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Here is the altar from the north side of the demolished rood screen of St Peter’s College Chapel, Wexford, with the reliquary of St Aidan at its centre. The two wooden rood screen altars are the only surviving such by Pugin apart from the two stone ones at the base of the great screen in the St Edmund’s College, Ware, chapel. As such they are of great significance, and one hopes that Irish readers of this thread will make sure that their future is safeguarded.
@ake wrote:
Am I to understand this is a Pugin designed reredos?
(St.Peter’s College Chapel, Wexford)
http://www.buildingsofireland.ie/niah/search.jsp?type=images&county=WX®no=15504014
This is indeed a Pugin altar and reredos, and a very significant one. It is one of a small number of his designs for winged altars based on his observations in Central Europe. Its brilliant colours follow the rules of heraldry, as did his flat decorations, and it is thankfully intact. The design closely resembles his later illustration of an altar in his 1841 edition of ‘Contrasts’, as well as an unexecuted design of 1839 for the Lady Altar in St Chad’s Cathedral, Birmingham.
St Peter’s College shelters other Pugin altar treasures, namely, the two rood screen altars from the demolished screen of the chapel. Both are in storage. The one formerly on the north side of the screen has a reliquary of St Aidan set into the front.
@Praxiteles wrote:
The use of elements from medieval buildings or indeed the incorporation of the remains of medieval buildings into neo-gothic churches represents a phase of the Gothic revival that pre-dates Pugin and was all part of the drive towards achieving authenticity. An early eample of this is the east elevation of St. Mary’s, Buttevant, Co. Cork (1832) which incorporates a mediavel urban tower with the neo-Gothic stone work imitating the 14th century prototype and incorpoprating smaller decorative elements from the adjacent 13th century Franciscan Friary. Pugin, however, brought the drive to authenticity to a fine art and often installed medieval fixtures and fittings bought in France and the Low Countries. It should come as small surprise taht JJ McCarthy should have pursued the authenticity drives by installing available local medieval examples.
There is at least one example of Pugin installing medieval elements in Ireland. His holy water stoup at the public entrance to the chapel of the former Presentation Convent, Waterford, is composed of medieval fragments. Sadly, the right side has been mutilated by part of a later porch and the pipe at the left doesn’t add much either.
The Stephansdom Schutzmantelmadonna, one of the extraordinary collection of pillar saints, all of stone and poychromed, largely created between 1446 and 1465.
@Praxiteles wrote:
The form was lso used as a protection against the plague. From the 18th.c on, it seems almost to have disappeared completely and at this point of time is as a good as unknown in Catholic iconography.
Almost, but not completely unknown. This is the contemporary schutzmantelmadonna in the Benedictine nuns’ Abbaye de la Misericorde at Rosans, Hautes Alpes, founded in 1991.
@Praxiteles wrote:
Nomen est omen!
The effects of Craze on the sanctuary of Southwark Cathedral well reflect Craze.
I fear my sloppy grammar has let me down. I meant that the crossing space was part of the post-war re-design by Romilly Craze. The sanctuary furnishings and their arrangement were the work of architect Austin Winkley, completed in time for the 1984 papal visit.
@Praxiteles wrote:
Lack of cash caused restrictions on the on the original plan.
Pugin’s original 1838 plan was probably always way beyond the realities of what could be achieved at that time given the financial realities for poor Catholics. His 1839 design, the one constructed except for the huge tower and spire, was totally different from the previous one. It was of the triple-gabled genre, also used by him for: St Mary’s Cathedral, Newcastle upom Tyne (1841); St Benedict’s, Broadway, NSW (1842); Ss Mary and Joseph’s, Guernsey (1845); St Thomas of Canterbury’s, Fulham (1847); and an unexecuted design for St Mary’s Cathedral, Hobart, Tas (1847). Its nave trusses were of a kind widely used by Pugin even for such small churches as St Paul’s, Oatlands, Tas (designed 1843), and it had a glorious rood screen. Quite early on this was removed to the nave west end leaving only the crucifix suspended beneath the chancel arch.
The few surviving Pugin furnishings such as the Blessed Sacrament chapel altar and the Petre chantry chapel can only give a tantalising feeling for what was a very beautiful interior, the Lady chapel with its glorious carved stone altar and reredos and its elegant parclose screen being just one tragic loss from the 1841 bombing that reduced the building to a smouldering ruin.
The subsequent re-design and 1950s rebuilding by architect Romilly Craze really created in effect a new structure, with its clerestoried nave, transepts, new columns, roof and so on. Then the wreckovation of the chancel in the early 1980s left the chancel itself as a vacant allotment with a bland set of liturgical furnishings that would have Pugin turning in his grave at 1000rpm placed at the crossing created by Craze. If you want to appreciate a Pugin interior in its full integrity go to St Giles’, Cheadle. Sadly, there are precious few other alternatives.
@Praxiteles wrote:
The feature of the recessed arch on the facade of churches by A. W. N. Pugin, E.W. Pugin, G.C. Ashlin is almost a trade mark. Here Praxiteles is posting a few examples:Glastuhle in Dublin, Barntown Co. Wexford, Barton on Irwell in England, Dadizele in Belgium, and St. Mary’s in Mallow, Co. Cork.
Can anyone suggest medieval prototypes fro this feature of recessed arches?
Prominent medieval prototypes with which AWN Pugin would have been particularly familiar are to be found on the facades of Lincoln Minster and Peterborough Cathedral. He would have seen Lincoln Minster as early as 1818 when, at the age of six, he visited the Willson family there in the company of his father Auguste Pugin.
@Praxiteles wrote:
Here is an interesting chronology of the restoration going on at St. Patrick’s, Colebrrok, Tasmania, starting with the bellcote which has been provided with three new bells dedicated to Our Lady, St. Patrick, and St. William (of York ?). Note the attention to detail that allows you to identify the bells by the colours and the flowers with which they were decorated for their consecration.
The William bell is dedicated to St William of Rochester because of his generosity to the poor and to his adopted orphan son, and for his curing of an insane woman. This is such a good fit for Robert William Willson, first Bishop of Hobart Town, in his mission to convicts and orphans, and in his significant involvement with the care of the mentally ill in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. It was Willson who obtained the design from Pugin that was used for St Patrick’s, Colebrook.
@Praxiteles wrote:
BTW – would you have an ISBN number for that book? Thanks.
Curiously, it does not appear to have an ISBN number. It is a well produced hardback book, the only details being: Published by Booklink, Ireland; Publisher: Dr Claude Costecalde.
Possibly the best bet in obtaining a copy would be through the Bishop’s Secretary in Wexford because from the words of its Foreword by the Bishop it is clearly a diocesan publication. Every church in the Diocese is covered by word and image.
The 2004 book, Churches of the Diocese of Ferns: Symbols of a Living Faith, published by the Diocese of Ferns, says that All Saints, Templetown, was opened on 21 May 1899, Michael Power of Tintern being the ‘architect and builder’.
Clearly, some details have been copied from Barntown, albeit a little crudely as, for example, in the west window tracery. The roof trusses are indeed similar to several in Australian churches by Pugin. Such trusses were used by Pugin in a number of his English churches as well, including St Marie’s on the Sands, Southport, illustrated in his highly influential and widely read 1843 book, The Present State of Ecclesiastical Architecture in England.
There are a number of churches in New South Wales dating from the 1850s that have compositional elements and details copied from Pugin churches there, so I can well imagine that the same could have happened in Ireland.
Yes, Praxiteles, you will find 12 images of Bree and 24 images of Tagoat at:
There are 34 images of the exterior and interior of St Alphonsus’, Barntown, at:
Pugin’s font at St Michael’s, Gorey, has been standing outside the sacristy in the weather for who knows how long. It is a beautifully simple but harmoniously proportioned work similar to a later Pugin font in St Mary’s, Brewood, Staffordshire. Its replacement, a Belgian font from the late 1850s, can be seen in the grounds of the presbytery.
