brick ground floor with stone mullions, &c, all weather-tiled above 
 to keep the wards warm and dry. Rooms heated throughout with hot-water apparatus. 
 An excellent work and very characteristic of the architect's taste in design. 
 
 318. A very important and successful work, but rather too late in style to be properly included 
 
 among examples of the Gothic revival. General dimensions : Trinity Street front, 1 62 ft. ; 
 Trinity Lane front, 153 ft. ; tower, 105 ft. high. Built of Ancaster and Casterton stone. 
 
 319. Erected for Richard Sutton, Esq. A well-appointed residence, designed with great care, 
 
 the garden, &c, being laid out in a style corresponding with the date of the architecture. 
 The house is of red brick with stone dressings, and has a tiled roof. The internal fittings 
 are chiefly of wainscot. General dimensions, no x 48 ft. 
 
 320. In connection with St. Nicholas's College, Lancing. Planned in the form of the letter H 
 
 with two quadrangles each open on one side, measuring respectively 200 x 160 ft. and 
 180 x 160 ft. The school will accommodate 400 boys, and includes a chapel, dining-hall, 
 large school-room, class rooms, offices, &c, and eight dormitories for fifty boys each, with 
 residences for masters, &c. The dormitory wings are three Dorics high with ranges of 
 lancet windows. The principal school-room is flanked by two lofty water towers termi- 
 nating in pyramidal roofs. The grand entrance is in the centre under the school-room. 
 The chapel and other portions have still to be erected. Materials used, brick faced with 
 Alton stone. The building stands on the brow of a range of hills overlooking the beau- 
 tiful valley near Alton Towers. 
 
 F F 2 
 
424 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings 
 
 No. 
 
 Date 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 321 
 
 1868-70 
 
 Convent schools, &c. 
 
 Battersea 
 
 C. A. Buckler . 
 
 XIII. century. 
 
 322 
 
 1868-70 
 
 Mansion 
 
 Seacon Heath, 
 
 Sussex 
 
 W. Slater and R. 
 H. Carpenter 
 
 XIV. century 
 modified 
 
 323 
 
 1S68 
 
 Church of St. 
 Matthew 
 
 Blackmoor, Hants 
 
 A. Waterhouse . 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 324 
 
 1868 
 
 St. John's Dio- 
 cesan College 
 
 Waterford, Ireland 
 
 G. Goldie . 
 
 Early Pointed 
 
 325 
 
 1868-71 
 
 Tower 
 
 Cardiff Castle . 
 
 W. Burges 
 
 XIII. century 
 French 
 
 326 
 
 1868 
 
 Quy Hall . 
 
 Cambridgeshire . 
 
 W. White, F.S.A. 
 
 Manorial 
 Gothic 
 
 327 
 
 1869-71 
 
 Knightshayes 
 
 Tiverton, Devon 
 
 W. Burges 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 323 
 
 1869-70 
 
 Routh Church . 
 
 Near Cardiff 
 
 ■ 
 
 J. Prichard . 
 
 Early Geome- 
 trical 
 
 329 
 
 1869-70 
 
 Sir W. Powell's 
 
 Almshouses 
 
 Fulham, near 
 London 
 
 J. P. Seddon 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 330 
 
 1869 
 
 St. Peter's Or- 
 phanage 
 
 Broadstairs, Kent 
 
 J. P. Seddon 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 331 
 
 1869 
 
 Church of St. 
 Stephen 
 
 The Green, 
 Hampstead 
 
 S. S. Teulon 
 
 XII. century 
 French 
 
erected between 1820 and 1870. 425 
 
 Remarks 
 
 321. Erected for the Hon. Mrs. E. Petre and Mrs. B. Shea. Built of stock bricks, with white 
 
 moulded Suffolk bricks for door and window jambs. Arches pointed and segmental. 
 Stepped gables and dormers. Angular chimney shafts, &c. 
 
 322. Erected for the Right Hon. G. I. Goschen, M.P. The principal feature in this structure 
 
 is the hall, 42 ft. square in plan and reaching the entire height of the house: open galleries 
 give access to rooms on each floor. The house itself is nearly square, being 90 x 80 ft. 
 with a range of office buildings at the north-east angle j height from ground to parapet, 
 44 ft. Built of local stone. 
 
 323. Erected for Sir Roundell Palmer, Q.C. General dimensions : 120x30 ft. ; tower, no ft. 
 
 high. Built of local stone with Bath stone dressings. Open roof of single span, tiled. 
 Internally the walls are of ashlar lined with tiles to a certain height. 
 
 324. Modified to suit modern requirements. This is the first college erected in Ireland of this 
 
 character in design (with the exception of part of Maynooth College by the late A. W. 
 Pugin). The plan includes a spacious library, refectory, cloistered quadrangle, and a 
 large college chapel, besides the usual class and lecture-rooms, &c. The site is remark- 
 ably fine, overlooking the town of Waterford and the adjacent mountain ranges. 
 General dimensions : facade, 150 ft. long and 57 ft. high ; quadrangle, 80 x 70 ft. Built 
 of local blue limestone and sandstone. 
 
 325. In course of erection for the Marquis of Bute. A very carefully designed work, which will 
 
 include when finished many rich details of sculpture and decorative painting. The 
 tower is 25 ft. square on plan, and 130 ft. high. It is built of local stone. (See p. 355.) 
 
 326. Erected for Clement Francis, Esq. Built of thin bricks (red and buff" in colour). General 
 
 dimensions, 130 x 40 ft. 
 
 327. In course of erection for J. H. Amory, Esq., M.P. A large and important work, executed 
 
 with great spirit and a thorough knowledge of detail. Hall, 40 x 24 ft. ; staircase, 
 23 x 20 ft. ; dining-room, 38 x 21 ft. Built of local stone for walling with Ham Hill 
 dressings. Shafts of Devonshire marble are used for the interior. The hall has an open 
 timber roof with a minstrels 1 gallery, &c. The grand staircase is of teak. Iron window 
 casements are employed. (See p. 356.) 
 
 328. Erected at the cost of the Marquis of Bute. The design was adapted to foundations 
 
 planned and laid by another architect (Mr. Roos). The tower and spire have yet to 
 be completed. Built of Pennant stone, with dressings of Bath, red limestone, &c. 
 For the screens, sedilia, pulpit, and reredos the local (Pennarth) alabaster was chiefly 
 used. Total length internally 82 ft. Across transepts, 69 ft. ; length of nave, 51 ft. 
 
 329. A picturesque row of almshouses, two stories high, intersected by gablets carried up over 
 
 first-floor windows, which have pointed heads filled with tracery. The ground floor has 
 bay windows and projecting porches. These are both included under one line of roof, 
 which runs the whole length of the building. The tower-like feature with a saddle- 
 back roof at one end of the row greatly helps the composition. General dimensions, 
 200 x 22 ft. Built of York stone with Camden stone dressings : the roof is covered 
 with Broseley tiles. 
 
 330. Erected for the Archbishop of Canterbury and Mrs. Tait, at a cost of about 10,000/. The 
 
 principal elevation is simply but effectively treated. General dimensions, 130x50 ft. 
 and 60 ft. high. Built of flint with red brick, and Doulting stone dressings. 
 
 331. This church, which is built for a congregation of 1,000 persons, has a nave (90 x 26 ft.), 
 
 aisles, apsidal chancel (groined, with a vaulted crypt below), and a central tower. 
 These parts, as seen from the road, groxip admirably together. The apse is richly 
 decorated with mosaic, and is lighted by lancet windows filled with plate tracery of 
 varied form. The aisles, which have rather flat roofs, are lighted by square-headed 
 mullioned windows. The intrados of the chancel arch is corbelled out from panelled 
 blocks richly carved. The open timbered roof over nave is of excellent design and 
 proportions. The we.-t porch with its long front and triple archway is very effective. 
 Materials used : brick, stone, granite, &C. (See p. 368.) 
 
426 Selected Examples of Gothic Buildings. 
 
 No. 
 
 332 
 333 
 
 334 
 
 335 
 336 
 337 
 
 338 
 339 
 
 3iO 
 
 Date 
 
 1869 
 1869 
 
 1869 
 
 1869 
 1869-70 
 1869-71 
 
 1869 
 1870 
 
 1870 
 
 Building 
 
 Situation 
 
 Church of St. 
 
 Michael 
 
 Glenbegh Tower; 
 
 New Town Hall , 
 
 The ' Bourne ' 
 Schools 
 
 Tutor's House 
 
 Charterhouse 
 Schools 
 
 Ch. of St. Mark 
 
 Additions to 
 Eaton Hall 
 
 Church of St. 
 Augustine 
 
 341 1870-71 Preen. 
 
 342 
 
 343 
 
 1870 
 
 1870 
 
 St. Andrew's 
 
 Convent of Our 
 
 Lady 
 
 Bishop's Stortford, 
 Hertfordshire 
 
 Glenbegh, Co. 
 Kerry, Ireland 
 
 Manchester 
 
 Farnham, Surrey 
 
 Eton College 
 
 Near Godalming, 
 Surrey 
 
 Belgrave Road, 
 Leicester 
 
 Cheshire 
 
 Architect 
 
 Style 
 
 Queen's Gate, 
 S. Kensington 
 
 Near Wenlock, 
 Shropshire 
 
 Bridgewater, 
 
 Somerset 
 
 Chichester 
 
 J. Clarke, F.S.A. XV. century 
 E. W Godwin, Anglo-Irish 
 
 F.S.A. 
 
 Geometrical 
 
 A. Waterhouse . XIII. century 
 
 B. Champneys . XVI. century 
 W.White, F.S.A. 1 English Do- 
 
 P. C. Hardwick, 
 F.S.A. 
 
 mest it- 
 
 Middle Pointed 
 
 E. Christian 
 
 A. Waterhouse 
 
 W. Butterfield . 
 
 Geometrical 
 Decorated 
 
 XIII. century 
 
 R. N. Shaw 
 
 J. Norton 
 
 C. A. Buckler . 
 
 Early Deco- 
 rated 
 
 Shropshire 
 Half-timbered 
 
 Tudor 
 
 XIII. century 
 
erected between 1820 <?//</ 1870. 427 
 
 Remarks 
 
 332. Built of flint and stone. It contains 1,000 sittings, and has no galleries. This work 
 
 was to some extent a restoration, but new additions were also made. 
 
 333. Erected for the Hon. Rowland Winn. Built of local sandstone and brick lining. General 
 
 dimensions: 76 x 39 ft., or including courtyards and out-buildings, 131 x 85 ft. ; height 
 of main roof, 66 ft. ; of tower, 114 ft. 
 
 334. In course of erection. Built of stone from the neighbourhood of Bradford. General 
 
 dimensions : Princess Street front, 373 ft. ; Albert Square front, 306 ft. ; Lloyd Street 
 front, 336 ft. ; height of principal tower, 260 ft. from street level. (For illustrations, see 
 'Building News,' May 8, 1868 ; * Builder/ May 2, 1868 ; and 'Architect, 1 July 31, 
 1869.) 
 
 335. Erected for the Ven. Archdeacon Allerton. Lower story of brick; upper 'half tim- 
 
 bered, ' with tiles and plaster. Length, 44 ft, ; breadth, 20 ft. ; height 26 ft 
 
 336. Erected for G. G. Marindin, Esq. General dimensions ; 136 x 100 ft. Built of red brick. 
 
 337. Proposed to consist of several separate buildings, each complete in itself, but so arranged 
 
 as to form an architectural group. The centre building, in which a clock tower will be 
 the conspicuous feature, is the ' Gown Boys' ' house, having on the north side the head 
 master's house, and on the south side the chapel and second master's house. The 
 school buildings are in the rear of the Gown Boys' house with cloisters for access to them 
 from the different houses. General dimensions: Head master's house, 80x150 ft.; 
 frontage of Gown Boys' house, 270 ft. The buildings occupy an area of about 350 ft. 
 square. Constructed of Bargate stone, with Bath stone dressings. 
 
 338. Erected for W. Perry Henick, Esq. Built of slate-stone walling with Bath dressings and 
 
 brick lining. Marble shafts and oak fittings. General dimensions, 106 x 84 ft. 
 
 339. This work, undertaken for the Marquis of Westminster, consists of extensive altera- 
 
 tions in the main building, such as removing the pointed traceried windows (some 
 of which were of cast iron) throughout the entire building, and substituting for the most 
 part square-headed windows ; removing old pinnacles and portions of the sham groining 
 and sham buttresses, making the roofs visible internally, &c. Many additions 
 are also being carried out, viz. a new library, 90x30 ft., with guests' rooms over; 
 a private wing ; a chapel with lofty tower ; and general rearrangement of stables. 
 Masonry of Manley stone. 
 
 340. This church when completed will be one of the most original works yet designed by the 
 
 architect. The treatment of the west end is very peculiar, the elevation presenting a 
 rectangular composition instead of the usual gabled form. It is surmounted by a 
 massive belfry. Spacious nave with bold arcade and lofty clerestory. Cylindrical piers 
 of white and red stone in alternate blocks. Walls of stone and brick, arranged in bands 
 and enriched with tiles. Open timbered roof of simple type. Chancel not yet built. 
 
 341. In course of erection for Arthur Sparrow, Esq. An extension of a small house which was 
 
 originally a cell attached to Wenlock Abbey. Constructed of local walling stone, with 
 Longner stone for dressings : weather-tiling, timber, &c. 
 
 342. This work consists in the remodelling and alteration of a mansion for Sir A. Acland Hood, 
 
 Bart. The new front is faced with dressed Williton sandstone lined with brick. The 
 roof is covered with Staffordshire tiles. General dimensions, 176 x 150 ft. 
 
 343. Erected for the Carmelite nuns. These buildings are ranged on 3 sides of a quadrangular 
 
 cloister. The entrance hall and strangers' rooms occupy the north front. The choir 
 and chapter room are in the east wing ; the recreation room, refectory, and offices in 
 the west. The exterior presents a picturesque composition of simple but effective cha- 
 racter. Built of brick, with Bosham white moulded bricks for door and window jambs. 
 
l7 
 
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