MODERN CHURCHES.
After passing in review these stately fanes, centuries old, we turn to
survey what the genius of modern architecture has contributed in this
way to the adornment of London. The contrast is extraordinary. In the
churches built within a century or so, we find little expression or
meaning; nothing that tempts us to linger--their builders seem
uninspired. There are indeed but two or three that have any pretension.
One, ambitious and vast, is Sir Gilbert Scott’s gigantic Gothic temple
at Kensington, which replaced a quaint old-fashioned church. In spite of
its cost and size, it is singularly bald and unsatisfactory. The tower
and spire are of unusual proportions; but the whole is inexpressive and
cold. So awkwardly placed is it, that the door cannot be reached without
an exposed walk through the inclosure, and on weddings and such festive
occasions a long covered way has to be erected to enable the parties to
reach their carriages under shelter. We may also turn to the remarkable
church of All Saints, in Margaret Street, the work of an architect of
much feeling and ability, Mr. Butterfield. We should note how on a small
patch of ground he has grouped his church and presbytery, so as to
convey the idea of space and of something imposing. The mixture of black
and dull red bricks is very happy and successful, and the beauty of the
lines of the spire, seen from many quarters, is remarkable. We always
look upon this pile with interest, as carrying out with perfect success
the aims intended. The little inclosure in front is cleverly disposed,
and, though next the street, has quite a monastic air. Within, the
effect of gorgeous and rich details is quite overpowering, the walls
being one mass of costly marble, fresco paintings, pictures wrought in
encaustic tiles of delicate hues, and painted windows. The defect,
however, is the excessive darkness--“inspissated gloom,” Dr. Johnson
would call it. Nothing in mediæval work can exceed the magnificence of
the reredos and the wall that rises above it, disposed in arches and
tiers, and set off with painted figures and mosaics. The workmanship
everywhere cannot be surpassed--iron work, gilding, carvings, all are of
the best. The beautiful lines of the lancet-shaped arches should be
noted, with the sharp and delicate carvings of the capitals. Nothing,
indeed, has been spared on this great and costly work. Many of the
houses opposite are given up to pious works, and occupied by large
communities of Sisters, who are seen at every hour flitting through the
neighbouring streets.
The churches erected by Roman Catholics display far more variety and
architectural graces. The Catholic chapels of fifty years ago were
chiefly foreign, sheltered by the various Embassies. Such was the little
French chapel close to Baker Street; those in Spanish Place, near
Manchester Square; the Bavarian in Warwick Street, and the Sardinian
Chapel in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. This latter building was sacked and
burnt by the mob in the fury of the Gordon Riots. The same fate befel
the still more modest chapel in Warwick Street, Golden Square. These
Embassy chapels have still a foreign air in their interior arrangement,
displaying a faded gaudiness and old-fashioned elaboration. Passing
Warwick Street Chapel we may note its shabby exterior, suggesting some
struggling conventicle; but this unobtrusiveness was designed purposely,
in the hope of its not again attracting the notice of the “religious”
mobs. Fifty years ago the place was in the highest vogue, for here the
most eminent singers used to lend their voices to the services, and the
late Mr. Braham flourished off, and made the old rafters ring again with
his stentorian notes. Not far away, just out of Soho Square, is to be
seen another grimed and neglected-looking edifice, a stretch of gloomy
brickwork, with rows of windows, having the general air of a disused
Assembly room. This, curious to say, was actually its original function.
For, over a hundred and twenty years ago, it was the well-known “Mrs.
Cornelys’,” where her masquerades and ridottos, the most brilliant in
London, were held. Mrs. Cornelys, after being patronized by all “the
nobility and gentry,” came at last to “selling asses’ milk” in the
suburbs, and died in a wretched way. Her “rooms” after some vicissitudes
were “converted” into a chapel.[24]
The chapel in Soho Square is not the only instance, by-the-way, in
London of a building converted from profane to pious uses. There are
several in London which, after serving to entertain frivolous audiences,
changed hands, and gathered congregations of a more serious kind. Even
the late Court Theatre had done duty as a Methodist conventicle, and the
balcony which used to hold the worshippers merely changed its name to
the “Dress Circle.” Many will recall a floating legend of their
childhood, how, after one church or chapel had been thus “converted,”
and a masquerade was given in the sacred precincts, a mysterious figure
of Satan, whom no one could identify as a mortal, had been seen flitting
about.
Within twenty years or so an extraordinary change, and even revolution,
has taken place. Though these old fanes still linger on, a number of
handsome and imposing churches have risen, some spacious, others
magnificent in their decorations, most of them excellent in design; not
a few, in attraction and interest, are superior to modern Protestant
structures. The most distinguished of these contributors to the glories
of London are the Pugins, father and son, Hansom, Scholes, Clutton,
Bentley, and Herbert Gribble; the last, designer of the Oratory. The
name of Hansom is recalled to the Londoner at almost every hour, as the
one who has most increased the “public stock of harmless pleasure” and
convenience, being the inventor of the famous vehicle so poetically
named by Mr. Disraeli, “the gondola of London.”
In the grandiose and ambitious style there are the three great
cathedrals of St. George’s, Southwark, the Pro-cathedral, Kensington,
and the Oratory. Next in order may be placed the Jesuits’ Church in Farm
Street, and that of the Carmelites at Kensington. Then there is the
great church at Moorfields, with the handsome and spacious Italian
Cathedral in Hatton Garden.
Crossing the river we pass into the Southwark district and come to a
tongue of land close to the Kennington Road. Here, nearly fifty years
ago, the elder Pugin obtained, as he fancied, the one great chance of
his life, that of rearing a grand Metropolitan Cathedral after his own
unfettered designs and aspirations. But never was there to be so piteous
a tale of hope deferred and frustrated. The structure was conceived on
the most costly and ambitious scale, and would have taken a quarter of a
century and perhaps a quarter of a million to complete. It was
wonderful, however, that in those early and straitened days so much
could have been accomplished. The builder of our day, who surveys this
pile, will be astonished to learn that it cost but the bagatelle of
£30,000. It could hardly be erected now for double that sum. Its length
is some 240 feet, its width about 70.
The committee of prelates and influential laymen who undertook the work
had conceived the idea of a fine agglomeration, consisting of a great
Cathedral, with a presbytery, convent and schools attached. Pugin was
called on to supply a complete plan, which he prepared, as may be
conceived, with enthusiasm. On an appointed day it is related that he
attended, and submitted a series of his always beautiful drawings, a
cathedral, chapter house, cloisters, convent, etc., forming a vast and
picturesque pile of buildings. These were received with admiration, when
a practical member of the company put some questions as to the cost.
Another followed with a question as to the time necessary for carrying
out the ambitious design. The architect, without directly replying,
quietly contrived to get back all his drawings into his hands, rolled
them up, took his hat, and walked away from the astonished committee
without a word!
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE ORATORY.]
Being later asked for an explanation, he replied, in his rough style: “I
thought I was dealing with people who knew what they wanted; but your
absurd questions showed me my mistake. No cathedral was ever, or could
be, built within the lifetime of a single man. As to its cost, how can I
tell? Building materials may increase to double their present price in a
few years.”[25] He was induced to supply a more modest, though still an
ambitious, design, and this had eventually to be re-shaped, as the funds
fell short.
The original plan, still preserved, was a truly magnificent one, with
its great central tower, and lofty soaring proportions, with which
contrast the rather mean dimensions of the present edifice, which is
low, but of great length. “It was spoilt,” he said, “by the instructions
of the committee that it was to hold 3,000 people on the floor at a
limited price; in consequence, height, proportion, everything was
sacrificed to meet these conditions.”
[Illustration: CONFESSIONAL IN THE ORATORY.]
But let us hear Mr. Ruskin on this excuse: “St. George’s was not high
enough for want of money? But was it want of money that made you put the
blunt, overloaded, laborious ogee door into the side of it? Was it for
lack of funds that you sunk the tracery of the parapet in its clumsy
zigzags? Was it in parsimony that you buried its paltry pinnacles in
that eruption of diseased crockets, or in pecuniary embarrassment that
you set up the belfry foolscaps with the mimicry of dormer windows,
which nobody can ever reach, nor look out of? Not so, but in mere
incapability of better things.... Employ him by all means, but on small
work. Expect no cathedrals of him; but no one at present can design a
better finial. There is an exceedingly beautiful one over the western
door of St. George’s; and there is some spirited impishness and
switching of tails in the supporting figures.”
There is some truth in these bitter lines--but there is more injustice.
Probably the writer has long since repented of his warmth.
Pugin’s tempestuous nature was, it may be conceived, fretted and goaded
by the unavoidable checks and restraints necessarily laid upon him. But
as it stands he has succeeded in leaving a fine work behind, which one
day a wealthy congregation will take in hand and, perhaps, adapt to the
original design.[26]
[Illustration: OUR LADY’S ALTAR IN THE ORATORY.]
We pass to the last built of the important Catholic edifices, and which,
perhaps, after St. Paul’s, is the most imposing and ambitious
ecclesiastical building in London, namely the Oratory. For spaciousness,
splendour of adornment, fine music, and the style of the services this
is an extraordinary institution, considered as the work of an
unestablished and unendowed communion. Some forty years ago the
Oratorians were to be found at a public room in King William Street,
Strand. During the second Great Exhibition, of 1862, they moved to South
Kensington, where they erected a new church next door to the Museum.
Here was also built a large monastery, a hall for Societies, etc., the
final development of which was the present imposing fane. Some years ago
a competition was declared, and the design of Mr. H. Gribble selected.
Whatever objections may be taken to particular details and treatment,
there can be no question as to the successful result, and the crowds who
visit it, much as sightseers do foreign cathedrals, are impressed and
astonished at its proportions and magnificence. At almost every hour of
week days some of the curious are found there; while on Sundays, after
the services, a long stream of visitors promenade round and round,
surveying the chapels and altars.
The cost of this building is said to have been close upon £80,000, and
though completed inside, its façade and outer dome has still to be
supplied. This will entail a further cost of over £20,000. Its
construction was followed with much interest by architects, owing to the
fact that concrete, cast _in situ_, was used for the dome and arches of
the nave and transept, a practice adopted by some of the old Italian
architects.
The altar of Our Lady, in the right-hand transept, is really a most
extraordinary prodigy in marble work, either for its vast dimensions or
its elegance of florid treatment. The mixture of colours, the flowing
grace of treatment, the blending of statuary with rare marbles, the
exquisite easy manipulation, in times, too, before marble-machinery was
known, all join to make it a most astonishing work. Not but that there
is something meretricious in the composition, and severe critics would
hold that it was of a “debased school.” It is believed that such a work
could not be attempted now at a less cost than eighty or a hundred
thousand pounds. The design, too, is original, that of a sort of
pillared temple formed of exquisitely-tinted marbles. The columns are
all fluted, and the flutings filled with inlaid marbles. Spirited
statues to the number of eleven are grouped with the main fabric, and
reposing figures and fluttering cherubs are disposed with all the ease
and freedom of terra-cotta. We feel a sort of artistic pang as we think
of the fate of this striking work, which was long the ornament of an
Italian church at Brescia, erected by the family of a local architect,
as an inscription records. Under the suppression of religious orders in
Italy the church was levelled, and its altar sold for the bagatelle of
£2,000. No doubt it looks a little out of keeping with the waste of bare
unfurnished wall about it, and seems to be a stranger under our cold
skies, exciting much the same feelings experienced when we look on the
magnificent Rood-screen to be seen in the museum next door. This piece
of ambitious _rococo_ work did duty in the splendid cathedral of
Bois-le-Duc, where only a few weeks ago we were looking at the
[Illustration: THE SANCTUARY, FARM STREET.]
spot it filled, and where something seemed to be lacking. The scrapers
and polishers and restorers had been at their fatal work, so execrated
by Lord Grimthorpe; Renaissance work was pronounced unfit for a Gothic
cathedral; and it was ruthlessly pulled down and sold for a song to our
Government. It may be said that such opposing styles are not to be
always condemned; they represent the form and pressure of their era; and
there is often something piquant in the combination where the works are
of merit. Our own cathedrals often present such contrasts. The apse of
the Oratory is now being decorated with painting, gilding, and marbles,
and when completed will no doubt present a rich appearance.
Some forty years ago the Jesuits obtained permission to build a church
in the most fashionable quarter of London, a privilege that was obtained
not without difficulties, and was subject to the condition that they
should also take charge of a poor and impoverished chapel in the slums
of Westminster. It was almost impossible to secure a suitable site in
Mayfair or near Grosvenor Square, so the church was built in what is no
more than a stable lane, then known as Berkeley Mews, at the back of
Mount Street, but which has assumed the name and dignity of Farm Street.
The church is a beautiful, well-designed Gothic building, built by
Scholes, added to, and altered by Mr. Clutton. The _coup d’œil_, to one
standing at the door, is striking and attractive, from the display of
painted glass, which fills not only the great altar window, but all the
clerestory, as well as from the rich garniture of the sanctuary. The
sanctuary and chapel, close by, present a spectacle of costly
enrichment, the walls being a mass of coloured marbles, deep green and
mellow strawberry tint, encompassing elaborate mosaic pictures, and
gilded carvings. There is a small arcade to the right which opens into
the adjoining chapel: an organ picturesquely projects on the left;
beneath are gilt grilles and gates, while the richly-carved altar, all
pinnacles and niches and figures, fills the centre. The altar is the
work of the elder Pugin, and is a fine specimen of his manner,
suggesting much, but too crowded with details. The communion rails are
his design also, the pulpit, we believe, is from the same “eminent
hand.” The new organ is one of the richest and most powerful in London.