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.
E. I. C.
July, 1825.