The work of E. W. Pugin

[sangallo]

As is well known, E. W. Pugin did much work in the north-west of England, mainly in Cumbria and Lancashire.
Apart from All Saints in Barton, another interesting church is Our Lady and St Hubert's in Great Harwood, built in 1858-59 through the munificence of James Lomax to cater for the rapidly increasing population of Irish Catholic workers in the area.
For info on the church, follow the link
http://www.sthuberts.org.uk/about.php?PHPSESSID=23827ccdf0ed87ac3cc8aedd006fa57c

Below is a picture

[sangallo]

In Manchester stands the famous Gorton Monastery, one of E.W. Pugins's most famous constructions, known locally as Manchester's Taj Mahal. Sadly, it fell into serious disrepair following the departure of the Franciscans in 1989. Now, thankfully, it is being restored. A major campaign for funding is still going on and the Monastery Trust raised £6 million by April 2004. The World Monuments Fund lists the building as one of the hundred most endangered sites in the world: http://www.wmf.org/html/programs/ukstf.html


The BBC has a good article on Gorton at this link, based on a programme first broadcast on 30 April 2004:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/changing8_prog4.shtml

Here is a picture in its present condition

[sangallo]

A little curiosity is what is said to be E.W. Pugin's only surviving Anglican church, St Catherine's in Kingsdown.
See link:
http://www.lynsted-society.co.uk/html/kingsdown_church.html

Here is a photo:

[Paul Clerkin]

Sacred Heart Church, Monkstown Co. Cork
E.W. Pugin & George Ashlin



Presbytery, Monkstown Co. Cork
E.W. Pugin & George Ashlin

[Paul Clerkin]

Hee's a question for the Puginistas, what's the correct name for Pugin & Ashlin's practice? Just realised that I have it in several different formats in the site and I want to be consistent....

[Gianlorenzo]

The company was known as E.W. Pugin & G.C. Ashlin.

[sangallo]

Apart from Monkstown, which P. Clerkin mentions above, the Pugin and Ashlin partnership built a number of very beautiful churches in the Cork area (easily explicable, because Ashlin was a local man, from Little Island). Cobh Cathedral is in many ways the apogee of their church-building in the region. Earlier churches like St Peter and Paul's, Cork, use techniques that are brought to perfection in St Colman's Cathedral.
Here are some pictures of the magnificent Church of the Immaculate Conception, Clonakilty, easily the finest church in the diocese of Ross, which bears a remarkable resemblance to Cobh. Built to Ashlin's design, it was opened in 1880. I gleaned some information from a local publication which I quote:

"As far as we can gather the building of the present Clonakilty Church was undertaken by the Rev. Matthew O'Donovan, then Parish Priest of Clonakilty. In passing I would like to mention that the said Fr. O'Donovan, was an uncle of the late Senator T.J. O'Donovan of Inchydoney. The foundation stone was laid in 1870 by the Most Rev. Dr. O'Hea, the Bishop of Ross. Though he had commenced this noble work, Fr. O'Donovan did not live to see it completed, for he died in 1875 and was succeeded by the Rev. P. Madden. Throwing himself wholeheartedly into the work, and showing unbounded energy which never flagged, he overcame many difficulties to finish the work so well begun by his predecessor. He was no doubt encouraged and ably assisted by the Most Rev. Dr. Fitzgerald who had succeeded Dr. O'Hea. But well we know that the encouragement and endeavour would have been in vain, were it not for the zeal and self-sacrifice of a generous people, who had, even though suffering from want, contributed generously to the appeal of the Parish Priest. Thus on the 25th day of July, 1880, the faithful of Clonakilty who had knelt on the earthen floor of the old chapel, changed over to honour and worship in what the daily press described as "a temple of gorgeous proportions, a proud and beautiful building, in its turn a type of our religious progress, in the altered condition of our country".

"The Church was built by Mr. S. C. Ashlin of Dublin, according - as we are told - to a plan suggested to him by Fr. O'Donovan. It is said to be one of the most successful examples of Mr. Ashlin's skill as a Church architect. It is of pure Gothic of the early French style, and consists of a nave, aisles, transepts, two chapels and a baptistery. The nave is 158 feet long by 32½ feet wide, the transpets 33½ feet by 32 feet, the aisles 72 feet by 16 feet. The total length of the nave is over 162 feet, the breadth across the transepts is 109 feet. The height to the ridge of the roof is about eighty feet and the thickness of the walls is five feet. I wonder in how many cases of Churches built at the present time would you find walls of that thickness. In the gables of the nave and transepts are three large wheel windows, while the apse-shaped sanctuary has stained glass lighting which represents the Nativity, the Visitation and the Assumption of Our Lady. The nave is separated from the aisles by an arcade, which is carried across the transept, by which means the large piers that would be necessary at the angles of the transept are avoided, and thus a clear view of the High Altar is open from the aisles and the transepts. The tympanum of the east arch which on either side divides the chancel from the side chapels, is filled with stone tracing, resting on Sicilian marble columns. The columns of the nave arcade have capitals and sub-bases of granite, bases of limestone, and shafts of Aberdeen polished granite. The roofs of both the naves and the aisles have arched principals, the spaces between them filled with wood grouting, having carved bosses at the intersection of the ribs. The whole section of the ceiling between the ribs is boarded in yellow pine, three inches in width, the dressings of the windows, doors, etc., are Ballyknockane granite. The altar of the Sacred Heart, the gift of a lady and gentleman in Clonakilty was erected by Mr. Pearse of Dublin at a cost of £350. The altar of the Blessed Virgin was the gift of Mrs. O'Brien, Main Street, Clonakilty, and erected by Mr. P. J. Scannell, Cork at a cost of £250. Over this was a window presented by Mr. McCarthy, Main Street, Clonakilty, and the Stations of the Cross, the gift of a Clonakilty lady cost £245. The High Altar, the product of cultured taste, is executed in a style of most refined art. It is largely composed of pure white marble, relieved with some coloured marbles. At the time of its erection, it stood almost unrivalled in its beauty by any altar in the South. Messrs. Eardley & Powell, Camden Street, Dublin, were contractors for this work, and it cost then over £675. A touching thought is that the cost of this Altar was defrayed by the collection of the children of the parish, through the medium of subscription cards. The altar rail is 110 feet long of wrought iron, and was made by Mr. Cullinane, a local blacksmith, whose family still carry on the family tradition and trade in the town. It was presented to the Church by Mr. Canty of Clonakilty. The approximate cost at the time for the erection of the Church was £36,000."

[sangallo]

St Peter and Paul's, much loved of Corkonians, is built on a very restricted site in the centre of Cork, just off St Patrick Street, the main thoroughfare.
More info by Gianlorenzo on this church - see posting #530 on the reordering and destruction of Irish cathedrals thread.

[sangallo]

A little reminder of Pugin and Ashlin's greatest achievement, St Colman's Cathedral Cobh.
Info on this is on another archiseek thread, and the best site for general information is that of the Friends of St Colman's Cathedral (http://www.foscc.com), a local heritage group fighting to maintain the Cathedral in its pristine glory.

[sangallo]

Here is Cobh Cathedral's glorious interior: a feast of Neo-Gothic splendour!!

[Praxiteles]

In relation to E. W. Pugin and G. C. Ashlin, it would be useful were someone to undertake research on the conceptual influence of Didron and Lassus on both of these architects. Didron's programme for building the ideal Cathedral, town church or village church is outlined in his Annales Archeologique published between 1844 and 1871. That there should be similarities between Clonakilty and St. Peter and Paul's in Cork, and Cobh Cathedral is not in the least surprising since all projects are variants on Didron's ideal church. Too bad that nobody, as far as I am aware, has had the chance to conduct such an important and detailed research project before the vandals got to work.

[sangallo]

RE the previous posting.
The learned Praxiteles has drawn attention to the Didron and Lassus influence in relation to Cobh, and it is certainly plausible. Didron was friendly with A.W.N. Pugin, father of E.W., and was present at the consecration of Pugin's English masterpiece, St Giles' Church in Cheadle. A.W.N. would have subscribed to the Annales, in which Didron and Lassus presented a project for church building based on an idealised early 13th c. church in French Gothic style, which could be expanded or contracted depending on whether you wanted a parish church or a cathedral.
I imagine E.W. would have inherited his father's collection of the Annales, and so would have been perfectly familiar with the Didron-Lassus project. Their ideal church (posted by Praxiteles on the reordering and destruction of Irish cathedrals thread, at #472) does bear a strong resemblance to churches built by Pugin and Ashlin, such as Cobh Cathedral, and Pugin's All Saints in Barton upon Irwell (cf. posting #518 on the reordering thread).
Certainly, this is a research theme that would be well worth undertaking.

Here, to facilitate matters, is the Annales version of the ideal church and Lassus' drawing (north elevation) for work on the cathedral in Moulins.

[sangallo]

An interesting E.W. Pugin church in NW England is St Mary's in Cleator, opened in 1872. In 1978 it underwent radical renovation .... to bring it into the space age, I imagine!!

[sangallo]

Yet another E.W. Pugin church in the Cork area is St Brigid's in Crosshaven. The foundation stone was laid in 1869 (the year after that of St Colman's Cathedral, Cobh) and the church is constructed in Little Island limestone.
Also to be seen in Crosshaven is Burges' Holy Trinity Church (Anglican), which contains a fine rose window.

[sangallo]

Near Crosshaven, in Monkstown, is E.W. Pugin's Sacred Heart Church (1871). See P. Clerkin's posting above (#4) for the plan. Here is a link to a photo:

http://www.corkandross.org/jsp/parishes/churchimages/mkstown/mkstown_ch.html.

[Praxiteles]

Any research on conceptual sources for E. W. Pugin should not forget to quarry A.N. Didron's earlier work of 1843: Iconographie Chretienne, which provides exhaustive treatment of of many iconographic tgypes used in Christian architecture.

[MT]

Those churches are beautiful. The setting of St Peter and Paul's off Patrick streat is fantastic: it's like something out of a mediterranean hill town, with a narrow street hiding such a large and intricate structure. One of the misfortunes of being brought up a protestant (Anglican) is that you just don't get to experience such sumptuous interiors. And that's even with Anglican churches being the least dreary of the various prod denominations. I've been in one or two Free P churches and they'd make a bus shelter look like an architectural masterpiece. Sangallo, do you know of any E.W. Pugin churches in Northern Ireland? Did he do any work outside of Ireland/Britain?

[sangallo]

Dear MT
I'm open to correction on this, but as far as I know, E.W. Pugin was not involved in the construction of any Northern Ireland church. Most of his work was in the Dublin and Cork areas.
That said, his partner and brother-in-law George Ashlin, a Corkman, who again concentrated on the Cork and Dublin regions, did have some involvement in the decorative scheme for St Patrick's in Armagh, although he was not the principal architect. I gather that he did some work in Newry, on the cathedral (built to the design of the Newry architect Thomas Duff in the 1820s) and the Dominican church, St Catherine's.
I will put up more info as it comes to hand.
Regarding church interiors, we are fortunate that E.W. Pugin's for the most part have survived intact. However, those of his Irish counterpart, J.J. McCarthy, have suffered at the hands of the liturgists in the name of the latest fad (usually masquerading as "liturgical requirements of Vatican II"). Archiseek's "reordering and destruction of Irish cathedrals and churches" thread goes into this in some detail.

[sangallo]

On the outskirts of Waterford City, but in the diocese of Ossory, is another Pugin and Ashlin church, Sacred Heart in Ferrybank.
The parish website contains a potted history of the construction of the church. Here is a link:
http://www.ferrybankparish.com/history/index.htm

Here is a picture

[sangallo]

Pugin and Ashlin were also responsible for Kilanerin church, near Gorey, in North Wexford (diocese of Ferns).

[sangallo]

Arles Church in Co. Laois, Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin, is a Pugin and Ashlin Church of 1865. Note the similarity with Kilanerin.

[Deadonarrival]

Pugin built 5 or 6 churches in Wexford - follow this link http://www.wexfordweb.com/pugin.htm

My old school St Peters (you may have read about it in the Ferns Report!) has a really charming Pugin Chapel - the altar is especially lovely although I believe the church layout was significantly reordered in the '60s..

[sangallo]

RE # 22
The Wexford churches mentioned are all outstandingly beautiful. They are, however, due to E.W. Pugin's more famous father, A.W.N. Pugin. E.W., as far as I know, was responsible for two churches in Wexford: Kilanerin and Our Lady's Island, as well as the chapel in Edermine.
The wife of A.W.N. Pugin's English patron, the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, was a native of Wexford. Her uncle, John Hyacinth Talbot, was the first Catholic MP for the area after emencipation. Shrewsbury's Wexford connections, the Talbots, explains why Pugin received so many commissions in the area. E.W. inherited the accumulated goodwill!
Here are pictures of the church on Our Lady's Island, due to E.W. Pugin and G.C. Ashlin, built in 1863-64, and consecrated in 1881. See the link http://www.ourladysisland.com for more information.

[sangallo]

Re #17
I want to come back to the second question MT put to me, as to whether E.W. Pugin designed any churches outside Britain and Ireland.
The answer is yes. His best-known work is the basilica in Dadizele, a place of pilgrimage east of Courtrai in Belgium. The present church is a reconstruction of Pugin’s basilica, which was sadly destroyed during the First World War. Pugin's basilica had a higher spire and fine iron cresting on the roof, somwhat similar to Cobh's.

Chris Brooks describes it as follows: “stone vaulted and late thirteenth-century, it is nevertheless polychromatically red, black and buff, with an amazing crossing tower that finishes in a zigzag patterned spire containing giant statues”. See his The Gothic Revival, London, Phaidon, 1999, p. 367.

As to its significance, Brooks places Dadizele along with Cobh, Barton-on-Irwell and Gorton, as among E.W. Pugin’s finest achievements: “Not only astonishing, the Dadizele design is instructive too – certainly high Victorian, but with a decorative intricacy and fidelity to medieval detail characteristic of the younger Pugin, as in Cóbh Cathedral and his fine Manchester churches of All Saints’, Barton-on-Irwell (1865-8), and St Francis of Assisi, Gorton (1866-72) – which was actually designed for Belgian monks. Such characteristics relate back to his father and, consequently, to Belgium’s whole revival, for Puginian gothic persisted at its creative core.” (ibid., p. 367)

Incidentally, Brooks is very enthusiastic about Cobh, which he describes elsewhere in the book as rising “unforgettably above the river approach to Cork” (p. 336).

Here are some pictures of the present Dadizele Basilica:

[sangallo]

E.W. Pugin also worked in Belgium with the country's most well-known revivalist, Jean-Baptiste Béthune, to build the Neo-gothic Kasteel van Loppem near Bruges (1858-59).
Béthune was the architect of the Abbey of Maredsous, made famous throughout the Catholic world by the writings of its third abbot, Blessed Columba Marmion.
Here is a picture of the Kasteel: