_For the Every-Day Book._
Taking into consideration the competition excited amongst architects by
the public advertizing for designs for the new churches, it might
reasonably have been expected that greater specimens of genius would
have been elicited, and more variety displayed in the elevations than we
at present see. From whatever cause it arises, whether from the
interference of individual partiality, or the predominating influence of
a bad taste, it is certain that a tameness of design is too generally
apparent in these buildings.
Mr. Grey Bennett, speaking of the church in Langham-place, in the house
of commons said, “that it was deplorable, a horrible object, and never
had he seen so shameful a disgrace to the metropolis. It was like a
flat candlestick with an extinguisher on it. He saw a great number of
churches building, of all of which it might be said, that one was worse
than the other; it seemed as if an adventurous spirit of architecture
prevailed, and that its professors had resolved to follow nothing that
had ever appeared before, and to invent nothing new that was not purely
absurd. No man who knew what architecture was, would have put up the
edifices he alluded to, and which disgusted every body, while it made
every body wonder who could be the asses that planned, and the fools
that built them.”[210] These remarks are upon the whole, perhaps, too
severe and sweeping. The greatest fault in the new churches is the want
of variety, the eye is tired with the repetition of the same design, and
looks with eagerness for something to relieve the general monotony. We
have before us so many examples of good church-building, that the
spectator is more fastidious in his judgment upon any new specimen, and
is led to judge of its merits by comparison with some favourite design,
rather than by an examination of its intrinsic beauties or defects: in
this view the new churches have not been fairly treated.
Much has been written on the style of architecture most proper for
churches. The balance of argument is in favour of the gothic. Architects
would decide for the Grecian, but their judgments are so biassed by
education, that very few who look at the subject professionally, are
likely to form an opinion upon it of any value. If the beauty of a
building consists in its appropriateness to the objects for which it is
intended, then the gothic style will ever bear away the palm when put
into competition with the Greek or Roman architecture for ecclesiastical
edifices.
By gothic architecture it should here be understood, that the
fashionable mode of building, correctly styled “_modern_ gothic,” is not
referred to. So widely different is it from the correct and beautiful
architecture which it professes to imitate, that it may with great
justness be called a new order. The late Mr. Carter, than whom, no man
ever entered into the spirit of gothic architecture with more attention,
or ever understood its properties and beauties more soundly, very
justly called this splendid invention of modern genius, the “fantastic
order;” the correctness of the cognomen is now so far acknowledged, that
even architects are giving up this their favourite child, and
endeavouring to assume a greater justness of detail, and form a closer
imitation of the genuine style. From the reports of the commissioners
for building new churches, it appears that the gothic style is adopted
in the majority of those churches built in the country; in the environs
of the metropolis but in a very few instances. This is to be lamented;
it would have been more desirable had the gothic churches been allowed
to have borne a proportion to the others, at least of one in three. It
has been often urged, that the rejection of this style arises from the
expensiveness of its details.--To show at once how little weight there
is in this objection, let any one contrast the splendid gothic church
lately erected at Chelsea, rich in crockets and mullions, with its stone
roof, and pinnacled tower, against the frigid ionic temple built for the
parish of St. Pancras. The estimate of the first is, perhaps, little
more than a third of the cost of the latter building; the dimensions are
at least equal; and which of these buildings displays the most ornament?
In the one much money is consumed in delicate mouldings and rich
friezes; delicate, minute, and scarcely seen embellishments, which the
smoke and damp of a London atmosphere will soon fill with dirt, while it
will corrode the composition in which they are worked. In the other,
though the gothic detail is marked with a want of coldness, yet what
ornament is introduced shows to advantage, and is more calculated to
endure than the other. The gothic style in detail is bold and
conspicuous, and a little money laid out in embellishment with judgment
goes a long way--witness the beautiful chapel at Mile-end, which proves
beyond all dispute, that even an ornamented gothic building can be
erected at a very limited expense. The architect was the late Mr.
Walters, and had he built nothing more than this chapel, he would be
entitled to have ranked high in his profession. Another edifice in the
gothic style may be worth notice as affording a striking contrast to
that last mentioned, this is a church now building in Somers-town. Its
only characteristics are meanness and poverty; the style resembles that
of a Chinese summer-house, without its lightness; it is clumsy where
solidity is required, and possesses not one redeeming quality to atone
for the many absurdities it contains.
As to the Grecian architecture of the present day, it is much a matter
of question, whether the style of many of the new churches is not as
much removed from the original as the gothic I have complained of. It
would, however, occupy too much time to inquire into the classical
authorities to warrant many of these edifices, and it is very
questionable whether many of their architects have done so. It has
already been remarked that, a great sameness appears in the new
churches. This is in a great measure to be attributed to the designs of
the steeples being cramped by the style, which admits of little more
than a square tower supporting a circular or polygonal story. It is,
however, rather an error of choice than the effect of necessity; the
architect does not appear to have been guided by what he can or cannot
do; but a want of energy seems the principal cause; he forms a design
and fears to deviate from it. This may be exemplified in the three
churches erected from Mr. Smirke’s designs, at Wandsworth,
Bryanstone-square, and West Hackney. In all, the same design is seen;
the same round tower, the same cupola, differing only in height and
situation. The bodies of the churches too are so strikingly similar,
that the spectator cannot help feeling disappointment from the plainness
of the designs and their want of variety; it is not what he has been led
to expect from an architect of the eminence to which Mr. Smirke has been
raised. The same observations apply even more forcibly to four churches
in Surrey: viz. Camberwell, Norwood, Trinity church, Newington, and St.
John’s in the Waterloo-road. The steeples of the three latter, as
originally designed, would have been exact copies of each other. The
first differs but little. The last named church has the good fortune to
have had a spire added, as far superior to the others, as it is to the
generality of the modern designs. The bodies of all these churches are
so closely copied that it would be a difficult matter to point out in
what respect they differ. It will be almost needless to add, that the
whole four are the work of one architect, Mr. Bedford, of Camberwell. It
is not only the sameness of design, but the sameness of style, which I
complain of. Though Grecian edifices may be tolerated amidst modern
houses, as assimilating with their architecture, they are out of all
character in the country. Lambeth parish for instance has built four
churches. The Grecian style prevails in the whole, and though the
buildings are creditable to their architects, yet, in the case of
Brixton, which is certainly a very chaste and pretty doric church, and
does honour to the genius of Mr. Porden, and at Norwood, where in every
point of view at the least distance, and particularly the latter place,
the steeples are seen in connection with trees and country scenery, the
pepper-box towers remind the spectator more of pigeon-houses than church
steeples; and he, to whom the sight of a village-spire brings almost
enthusiastic feelings, and an earnest desire of arriving at it, would
scarce bestow any notice on these modern and unappropriate objects. Let
the town and the city retain the portico and the dome, the country
claims the gothic spire, the mullioned window, and the buttressed wall;
but things are now reversed and changed from their natural order. The
slender pointed spire is now made to terminate a splendid street of
modern houses, where it appears as awkward as the cupola does amidst
fields and hedges. Mr. Nash is to build a gothic church at Haggerstone,
and let us hope he will atone for his fault at the west, by bestowing a
more orthodox steeple upon the eastern erection. Mr. Soane is the
architect of Walworth church, which is the first specimen of his
ecclesiastical structures; it differs from the generality of new
churches, in having a range of arches rising from the parts of the
galleries, dividing the structure longitudinally into three aisles, in
the style of the older churches. It formed one of the groupes of
churches exhibited by this gentleman at Somerset-house in the present
year. One recommendation it has, and that by no means a trifling one;
the voice of the clergyman may be distinctly heard in every part of the
building without the least echo or indistinctness, a fault very common
in large buildings.
It would occupy too much space to notice, even briefly, every new
church. In regard to steeples, that of the new church building at Hoxton
(architect Edwards) is one of the prettiest designs of the modern school
of cupolas; and the spire of St. Paul’s, Shadwell, of which Mr.
Walters, before spoken of, was the architect, forms a brilliant
exception; it is closely formed on the model of Bow steeple, but there
are some variations so pleasing, that the design may justly be said to
be the architect’s own property--he has followed sir Christopher Wren
without copying him. The spire at Poplar is a fine object, but decidedly
inferior to the last, inasmuch as it diminishes more abruptly. The
steeple attached to St. John’s church, in the Waterloo-road, is a very
finely proportioned erection, and shows exceedingly well from the Strand
and the Temple-gardens; those who have seen an engraving of this church
with the tower originally designed for it, will see what has been gained
by the exchange.
There are more new churches still to be built; let us hope then, that
the architects who may be selected to erect them, having seen the faults
and defects of their predecessors, will produce something better; or, at
least, that their designs will differ from the generality of those
already built, if only for the sake of variety.
In conclusion, the writer has only to add, that much more might be said
both on old and new churches; it is a subject which has more than once
employed his pen; he feels, however, that he has already occupied a
larger space than he is entitled to do, if he has trespassed on your
readers’ patience he has to beg their pardon; his excuse is, that the
subject is a favourite one.