Paddington: Past and Present

by William Robins

At a distance, in Trinity, we see fair proportions and elegance of form, pleasing to the eye of all who admire the architectural art; on closer inspection, nuns and monks, and bishops, and kings, and monsters with faces which disgrace humanity; and beasts so detestably ugly, or so ridiculously grotesque, that young and old are arrested in their progress, and compelled to ask the meaning of it all. I have asked many persons, but none of them, being either masons or priests, could tell. This, however, every sensible man is beginning to tell to his neighbour, and pretty plainly too, that no priest or mason shall drag him back to the decorations and deformities of the fourteenth century, of which Trinity is a sufficient example. “The Holy Blessed Trinity” is not understood when it is surrounded by an unintelligible mass of deformity; and that which has no meaning for the people, must be as repulsive in a material structure, as it is in a Divine Thought.

“Freemasons of the Church” do tell us, what those who are not freemasons, can easily imagine, viz., that many of the grotesque and disgusting gothic carvings, which still exist in and around the ancient churches, were placed there by monks, or monkish masons, as caricatures of their secular brethren, and others, who had offended them. Now, if the monsters with heads as large as life, who grin and gape with horrible contortions from the six pinnacles on each side of this church, are intended to be the monumental effigies of twelve of the preceding owners of the Paddington Estate, (those who have most grossly mismanaged and abused it,) let us be told so; and then I have no doubt some of the people of Paddington would enjoy the joke, as much as any Grand Master of the masonic craft; but it is really too bad to stick up unintelligible symbols, on and about that which is called a religious temple, and leave all the uninitiated to guess at their meaning. The days for such unenlightened and selfish craft are numbered; and the splitting of the foundation walls of Trinity, may be looked upon as an emblem of their fulfilment. [152b] The people must be taught; and that, too, without any previous oath-taking. Colleges, and crafts, if they are worth preserving, will endure without the pledges given to secrecy; if they are not, no preliminary swearing will enable them to maintain their ancient ascendancy. Priests and masons may fancy they still rule the world; and it may be that they do; but however much they may wish it, their reign will not be long, even if it is not now virtually ended. A third element has been admitted to power. People are teaching themselves the essentials of all government, and they must ultimately rule. Observers have long since discovered, that unfettered genius has done more for the world, than the most renowned systems; and they are no longer willing to assist in upholding those educational establishments, whose very foundations are laid in secrecy, cliquedom, and dogmata. To know what kingcraft can do for us, we may consult the history of our own James’s and Charles’s; to know what priestcraft has done for the world, we have only to read William Hewitt’s Popular History of it; and to prove what the masonic craft has not attempted to do, we have only to take a walk into “Milton’s Golden Lane,” [153] or any other of the many wretched lanes and alleys of this or any other large city. There is, however, an Immaterial Essence in this world of ours which no craft or cunning can “put down;” and, fortunately for the world, it is not entirely in the keeping of any craft.

The prelate who consecrated Trinity, is known to have been indulgent towards practices in the church, which had long since ceased to be observed. Reformation of some kind was found to be necessary, and practices distasteful to reformers, were introduced. None of those objectionable practices, however, were ever witnessed within any of the churches in Paddington; and this I look upon as an additional reason for inducing the people to ask the bishop, their appointed governor, to condescend to give them some satisfactory reason for the erection of these “ornaments,” which he has consecrated, and for which they have to pay. There is another course open to the bishop, which scarcely any one, with the exception of the architect, would be grieved by his adopting.

But to erect this structure, fitted, to all external appearance, only for the performance of the gorgeous histrionical ceremonies of the most depraved period of the Roman or Anglican churches, the people of Paddington have been, and still are, obliged to subscribe by “compulsory levy;” and having been thus made instrumental, willing or unwilling, in assisting to resuscitate the dry bones of a monster belonging to a former period, they were then asked, (like other people similarly situated) by their local governors, to assist them in laying the spectre that such follies as these had again presented to the mind of the English public.

And how; and at what cost was Trinity built?

In 1843, on the fourth of July, the Rev. Chairman of the vestry, informed that body, he had received a communication from the Rev. Mr. Miles, expressing his readiness to contribute £4000 towards the erection of an additional church in Paddington, upon a site already granted by the bishop and his lessees.

This, the third site, provided out of the four acres to be granted, according to the bishop’s last building Act, was a deep hole, which had been left at the point of junction of the Bishop’s-road with the Westbourn-terrace road; these roads having been raised by the Great Western Railway Company, according to agreement with the owners of the estate, when the railway bridges were built. So deep was this hole, and so unfitted was it for the site of a church, that the parishioners would have been money in pocket, if the vestry had politely thanked the bishop and his lessees for their kindness in granting it, and bought the land somewhere else. But then that would not have done for the bishop and his lessees. They knew, and the builders who took their land knew, the increased value a church would give to the neighbouring ground; and, as it had been planned that the church would be better here than elsewhere, here it must be, or no where; although the foundations did cost the parishioners above £2,000; and although another thousand “would not have been lavishly thrown away, had the proper authorities been sufficiently liberal in granting it!”

On the tenth of July, at an adjourned meeting of the vestry, a committee was appointed to take Mr. Miles’s letter into consideration, to confer with the bishop, and to report to the vestry thereon. The only other important business done at this meeting, was, to agree to borrow £2,000, on the security of the church-rates, instead of £1,700, as had been previously proposed. This was to be raised to pay the debts of St. James’s, and the other churches. On the twelfth of June, the Vestry had pledged themselves to raise £2,000 towards increased church-accommodation, if the church commissioners would but pay the £2,000 they had promised. On the eleventh of December, in the same year, after receiving the report of their committee, the vestry agree to increase this sum to £6,000; “which they presume will be sufficient for the erection of a suitable church, with Mr. Miles’s donation, and such other sums as may be raised by subscription, and obtained from the church commissioners.” And on the second of January, 1844, a committee was appointed, with full powers, to build the new church.

On the sixth of February, 1844, a letter was read from the church commissioners, consenting to make a grant of £1,000 towards the proposed new church; upon certain conditions therein mentioned.

On the fourth of March, the new church committee report “that they find from the specification of the architect, that the expenses of constructing the foundation, on the site allotted to the church, will be so great as to prevent the possibility of erecting a suitable edifice thereon for the sum at the disposal of the committee; and they therefore recommend that £2,500 more be borrowed.” On the ninth of March, it was resolved, that this further sum should be raised; and on the fifteenth of January, 1846, it was resolved, unanimously, by the Vestry, “That a sum of £13,000 should be raised under the provisions of the church building Acts, on the credit of the church-rate, for the erection of Trinity Church!”