MOORE RENTAL--ISLE OF MAN--BERESFORD HOPE’S REMARKS--EXPRESSION IN
ARCHITECTURE--REMARKS BY GODWIN--CONTRACT FOR BUILDING ST. MARY’S
CHURCH, CHESTER--GENERAL PRINCIPLES--GREEK
ARCHITECTURE--CONCLUSION.
There are some curious memoranda in a work called the “Moore Rental,”
that will throw much light upon the way in which streets were built, and
the license allowed to tenants. Sir Edward Moore owned a large property
on the north side of Liverpool, and this was sold to the Earl of Derby
for the small sum of £12,000. The annual rental is many times that sum
in the present day. The date of the “Rental” is 1667, and it is marked
by singular candour and simplicity. Extracts only can be given. It is
addressed to his son:
“_Old Hall Street._--Make your leases according to my new leases in
Moore Street, without boons, otherwise they will not build. Be careful
of the clause to grind at your mill, it is a great thing to your estate,
and see your tenants observe it well.
“Take this notice from me, what you expect your tenants to do let them
be well bound in their leases, otherwise riches and pride is so
predominant over them in this town, together with a perfect antipathy
they have against all gentlemen--much more your family, in regard you
know your interest is always to curb them. I know this by experience,
that they are the most perfidious knaves to their landlords in all
England, therefore I charge you never to trust them.
“_Water Street._--Anne Young. She is dead, and her grandchild enjoys the
house, whose father, by name Baly March, is a notorious knave, and her
husband, one Rob Prenton, as bad, etc.
“Mrs. Baly Owen. She hath besides this house two houses more, one in
Chapel Street and the other in Moore Street. You must never expect
anything to the value of a farthing from her, but what is for her own
ends.
“_Castle Street._--Mr. William Bushell. Remember the west end of the
back side belonging to this house in the Castle Street reaches to the
Fenwick Street near the bridge, upon which Mr. Bushell is to build a
good house of stone, answering to the length for height and other
things, as doors, boarded floors, windows, and slates, sample to his own
house near the post and chains, wherein now Captain Nixon doth dwell.
“_Pool Lane._--Buy if possible Baly Blundell’s, and the field betwixt it
and the More Street. If you have it you might pull down your house Mr.
Allcocke built me on the Castle Hill, and there have a brave coming of
the street end out toward the castle, and you might pull down the west
end of Thomas Norbury’s in the More Street, and so make a most
convenient passage to More Street. This field is most convenient to you
of any man in England, in regard of your land lying about as it doth.”
He further advises his son and heir to keep “Castle Street field” locked
up, as it is only “a passage on sufferance;” and he says he was “at the
great charge of setting posts and ribbing them all over with iron, and
fixing these two great iron chains, the which I usually on all occasions
keep locked,” etc. The cause of this, he says, was that Captain
Fazakerly of the Castle had many hundred loads of coals brought that
way, and he was resolved to prevent his making it a highway; and he very
candidly adds--“Have in mind likewise that these chains and posts
usually upon Sundays and holidays, and rain weather; _keeping them
locked_ reserves the right in those streets solely and entire to you and
your heirs, so that a hundred years hence, if you please, you may make
gates, or what other use you please, as usually you do your own enclosed
land, and to hinder all but whom you please from going thereaways. The
reason I am so strict is two, the first that carts may not always break
the streets to the great charge of my tenants, but those that carts,
make them pay yearly towards paving them, as many places in England
doth, nay this very town of Leverpole, by a late order, makes all
country carts pay twopence a load towards paving the streets, and if
they can make such an order of the king’s highway, I hope I may either
make such carts who come thereaway pay, or make them go some other way.”
Sir Edward then tells his heir that he must be very particular in
dealing with his streets in all transactions with the town of Liverpool.
The thoroughfares are his, he says, yet he sadly remarks that all the
streets but his are “paved out of the town’s box.” Perhaps Sir Edward
was not quite so affable as he might have been, and hardly of such a
conciliatory nature as even his own interests would have suggested.
Little love seems to have been lost between him and the townspeople, and
there is at least no uncertainty in the way he apprises his son of this
circumstance. “I find, in whatsoever lies within the town’s liberty,
they are a thousand times more strict than any gentleman; and forthwith
a jury of hot fellows fines you daily and hourly, either for some
encroachment, the streets being dirty or not paved, and a hundred odd
simple things more than I can relate here. But keeping your own interest
as before expressed, you need not fear their fines or amercements. There
is no favour or civility to be had from a multitude. Let my sad
experience forewarn you never to trust them, for if you do, I dare pawn
my life they deceive you. Read Alderman Andow’s character, and some
others I have set down, and then seriously consider it.”
The tenures on which property was built and held are curiously set forth
in these strange directions. The term “setting” a house, which
continually occurs in the Moore rental, is quite in common use in the
northern parts of England, where indeed it is more frequent than
“letting” a house.
Much discussion must often have followed the amount of fine which a
tenant had to pay when the three lives and twenty-one years his property
was held on had expired, and on this point Sir Edward Moore is always
lucid. Even where, as in few cases, he had a good word for the tenant,
he never forgets the fine, as:--“William Gardiner, bailiff, a very
honest man. He paid no rent, only built the house; it is a very good
house. Let the old rent be raised to 40 shillings per annum, and the
fine to £60.”
Again: “Thomas Wainwright, a very honest man. He paid no fine, only
built his house. Let the old rent be raised to two pounds and fifty
pounds fine at the least.”
In the case of John Pemberton, which is interesting as showing the terms
on which property was often built along a street, Sir Edward is hardly
in reason. It seems one John Pemberton had commenced the building of one
side of a street, with a common but tacit understanding that all houses
were to be carried up to the same height as his own, and as his house
was at the upper end of More Street, the sagacious landlord saw at once
that the houses on the lower part of the street would be six storeys
high, and when these fell out of lease, the amount of fine for renewal
might fairly be left to him. Two storeys was all that Pemberton
required, and he refused to build higher. But Sir Edward tells his own
tale best. “John Pemberton, the apothecary, a base ill-contrived fellow.
This man wronged this street five hundred pounds, for he being the first
house on this side going up, all the rest of the street engaged to build
uniform with him, so that had he built four stories, all the street had
been so, and the houses toward the lower end of the street had been six
stories high to have made them level with his of four stories, in regard
of the fall of the ground. I used all the civil means possible to get
him to build higher, and when I saw he would not, I sent Alderman Andow
and the town-clerk, Mr. John Winstanley, to let him know that as we had
always been friends, I desired the same continuance, and if he would not
build it two stories higher, I would, all of my own cost and charge.” He
seems, however, to have had at times some kind of slight fellow-feeling.
Thus, in speaking of Mr. John Owen, bailiff, he says among other
directions, that he is under rented, and he tells his son to see to it,
that there must be a fine of £30. His consideration for the family of
Robert Johnson is something touching. As far as Mr. Johnson is
concerned, he dismisses him with a character readily, and says he is “an
arrant knave, one that grinds from my mill very often; trust him not,
make him pay one pound a year rent, and ten pounds fine, for he is but a
poor knave, and mercy must be had on his children; only, for being such
a knave make him to slate his house, as all the street is besides
himself.”
Sir Edward takes great pride in his well that he has dug in More Street,
which he gravely tells his son brews as much ale out of four measures of
malt as any other out of five measures, and there is no well like it for
boiling pease and bearing soap.
“Mrs. Rose, now married to one Diggler, a glazier,” seems with her
husband to have been very much in Sir Edward’s black books. They were
“extreme unthankful to me, and abused me much behind my back, therefore
never let him glaze for you, and if ever he have occasion to use you,
deal with him accordingly.... I got him much custom, and she out of my
own good will I paid six pounds for a gable end, when she had neither
money nor credit to have built it, and ill words is all I got for my
pains. But God reward them. Make them pay thirty shillings rent, and
thirty pounds fine at least. Hens, two.” And so he runs through the
roll of his tenantry, till one is startled to find one Thomas Narbury,
“a very honest man, and built a good house; and is so well pleased with
his landlord that he intends to lay out £250 more under me in building.”
Richard Bushell also, and his wife, are “very honest people; use them
well. Make the old rent 40s. a year, and whereas it deserves a hundred
pounds fine, bate them fifty pounds for their honesty to their
landlord.” Of Robert Woodside also he says, “he is a good honest man, of
a Scot;” but relapses at once into more accustomed phraseology when
speaking of his wife, who is, he says, “as ungratefull a beast as is in
England.” It would be interesting to hear the accounts the tenantry gave
of their landlord, but such have not been preserved.
[Illustration: LORD WINMALEIGH’S HOUSE IN WARRINGTON.]
Bank Hall at Warrington, was built shortly after this summary was sent
to Sir Edward’s heir. It is a fine example of the best Queen Anne’s
style, and
[Illustration: OLD ROW IN MANCHESTER.]
is now turned into public offices. The gardens and grounds are still
intact, but smoky tall chimneys envelope them on every side, and it is
probably in the transition state. Indeed, before very long a street will
pass its noble entrance, and people will remember that “it once stood in
its own grounds, and the street you are walking in was a geranium bed
thirty years ago.” Murray in his guide-book speaks of Lancashire as a
county abounding in ancient black-and-white houses, and places it at the
head of all others. Cheshire, however, must have many more, and of
course, as far as the towns are concerned, there can be no comparison in
antique relics. There are in Lancashire now twelve boroughs, with mayors
and corporations, and though Lancaster is rather picturesque, it may be
fairly said that the character of these corporate towns is dreariness.
We look in vain for some pleasant
[Illustration: OLD MARKET, WARRINGTON.]
street scene. Chimneys and smoke are the characteristics of all. Round
Manchester there used to be, and perhaps are yet, some few homesteads of
interest, but the majority of them are swept away. Speke Hall, near
Liverpool, is quite an exceptionally fine building, but though it was
for long a farm-house, and cattle were in rooms that adorn Nash’s
_Mansions_, it is now again made into a residence. There is an old
black-and-white house at Kenyon, formerly the residence of the Lord
Chief-Justice Kenyon, but now empty; and perhaps, excepting another at
Newton Junction, that must be familiar to all travellers between
Manchester and Liverpool, there is nothing that can be regarded as very
interesting.
The Isle of Man stands so near Lancashire that it is often called a part
of it, though indeed it is under a rule different from the rest of
England, and does not return a member to Parliament, which of course,
gives it the privilege of ruling its own finances. It has a Parliament
of its own, and on the 5th of July, the acts they have passed are
publicly read out on Tynwald Hill, about three miles to the east of
Peel.
Castleton is the seat of the governor of this singular island, and
derives its name from an old fortress called Castle Rushen, which stands
in the middle of the town, and is said, though with uncertain accuracy,
to have been built by a Danish chief in the tenth century. Peel is a
small seaport, and formerly was of much more importance than it now is.
On a sort of small rocky island here is situated the celebrated Peel
Castle that Scott has alluded to in his novel of “Peveril of the Peak,”
a novel which has been of some little service in the present work, from
the exceeding care and accuracy of its topographical detail.
In concluding the present series of sketches of our ancient cities and
homesteads, one is met by the question--Is it not possible in future
buildings to adopt more of the old spirit, and relieve our streets from
monotony? In reply to which it may readily be answered, that it is not
only possible, but it would add greatly to the convenience and
mercantile value of a street if such a course were adopted.
The dreary rows of square-headed windows at even distances in long brick
walls govern the rooms inside, and imperatively domineer over the
convenience of the arrangement. A French writer, speaking of the palace
of Versailles, at the time it was built, and regretting that a style had
been adopted which demanded this precisely even fenestration, said that
it caused a footman’s pantry to be lit by a huge window which had
perforce to correspond with a row in a drawing-room on the same front,
and perhaps had to be cut in two by a partition, to let the other half
do duty for another minor apartment.
On the ground of economy and fitness alone our humbler streets call
aloud for improvement; and if it is said that England is now a nation of
shopkeepers, it must be remembered that Venice was too, and that in the
days of its greatest architectural grandeur.
Indeed, when she began to decay, her arts declined too. Mr. Beresford
Hope, in some admirable remarks delivered at the Town Hall, Hanley,
said “he wished to show them that the world’s debt to art was one in
which they all had a share. It was a joint-stock company, in which every
man, woman, and child, had a share, which he or she might pay up with a
perfect certainty of ample return. By art he meant the science of beauty
in material things,--that art which was something for the artist and
something for the people themselves--which stood in no need of being
separated from the everyday wear and bustle of common life--which had to
do with buying and selling, with marrying and giving in marriage, with
lying down and getting up, with buying in the cheapest and selling in
the dearest market, with all the wear and tear of everyday
life,--instead of being something separate from this. Art is beauty, but
it is also economy and appropriateness. Art is the faculty of being able
with the greatest economy of material, of colour, and invention, to be
able to produce the brightest effects.”
“In Kent,” he further on says, “there is a traditionary way of building
chimneys, by a simple variation in the management of common bricks, but
the effects produced are most picturesque; any common labourer could do
it, but it is true art.” Mr. Hope then takes a row of houses in
Birmingham, or Manchester, or Bradford. They were so many houses put
up--no outline or skyline,--“The same dread, dreary, uniform, colourless
square block, the same square doors, brass knockers and door plates, the
same sash windows, the same stone slab under the windows, the same
chimneys, and when they went inside, the same rhubarb-coloured oilcloth
on the passage, the same rooms with the same paper on the walls, and the
same chimney-piece.” This is truly and well said. It is almost
impossible to feel otherwise than weary and dull on the brightest
summer’s day in Liverpool. Architectural dreariness is carried to the
highest pitch of which it is capable in this town, though some parts of
Birkenhead rival it. Now, as has been already remarked, Chester is not
only a delightful city to walk in, a city which it is a pleasure to have
any business to transact in, but its arrangement and the unstudied
variety of its houses make it serviceable and economical. The shifting,
broken skyline, and the gables of the houses projecting as it were in
amicable rivalry into the street, are always pleasant and cheerful to
behold. If it is asked whether such a style of building would seriously
be recommended in a practical point of view, I would say again and again
it should. The Chester architects have quite adopted the indigenous
style, and, to do them justice,
[Illustration: HIGHAM FERRARS, NORTHANTS.]
they have adapted it too. There is no lack of convenience in their
recent erections. The buildings which have an exterior made to fit them
are quite as likely to be convenient and serviceable as those which are
made to fit a dreary square exterior; and as for utility and popular
appreciation, a test is ready. Build one street in the square style Mr.
Hope has so graphically described, and another in picturesque outline,
and see which brings in the best return for the money, supposing of
course all other things are equal, such as site and accommodation; the
pleasant architectural appearance and expression of the one street will
always leave the other in the distance.
And this word “expression” is a very significant one, and a useful one
too. The parts of a building may not be individually beautiful, and yet
there may be a good “expression” in it. The details of Charles I.’s
style are often grotesquely bad when viewed in piecemeal, and yet we
recognise a good expression in the building of that period as we enter
some old town. Early English foliage is extremely stiff, and taken by
itself ludicrous, as far as any imitation of nature, which it is
supposed to be intended to represent, is concerned; and yet who can be
insensible to the general result? The capitals throw a fine shade on the
turrets in the sunshine when there are angular shafts, and the tall
slender columns (clustered perhaps), though they may have no feature
that can be singled out as excellent, are very fine in general effect.
Expression may therefore exist independently of detail, as beautiful
detail may be lavished over a façade, and lost. To bring the comparison,
as has been done, to the human countenance, a building may be
“Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,
Dead perfection, no more;”
and yet another may be pleasant, and bright without such advantages as
these. We have often seen, to continue the simile of a human
countenance, a face that has nothing regular or perfect about it, yet
the features seemed in harmony, and there was a pleasant expression. Of
course nothing here can apply to the grotesque designs in bosses and
gurgoyles that so often appear in our buildings after the thirteenth
century; they are inexpressibly tedious and useless, and never under any
circumstances have they the slightest relevance or interest. They may be
sometimes of trifling local curiosity, as illustrating some scandal or
abuse that was in vogue at the time of their cutting, but even at that
they are very dreary and out of place. Of course any one who tries to
imitate them now in an ecclesiastical building is quite out of court,
and the only excuse he can plead is that he has not skill to design
anything better.
Expression in buildings cannot always be carried out to the extent of
showing from their external appearance what they are, though some
indication is possible under any circumstances. A general fitness may be
shown, and that is enough. There is a costly bank in Montreal, where in
a moment of inspiration the architect has conceived the idea of
overturning cornucopias and allowing sovereigns of stone to appear as
though they were falling into the street. If this is at all typical of
the mode in which the business is conducted, a change of managers would
be a rather palpable advantage to the shareholders. There is a bank at
Altringham, built for Messrs. Cunliffe, Brooks, and Co., in the “post
and petrel style” so common in Cheshire, and although there is no such
demonstrative ornament about it as this, it is clearly a public building
of some importance, and is certainly one of the best specimens of
revival that have ever been produced in England.
Vitruvius specifies seven qualities on which the Greeks
insisted--solidity, convenience, order, disposition, proportion,
decorum, economy; but Barry is able to reduce these to
three--permanence, convenience, and beauty, as he stated in a very
interesting lecture to the Royal Academy; and it is not too much to say
that the requirements of Vitruvius will be found to arrange themselves
under these three heads.
Now, the typical architecture of the day, for example the Crystal
Palace, can scarcely be called permanent. It may and probably will last
for generations with very ordinary care, but “its root is ever in its
grave.” Of course permanence is only a part of architecture. Dock gates
or granite entrances to warehouses may easily possess all that, and show
it too, but yet be sadly deficient in other qualities necessary for
successful architecture. In engineering buildings there must be a nice
calculation of strength. The materials, such as iron rods, and nuts, and
screws, are costly, and if increased beyond necessity do not add to the
strength of the fabric. A light iron truss spanning fifty feet might be
able to bear enormous weights, while an iron scantling containing four
times the amount of metal would break from its own weight; but in stone
buildings there is no such reserve. The engineer who constructs a roof
or shed too strongly, or he whose building is wanting in strength, are
both deficient in skill. Stone, however, needs no such caution. It may
be used so as to possess, and appear to possess, a surplussage of
strength, and yet not seem excessive, and the same may fairly be claimed
for brick and oak. The ends of beams that show their massive proportions
to the street, and support an overhanging storey of some black-and-white
building, proclaim their strength and sufficiency, and cannot appear
excessive or overdone, from the nature of their material, which is so
plentiful. Convenience more particularly applies to the interior of a
building, and refers to the arrangement and size of the rooms. A
properly proportioned room should neither be too low nor too high,
though sometimes the latter is overlooked; especially in modern terrace
houses, where a well-like appearance is given to a room of ordinary
dimensions by too great height. Singularly enough, however, it is a fact
that a well-contrived house may always be said to afford greater
facilities for a good exterior than an ill-contrived one; the fitness
inside shows itself in the exterior. And as to beauty, it is hard indeed
if, when the building is successful in these two other requirements, the
third does not follow. The same exterior may of course be ornamented in
many ways, and may have either a Gothic or classic coat, or be left
alone; but when once the necessary outline is secured decoration is
simple. One great charm of old houses is that they do not conceal either
their roofs or chimneys. Modern ones are apt to be shy of letting them
appear, and contrive by parapets and other devices to hide them.
A staircase at the end of this chapter illustrates the comfortable easy
landings and flights that characterise old house architecture, even when
on an unpretending scale. The date is about 1600, and the comfort of
ascent is far beyond any staircases that we should expect to find in a
moderately-sized house in the present day.
An architect of some eminence, in reading a paper on Gloucester
Cathedral, said (a few years ago), “I raise my voice against what I
consider cankers in modern architecture, where art is so far forgotten
in the desire of the architect to obtain for his works a so-called
individuality. This individuality is enticing to very young men, who are
attracted by the eccentricities of old buildings, or the architect who
imports them, for nearly all modern individuality arises from too
strongly emphasising and repeating _ad nauseam_ some odd bit picked up
in foreign travel. It so happens that many architects have no faith in
good sound building, they have no trust in the grandeur of stability,
they have no love for simplicity, no appreciation for breadth of
treatment: they go in for quaintness.” So far as this is intelligible,
it means to say that a broad row of houses without individuality is
preferable to one where the individual tastes and requirements of the
owner are conspicuous. The same writer proceeds to object to the early
capitals that distinguish the Gothic of the twelfth century when
clustered round a column, and, as he says, “wrap it round a shaft nearly
as big as an Irish round tower.” He objects also to the “dog-tooth” and
the undercut capitals that often appear in such profusion in France, and
which he compares to “exaggerated sticks of rhubarb,” and warns his
junior hearers against ornamenting spires with crockets like Salisbury,
which he says in that building can only be called a “positive mania” on
the part of the architect, and he proclaims loudly against the
enrichments in Hereford and Gloucester. Regarding the latter, he says
that a contemporaneous monk grumbled at the expense, and recorded his
objections in some record that remains. Whether the monk who regretted
the waste was the one that carried the bag or not seems not to be very
clear; but in a word, the criticisms are quite unjust. And as for
Salisbury, though some may consider that the spire is too thin, there
can be no exception taken to its beautiful enrichments. The monk who is
quoted with approval seems to have said that as much was spent in
ornamenting the church as would have built another. Quite so; indeed the
cost of any cathedral would build not one more but many, quite a colony
of meeting-houses with 9-inch brick walls. “The basest beggars,” says
Lear, “are in the poorest thing superfluous.” This paper is by a
well-known architect, and was published some few years ago in the
_Building News_, or else it would not be noticed.
The question continually must recur, what means the designers of old
used to secure such almost universally satisfactory effects. It is clear
that in many instances they worked from drawings. These are in some
cases extant, but they must also have had many opportunities of testing
the effect of their work from various points of view, and altering and
amending as they proceeded. Many a carefully studied design that looks
perfect on paper is a sad disappointment when executed. The chimney that
stood so boldly forward is choked in the perspective as we look up.
Perhaps, indeed, it disappears entirely from the view, and the gables
have a more apoplectic appearance than we had fondly hoped, and little
by little the day-dreams of the architect vanish.
The designers of old seemed to be free from such vexations, for though
it would be saying too much to pretend that they never made mistakes, or
that all they did is excellent, we must freely admit that our
productions are less satisfactory than theirs.
It is by no means, however, a very easy task to point out wherein the
secret of the difference lies, nor to say why old builders almost
universally were guided to forms of beauty. Long and energetically the
question was debated of whether some ancient code of rules that once
regulated their operations has been lost,--recipes, as it were, to trust
themselves to when they went to their work,--and indeed, some twenty
years ago, a chapter in the _Archæological Journal_ gave precise
directions for the proportions of a pinnacle, found, as it was said, in
some old monastic archives; but both sides were agreed that when worked
out it was exceedingly shapeless and ugly. Every probability points in
the other direction. The versatility of design, the adaptation to site,
and the way in which a necessity of construction is often converted into
a beauty, indicate individual taste and ingenuity. Again, there was no
distinction between the office of architect and builder, as the
following extract from an old agreement for building a chapel to St.
Mary’s Church, Chester, illustrates:--“This indenture, made by twene
William Troutbeck Esquire, on that p’tie, and Thomas Betes, mason, on
that other p’tie, bares witnesse that the aforesaid Thomas has made
covenant and granted to the said William that he shall make a chapell in
the chirche yarde of Ste. Marie on the Hill, on the south side of the
Chancell of the said Chirche there, that is to wete, the est ende, the
south side, and the west ende, contayning the lengthe of the chauncell
there, and xviii. fete wide withinne the walls, and as high as hit nedes
resonably to be: with v. faire and clenely wroght windows full of light,
that is to say, one gable window at the est ende with iiij. lights, iij.
windowes on the south side, ich one of iij. lights, and on the west ende
in the best way to be deviset; and iiij. botras on the south side, with
a grete arche in the west ende; and the chapelle to be battlet above
like to the little closet withinne the Castell of Chester, with a corbyl
table longyng thereto; and at ayther end iij. honest fynials. And the
said William shall pay the said Thomas xxli. like as the worke goes
forwarde, and also give him a gowne. And also the said William shall
find fre-stone, lyme, sond, wat^{r}, windelasse, and stuff for to
scaffold with, and such manere necessaries as the foresaid Thomas nedes;
and the foresaid Thomas shall, by ov’sight of Maester John Asser, make
the chapell and all things that longen thereto (masoncraft)
honestly.”[10]
There is almost a touching simplicity and confidence about this
contract. All about the walls, with reference to the height they were to
be carried, is that they must be as high as it “nedes resonably to be;”
and the windows are not apparently to be encumbered with more tracery
than the mason cares to give,--the “v.” of them were to be “faire and
clenely wroght.” What a hopeless task an architect, or clerk of the
works, as “Maester John Asser” seems to have been, would now have with
such a specification in settling up a builder’s “extra account”! Yet it
nowhere appears that the work was slighted. On the contrary, though this
chapel is no more, there is abundant evidence that it was a noble piece
of work. The contract is introduced here to show how completely the
present state of things differs from that of the fifteenth century, when
the chapel in question was built. Not that it would be possible or
desirable in the nineteenth century to bring back such agreements; but
it is evident from the specification that the artificers were a very
superior set of men to those who now erect our buildings. The beautiful
crockets and bosses that ornament ancient cathedrals were cut as the
work proceeded by the mason whose place on the building they happened to
fall to, and though they are now models of excellence, the great
probability is they were cut without drawings to guide the workmen. One
inestimable advantage in the kind of contract quoted is that, when such
men as it may be supposed Betes and Asser were, were concerned, the
“resonableness” of the height of the chancel or the “fairness” of the
tracery could be judged of as the building proceeded. The
picturesqueness of the sky-line, or the relative proportions of any part
to the surroundings could be determined while the building progressed.
Nor does this require a great amount of natural talent. If beauty in
architecture had been encouraged during the last two centuries, instead
of being frowned down, we should still have the class of men who were
competent. Of course, as before remarked, it would be impossible, in the
present nature of things, to re-introduce such a style of contract as
that quoted; but one thing we can do,--we can try to arrive at some of
the principles of design that influenced the old workmen. There is no
code of rules, and to try to design with their pencils will be to many
architects of the present day as hopeless a task as to write with
Shakespeare’s pen; but if, beyond all other considerations, whether for
town or country, the grand principle of picturesqueness is kept in view,
the end will be surely gained. By picturesqueness is meant the
contrasting of various simple forms in such a way as to be pleasing to
the eye. It runs through all our intellectual life in every thing we do.
A barrister may be ever so learned and industrious, and even in earnest,
but if he lacks an appreciation of the picturesque he will fight at
great odds with another who, with less application and perhaps a worse
case, can arrange his facts--sometimes, alas! even his theories--in a
pleasing form. This is well understood and successfully cultivated at
the Bar, but in the Church it is sadly wanting, and so the most learned
addresses from the pulpit are too often bald.
In another essay read by the architect whose paper was quoted from, an
essay also which appeared in the _Building News_ of the same year, that
gentleman describes the picturesque as “anything which may be likened to
a ‘pig with one ear’--an ancient similitude much admired by the
scientific, and often used by them with great force and brilliancy. It
is unfortunate, but none the less true, that a very large majority of
those who follow after Gothic art, both as students and admirers, have
somehow or other been led into the belief that the first principle, the
essence of the soul of Gothic, is irregularity. These are the men who
stick chimneys in odd corners where they are sure to smoke, put dormers
on roofs where they are not wanted, throw out large oriels to small
bath-rooms, and corbel out balconies to housemaids’ closets.” This is a
heavy calendar indeed against the “very large majority” of the
profession, but I rejoice to think it is not just. Nearly every one now
understands that picturesqueness has nothing to do with irregularity,
_i.e._ irregularity for itself; and as for an architect who could throw
out a large oriel to a small bath-room, unless the proprietor spent a
long time there, and especially ordered it, his occupation would soon
go. So far from having an impression that picturesqueness and
irregularity are synonymous, most architects admit the necessity of
repose in their works. Take the nave of a Gothic church, with its row of
windows; nobody now would say that it gained by having each window
different. In the best examples regularity of form is observed; it is in
such feeble late works as Merton College Chapel that the reverse
prevails. In great Gothic buildings, especially on the Continent, the
whole mass seems one mountain of confusion, and it is only when we
examine it minutely, and carry down each feature to its starting-point,
that we find the order which prevails. Just as in a peal of bells from a
church-tower, the first impression they are apt to convey is that each
ringer is pulling away promiscuously, the only condition being that they
shall manage to pull only a single bell at a time; but they are, on the
contrary, following a perfectly regular scale, contrived with profound
order and symmetry.
Of course, unless an architect is also partly an artist he cannot be
successful; no amount of learning can compensate for this. The two best
expositors we ever had of Gothic architecture, Rickman and Britton, were
indifferent architects. Perhaps they may be said to have known more than
all who went before them or followed after; and both of them were
endowed with a thorough love for their profession. There may be
something to urge that they were not brought up to it, one being in a
mercantile office in Liverpool, and the other a wine-bottler in London.
Rickman had a number of opportunities of testing his architectural
skill, but they are all dreary, and showed that his hand could not put
into practice the principles of the architecture he understood and loved
so well. Britton had fewer chances, and was even less successful with
his few.
Perhaps it might be well to try to answer the question, “What would be
the best way to improve the architecture of the most dreary of all
classes of buildings, the humbler houses of the middle classes, the
houses that are let for about £40 or £50 per annum?” and the best way to
answer it is to suppose a case in which the conditions would be the most
favourable. Suppose, for example, there were to be a number of gentlemen
who were each prepared to spend £800 in a row of houses for their own
residences. Well, let them all agree upon an artistic architect, and let
them each arrange their own plans to suit their own convenience. This
would give the architect not only data, but ideas to work upon. Well,
let him then take all these plans, and fit to them an elevation which
shall be as broad and uniform as the convenience admits. There will
still be plenty of variety, the various requirements of the builders
will secure that, or enable the architect to employ it. The Vicar’s
Close at Wells, or the collegiate buildings in Oxford or Ely, would
afford any number of examples of what he required. In one of the
excellent Manuals published for the use of amateur artists by Winsor and
Newton, the author has divided his subject into Atmosphere, Keeping,
Contrast, and Variety, which, if rightly understood, is only another way
of expressing the requirements of Barry in the former part of this
chapter. A quotation from this Manual, though it relates to sketching
in colour, may be as useful to an architect as to an artist. “First
learn how to produce certain effects, and you will not then find it
difficult to store them in your memory for use as you require them; you
are learning nothing new in the art of painting--thousands have gone
through this process before you; you are only seeking to chronicle your
own experience. The scenes you commit to paper have, and will have, a
peculiar charm for you, and perhaps to your friends if you represent
them faithfully. They may be new scenes, but they are not seen under new
_effects_. These have been already witnessed again and again; you
yourself have seen the same effect produced in former pictures; but the
charm lies in producing them yourself from nature. Aim then at facility
in producing these effects in general, and you will easily apply and
vary that knowledge as you require it. Aim at acquiring a kind of
_grammar of effect_, just as in reading music, the habitué recognises a
certain set of notes from their frequent recurrence, and which is even
called by musical people a _phrase_, alluding to the similar recurrence
of words in the composition of a sentence. It is knowledge that leads to
decision, which is the secret of rapidity.”[11] Of course, with an
architect rapidity is not necessary, it only pertains to a sketcher in
water-colours, whose materials dry up rapidly. A hundred lessons in
architecture may be gained every time that we walk along a pleasant
lane, and the village with a cheerful row of cottages grown over with
creepers, and showing tall chimneys, is full of suggestions in light and
shade and composition. In all importations of foreign architecture--and
it is not pretended that there should be none--the first thing to
consider is its fitness for the climate and surroundings. Dol, Morlaix,
and other towns in the north of France, contain many suggestions for
city architecture. Our own cathedrals and great churches were meant to
stand alone, and can only be seen at some distance; the churches on the
Continent were often designed for the effect they would have in a
crowded town; but here again, the old chronic error has to be met, that
Gothic buildings suit country scenes the best, and Classic a town,
whereas the only place where a classic building can be employed, except
by a man of absolute genius, is in the country among heavy foliage.
There is nothing so bald or unsatisfactory as a Grecian building, such
as has been erected in England since the so-called “revival” of Classic
architecture. The cold Doric façades, or Ionic as the case may be, give
one a sensation of intense dreariness. The stuccoed front of a
conventicle strictly copied from the Parthenon, or more probably from
the Gate of the Agora, is a thing to wonder at; and too often we form
our ideas of Grecian art from modern revivals. Surely we might have
expected that the principal seat of classic learning in England might
boast of a proper Greek building, if the Professor of Architecture to
the Royal Academy, who had made Greek design the study of his life, were
employed; but no one can contemplate the Taylor and Randolph Institution
at Oxford without feeling humiliated at the idea that it was erected
under such circumstances. The Acropolis at Athens is an abrupt hill with
a flat surface of perhaps ten acres on the top. The Eastern aspect rises
in a kind of bluff, and is crowned by the Parthenon and the Propylæa.
The Parthenon was an oblong temple surrounded by forty-six vast marble
columns. These seen from below give at once the idea of lightness and
strength, and it exhibits in the most perfect form the “entasis” or
swelling that a cylinder requires; this alone would show the true eye
for form of the ancient Greek architect. The Erechtheum is a vast
building on the northern side of the Acropolis; and, according to
Pausanias, the table-land of the Acropolis was absolutely crowded with
works of art; indeed at the present time there are remains at every
stride. Lamartine, in his _Voyage en Orient_, gives a vivid description
of the impression the ruins of Athens made upon him, and concludes his
rhapsody with reflections, of which the following is a
translation:--“When again shall we find such a people and such an epoch?
Nothing announces their coming. The Propylæa and the Temple of
Erechtheus, or of the Caryatides, stand at the side of the
Parthenon--masterpieces in themselves, but lost in the proximity of a
grander masterpiece. The soul, overpowered by the sight of the latter,
has no longer any power to admire the others--one must gaze and then
depart!--lamenting not so much the devastation of this glorious
handiwork of man, as the impossibility that man should ever equal its
sublimity and harmony.” Chateaubriand eulogises Athens in a similar
strain, and neither of them say one word too much perhaps; but let us
fairly ask ourselves what we admire so in the classic architecture of
Greece. I would say without hesitation that we fail to see the real
excellence but too often. A Greek temple transported into England, yes
the Parthenon itself, is barbarous and hideous. We pass it by as we
would Demosthenes on a doorstep inveighing against Philip, relieved to
be out of the way. There is no mysterious beauty in a column six or
eight diameters high--a ruler is often of the same proportions, and we
do not become enthusiastic over it; yet, so much are we influenced by
prejudice, that the rude colouring of the Greek temples which the Turks
plastered over the buildings they occupied during the seventeenth
century, is supposed to be correct taste. Even yet it is commonly, very
commonly, believed, that the colouring belongs to the Greek period, and
the plaints of even so great an authority as Stuart are touching. I was
astonished to find in his preface to the careful volume on Athens, the
following:--“Yet there is one circumstance of comparatively recent
discovery, and still more recently ascertained to its full extent, which
gives a strange contradiction to our cherished notions concerning the
purity of Grecian taste, and its antipathy to all coarseness and
exaggeration. It should seem that the Greeks painted their temples, not
merely in chiaroscuro, or in subdued tints, for the purpose of giving
relief to projections or expressiveness to ornamental details, but with
glaring colours,--reds, blues, and yellows, with violent contrasts; the
columns one hue, and the entablature another. Nay,” he says, “there is
shrewd suspicion that the sculptures were painted like the figure-head
of a man-of-war, and that the pillars were striped, and unluckily the
evidences of these incredibilities is most exasperatingly clear; the
statements of the German architects employed by King Otho leave no doubt
whatever,” etc. etc.; and I once saw a devout student of Greek art
poring over one of those revived temples--the columns and entablature a
bright coffee colour, and the triglyphs blue--trying to admire it; he
humbly thought he must be wrong, and the Greeks must be right.’ Why, the
Turks did all this during their possession. The colours here indicated
would be about the Turkman’s idea of correct taste, savouring of the
bazaar and booth. They trailed their cannon up the Propylæa, and broke
down the carved work thereof with axes and hammers, and soon they set up
their banners for tokens. Mnesthenes never coloured the Erechtheum, or
Pausanias would have said so in the account of his ramble over it; and
Phidias and Praxiteles may fairly be left alone--_they_ never daubed the
Parthenon with ochre. The architecture of the Acropolis, great as it is
in its own merits, requires a Greek eye and Greek modes of thought to
understand thoroughly and to appreciate. Its great and grand idea is
calm and dignified repose. It is the repose of the Sphynx or an Egyptian
pyramid refined into beauty; and among the rocks of Attica, which are
rugged and rough, a Gothic building, such as Strasbourg or Cologne,
would be out of place; the crockets and pinnacles would be dwarfed by
the igneous rocks that are about, and the Greek well knew how a calm
flat surface would harmonise and contrast with the country round.
Modern discoveries by Michaelis regarding the statue of Minerva would
show that it was of stupendous dimensions, and covered with ivory and
gold; the light coming from above, and relieving it from the dark shades
of the portico behind.
We have nothing now to compare this with, or anything indeed to enable
us to form a comparison by. The effect must not only have been striking,
but in the refraction of light in the latitude of Athens, conditions
would exist that differ essentially from any we could reproduce here.
The architecture of England is essentially its own, it is capable of
adaptation to every known requirement, and many more.
Leaving fortifications and cathedrals on one side as exceptional, there
is often a great wealth of beauty in the most unpretending domestic
buildings, that would lighten up a street or landscape, and if imitated
would prove attractive to a tenant.
[Illustration: STAIRCASE IN AUTHOR’S RESIDENCE, CHESTER.]
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Woody.
[2] See page 45.
[3] See page 169.
[4] Thorpe’s name is not mentioned in Britton’s list of old
architects, though Vertue and Hylmer, who were almost contemporaneous,
are found in it.
[5] The rectory stands on the banks of the Thames, and is a very noble
residence.
[6] Paper read by the Rev. E. Trollope, F.S.A., before the
Leicestershire Architectural and Archæological Society, and
republished in the _Building News_, February 5, 1864.
[7] _Lysons._ _Macaulay._ _Collins’ series._
[8] The Grosvenor Bridge in Chester, 200 feet in the clear, is the
largest stone span in England, and it will probably remain so, as iron
is so very much more economical for a constructive material where
great spaces have to be spanned.
[9] The monument to Bishop Fulford, in Montreal Cathedral Yard, is,
as nearly as the materials at hand admitted, such a copy, and it is a
very excellent imitation of a Waltham Cross.
[10] After standing 230 years the chapel fell down through the stone
disintegrating, but the church it was attached to still stands.
[11] _Hints for Sketching in Water-Colour from Nature._ Winsor and
Newton.
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
singular pasages=> singular passages {pg 7}
OUTHOUSE: NELL GWYNNE’S BIRTHPLACE, HEREFORD=> OUTHOUSE: NELL GWYNN’S
BIRTHPLACE, HEREFORD {pg 66}