Praxiteles

Chartres Cathedral

The Adoration of the Magi

Beauvais Cathedral

The Massacre of the Holy Innocents

Canterbury cathedral

The magi Follow the Star

Beauvais Cathedral

The Adoration of the Magi

Beauvais Cathedral

Medieval Stained Glass – with a seasonal topic.

The visitation (right) and Nativity of Our Lord

The College Chapel, Maynooth

This set of photographs shows some pictures of the splendid sanctuary of the College Chapel at Maynooth – which, by some miracle, escaped the vandalism almost untouched:

St.Mary’s Catholic Church, Uttoxeter
withSacred Heart, Abbots Bromley

The first stone of the church was laid on the 4th. Oct. 1838 and the building was opened with great solemnity on 22nd. August 1839. The church was the work of Fr. Morgan who obtained many backers amongst them the principal benefactor, John, 16th. Earl of Shrewsbury. The architect was Augustus Welby Pugin who carried out work on Alton Towers and later worked on the Houses of Parliament. The Catholic Church at Cheadle was also his work.

The church has undergone a number of alterations since it’s opening. In the late 1870’s Pugin’s church had become too small for the congregation and it was decided to lengthen it by the addition of a chancel. A Lady Chapel was also added on the left side of the chancel – now the organ chamber – in which stood the confessional: also an upper floor, as marked by the over-arches, was made for worshippers. The three lancet windows were moved to the end of the chancel and stained glass installed. A choir gallery was added beneath the Rose Window, at the west end of the church, in which a new organ was installed. The church re-opened in 1879. The first picture shows the Balance Street elevation prior to 1913 and the second the nave and chancel in the same period.

In 1912 thought was given to enlarging the church again, a task made difficult due to the very narrow building resulting from the 1870’s changes. However in 1913 work started on the addition of two side aisles, the narthex, Lady Chapel and sacristy as well as linking up the Presbytery with the Church by a long passage leading to the sacristy. The choir gallery was taken down, the organ removed to the old Lady Chapel and the pulpit was moved from the right hand side of the altar to the left. Recent work carried out in 1998/99 saw the altar rails removed, the chancel steps brought forward a little into the nave and the pulpit replaced in its original position.

Few Catholic churches of comparable size have such a wealth of stained glass as St. Mary’s. The Rose Window at the west end of the church dates back to 1839 and is by Messrs. Wailes stained glass workshops. The three lancet windows above the main altar contain glass by Mayer and Co. of Munich and London and were inserted in 1887. In the Lady Chapel are to be found windows by Hardman Studios commemorating the 150th. Anniversary of the church in 1988. The south aisle has windows by Woodroffe erected in the period 1915 to 1938; the War memorial window in the narthex is also his work. In the north aisle is a window by Hardman commemorating the son of a parishioner killed in action in 1940.

ctd.

Pugin himself, like all of us, was inconsistent and contradictory. On one level he talked of an early version of what we would see as Form follows Function with the quote: there shall be no features of a building which are not necessary for convenience, construction and propriety. Although this quote does apply specifically to architectural structure and not surface decoration, it does call into question some of his judgements concerning internal decorative schemes, thinking yet again of the Palace of Westminster, which of course stands out before all others in it’s over embellishment. However, with caution, we can say that these particular wallpaper designs produced in the 1840s were unusual for British interior decoration.

llustration: A W N Pugin. Wallpaper design, 1840s.

Many wallpapers of this era tended to overstate their presence with cascades of full blousy flowers, ribbons and other paraphernalia that made walls appear festooned with jungles of impenetrable foliage that bordered on thickets. It was this type of decorative pattern work that the reform movement tried to temper, if not discard altogether. With an individual such as Pugin, the movement had an instant, if inconsistent champion of the merits of a structural vocabulary in the discipline of pattern design and surface decoration in general.

Even Pugin’s more complex and heraldic type wallpapers have an underlying and simplified structure and framework to them. This was often missing from many of the more floral representations that were so popular with public, manufacturers and retailers alike. It was this underlying structural simplicity that was such a part of so much of Pugin’s output, which makes him stand out as one of the early pioneers of Victorian decorative art and pattern work.

That Pugin died at the ridiculously early age of forty was a particularly tragic loss to the decorative arts of Britain, but also potentially that of both the Reform and the Arts & Crafts movement. By his removal from the design world in 1852, Pugin was unable to contribute towards the changing Victorian world of the 1850s and 1860s which saw the introduction of new art and design schools and colleges, the Reform Movement under Henry Cole and the rise of both William Morris and the Arts & Crafts phenomenon.

A. W. N. Pugin

Scarisbrick Hall

The entrance

Jacqueline Banarjee Reviews:

Gothic For Ever by Michael Fisher

http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/pugin/fishercover.jpg

Cover of the book under review, showing the view through the screen into the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament at St Giles, Cheadle. Note that the quotation in the title comes from a letter by Pugin written in 1832. Click on this and the following images for larger pictures. The remaining illustrations are drawn from our own website, and are accompanied by more pictures, and commentaries.

Among the new breed of Pugin scholars, none can know more about the architect’s work in Staffordshire than Michael Fisher. A Staffordshire man himself, Fisher has been accumulating his rich store of knowledge about this body of work ever since his student days. Then, in 1998, a commission to carry out a survey of Alton Towers involved going through correspondence that brought him into “ever closer contact with the mind of Pugin” (12). His book, Alton Towers: A Gothic Wonderland, was published in 1999, to be followed by several other studies such as Pugin-land in 2002, and Staffordshire and the Gothic Revival in 2006. An Anglican priest as well as an historian, Fisher presents his latest study not drily but with a warm appreciation of the spiritual side of Pugin’s mission — an appreciation essential to an understanding of what Pugin was doing and why he was so profoundly influential.

A Shared Vision

Fisher’s first chapter, like one of his earlier books, is entitled “Pugin-land,” a term first used by Nikolaus Pevsner in writing about Cheadle (Pevsner 97). Beneath this title, Fisher places a line from one of Pugin’s letters: “I have prayed from a child for the restoration of the Long Lost glory of catholic England.” Together the two headings hit all the right notes, suggesting both the large concentration of Pugin buildings in this part of England, and the spirit behind them. Key to the translation of the one into the other was the patronage of the wealthy Catholic landowner, the sixteenth Earl of Shrewsbuy. On a more practical level, too, there was Pugin’s excellent, dependable Clerk of Works, John Bunn Denny (1810-1892), another Catholic, who had, as Fisher says, “embraced the Gothic vision” (20), becoming Pugin’s “true disciple” (22). Despite his best efforts, even Pugin could not be everywhere at once, and needed the kind of support that Denny provided.

Still, Chapter 2, entitled “Prest d’accomplir: the earl and the architect,” suggests that not everything would be plain sailing. The Earl’s family motto, Prest d’Accomplir, expresses his readiness to act, especially in the Catholic cause, and Fisher brings him out of the shadows as a “gentle, eirenic and self-effacing” man (66), very different from his volatile and fiery architect. But his estates were entailed, and family tragedies meant that the succession was far from assured. Personally abstemious, to the point of not liking to waste money on postage, the Earl channelled all his resources towards his building projects, and Pugin would sometimes have to plead for more funds — for a stone roof for the south porch at St Giles’, Cheadle, for instance, when the Earl thought a cheaper timber one would do (179-80). There were controversies, too, and a scandal involving the Irish-American Pierce Connolly and his wife — a couple whom the Earl had befriended, and whose separation in order to devote themselves to Catholicism led eventually to Connelly’s bitter attacks on the “‘detestable enormities’ of Rome” (71). This helped to reinforce the anti-Catholic and also anti-Tractarian feeling of the period. Such background usefully supplements and further contextualises Rosemary Hill’s biography of Pugin. But it did nothing at the time to shake either the earl’s or Pugin’s vision of a “catholic England.”

Projects for the Earl of Shrewsbury

http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/pugin/24.jpg

Alton Towers, the Earl of Shrewsbury’s principal seat. Pugin was still working on it when he died, and the Earl himself died soon afterwards.

The Connollys had been invited to stay at Alton Towers, and Chapter 3 examines the extent of Pugin’s work on this iconic residence. No one who is interested in the Towers (other than as the mere backdrop to the popular theme park in its grounds) can afford to miss this full and detailed account of what he did here. It is all the more important now that much of the work has been lost. Fisher’s illustrations really come into their own in this chapter, the historic ones giving a glimpse of its past grandeur. Equally welcome is his next chapter, on “St Mary’s, Uttoxeter: the first ‘True Principles’ church,” rightly described by Pevsner as “almost totally altered” (290). More easily overlooked than Alton Towers, it was nevertheless highly significant in the history of the Gothic Revival: simple as it was, aisleless and with just a little bell-cote, it had all the features needed for celebrating the English Catholic Rite, and was the first new church built with this in mind. As a result, it was both “widely imitated” (109) and highly controversial. The Earl and his wife were present for the opening, at which the choir of Alton Towers Chapel sang — a great occasion to mark a true milestone.

http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/pugin/20c.jpg http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/pugin/4.jpg
Left: The schoolhouse that Pugin built as part of the St Giles’ project. Right: The interior of St Giles’ at Cheadle, glorious and glowing in every detail, referred to as “the Gem” by Shrewsbury himself (qtd. 205).

Subsequent chapters deal in equally impressive detail with the ambitious scheme for St John’s Hospital and the remaining parts of the medieval Alton Castle (Chapter 5); St Giles’ in Cheadle, Pugin’s best preserved “gem,” with its associated school and convent (Chapter 6); St Wilfrid’s College and Chapel in Cotton (Chapter 7); and St Mary’s Church in Brewood which, with only a small contribution from Shrewsbury, was again complemented by a priest’s house and a school (Chapter 8). A church was not an isolated space for Pugin. It was dedicated to worship, of course, and set aside from the mundane by its ancient and dignified rites and rituals, but it was also to be the focus and inspiration for the lives of all those ministering to and living in the community. This was true of his own church, St Augustine’s at Ramsgate, too, which he built at his own expense. As for Alton, he even drew up plans for a Gothic railway station: “I think it will make a picturesque building,” he wrote to the Earl (159). The commission went elsewhere and resulted in an Italianate building; but Pugin’s Station Lodge on the other side of the road gives an idea of what it might have looked like.

Communities, however, even the religious ones at the heart of each individual mission, were not always what the idealistic architect wished them to be. If the second priest at Cheadle proved a disappointment, reputedly preferring horses to his parishioners, so did the first group of Catholics at St Wilfrid’s, the last church that Pugin built for the Earl. Before it was even finished, the Wilfridian brothers for whom the complex was originally intended were persuaded to merge with the Oratorians — “no lovers of Gothic,” as Fisher says drily (236). This set the scene for the controversy over rood screens that agitated Pugin so much towards the end of his life. Trivial as the issue may seem now, it had wide implications then. Fisher explains: “the real point at issue was whether Renaissance Italian or Medieval English ideas were to prevail in the Catholic Church in England, and Pugin believed that in fighting for screens he was fighting for the whole Gothic principle” (237). The Oratorians moved away from Cotton only a year after St Wilfrid’s had opened, leaving the whole future of the costly premises in doubt. In this case, Pugin was cheered by later developments: the St Wilfrid’s buildings were taken over by another religious community. “Things have taken a wonderful turn,” he wrote to his third wife Jane (qtd. 238). Later, and right up until 1986, the premises would be used by a Catholic school.

Finer Points

A chalice similar to, though not the same as, the one made for St Giles by the Hardman firm and illustrated in Chapter 6 of Fisher’s book.

While Pugin’s vision spread out widely to embrace whole communities, it also honed in on such small details as the base of a candlestick, or the inscriptions on church and chapel bells. Here was a man passionately engaged in and informed about all aspects of his work, at every level: “His zeal, his innate diligence, his resources, his invention, his imagination, his sagacity in research, are all of the highest order,” wrote John Henry Newman to Ambrose Phillipps, one of the Earl’s and Pugin’s Catholic convert friends — and Newman said this even while criticising Pugin’s singleminded adherence to the Gothic cause (qtd. 237). A particularly useful section of the chapter on St Giles deals with its metalwork, often elaborate but sometimes designed with chaste simplicity, several of the objects being very beautifully illustrated here. Little wonder that at St Giles’s opening service, “[f]oreign visitors in particular were amazed that such a comprehensive range of applied arts could have emanated from a single mind” (214).

Pugin’s Legacy

In view of the enormous spread of Pugin’s talents, as well as the intensity of his vision and the publicity he generated, it is hardly surprising that his work produced such a profound effect on others. Fisher’s last chapters focus usefully on his whole legacy in this part of the world. Chapter 9 contains a memorably melancholy description by the novelist Mary Howitt of a visit to the chapel at Alton Towers after the deaths of the Earl and his heir. But this is followed much more happily by an account of the works in this area of Pugin’s eldest son, E. W. Pugin. As well as an abbey church near Stone, the younger Pugin built his earliest secular building, Burton Manor, in Stafford, and another residence, Aston Hall, at Aston-on-Stone. Both were designed very much along the lines of his father’s Grange in Ramsgate. Even though work was now going to other Catholic architects, notably Charles Hansom (architect of the beautiful Catholic Cathedral in Adelaide, Australia), E. W. Pugin also designed a fine new church of St Austin’s at Forebridge, Stafford, and St Gregory’s in Longton. In this way, the name “Pugin-land” came to have further relevance for this part of the Midlands.

The older Pugin’s designs had also gone out to Australia in his lifetime. Especially pleasing in this chapter is the information that Denny, who had supervised so much of his work in Staffordshire, eventually joined forces with William Wardell in Australia, and then worked independently there. Clerks of Works are the unsung heroes of the architectural profession, and it is good to know that Denny, like a few others, was able to make a name for himself in his own right.

In his last main chapter, Chapter 10, Fisher reminds us of Pugin’s followers among Anglican architects, including George Gilbert Scott, G. F. Bodley, and Richard Norman Shaw, and all of whom built or restored churches in the area. Particularly fascinating is the discussion of the Anglican Church of All Saints’ in the small village of Leigh, on which Pugin himself collaborated with an architect called Thomas Johnson (1794-1865). Wonderful though it is to learn so much more about Pugin’s activities in this part of the world, it is also good to know of local talent, and of Pugin’s involvement with it. As it happened, Johnson was much influenced by the Ecclesiologists. Fisher reminds us that John Ruskin upset Pugin by trying “to rid Gothic of its Catholic associations” (286), and points out that the Cambridge Camden Society’s attack on “The Artistic Merit of Mr Pugin” in the Ecclesiologist of January 1846 was most likely written by Alexander Beresford Hope, one of the society’s founders — himself a Staffordshire man. But, at ground level, here was Pugin contributing designs for chancel furnishings to someone supposedly in the other camp. Apparently without having any idea of Pugin’s input, Pevsner calls All Saints’ “an astounding masterpiece” (173). In the end, of course, Pugin succeeded in giving Anglicans and Nonconformists alike “a certain picture of what an English church should be, and that vision was unmistakably a Gothic one” (305).

“Gothic For Ever”

Fisher’s brief concluding chapter, “Gothic For Ever,” brings us up to date on the preservation and restoration of the legacy. After a period of reaction against it, the Gothic Revival is now fully understood and appreciated. One proof of this is the restoration programme now in place for Alton Towers. Another is the appearance of books like Fisher’s — meticulously researched, beautifully written, fully illustrated on glossy paper, altogether a pleasure to have and read. Helpful features here are the numbered references to the illustrations, the full complement of scholarly notes unobtrusively added at the end, and the glossary of ecclesiastical terms. Slips are very few and far between, and extremely trivial — the photograph of Station Lodge, Alton, referred to as 3.17 rather than 3.18 on p.159; a comma in the wrong place in the quotation from Newman on p.237, and a full stop where there should be a comma at the bottom of p.188. But perhaps these are worth noting if a paperback edition is in the offing. A lighter and smaller-sized edition would certainly make it easier to carry round “Pugin-land” — to which there could not possibly be a more scholarly or enjoyable guide.