It is inevitable that A.W.N. Pugin looms large in histories of Roman Catholic church-building in the 19th century. Yet in some ways he was as notable for the adopting the faith that he served through his architecture as he was for the buildings that he designed. Would Pugin be viewed in quite the same wayContinue reading “Recusancy in Dorset and the ‘other tradition’ of Catholic church-building”
Category Archives: Wall painting
Joseph Clarke (1819/20-1888): an unexpectedly deft safe pair of hands
Today’s post forms something of a pendant to the preceding post on Henry Woodyer, not least because it takes in the remarkable church of SS Peter and Paul in Foxearth, Essex. It deals with an architect who, like Woodyer, was active chiefly in the Home Counties. Again like Woodyer, he specialised in ecclesiastical work –Continue reading “Joseph Clarke (1819/20-1888): an unexpectedly deft safe pair of hands”
Dandified Gothic: the architecture of Henry Woodyer (1816-1896)
This blog does not deal primarily with lost heritage, but recently a long-vanished building was brought to my attention which is simply too good not to feature here. The most grievous losses suffered by 19th and early 20th century architectural heritage as a result of accident, war damage, changes of fashion and redevelopment are wellContinue reading “Dandified Gothic: the architecture of Henry Woodyer (1816-1896)”
Technicolour Roguery: the rise and fall of Bassett Keeling
The 19th century was the age of Romanticism. Though its influence was felt in all the arts, many of the impulses driving the Romantic movement were literary in origin and one of their purest expressions is in the archetype of the Romantic hero – fated to be an outcast from society by incomprehension of hisContinue reading “Technicolour Roguery: the rise and fall of Bassett Keeling”
Amateur extravagance in the Welsh Marches
I have long fancied that one of the principal drivers of architectural development in Victorian England was boredom. Young men who had come into contact with the ideas of, say, Ruskin or the Tractarian Movement while up at Oxbridge or in the capital then found themselves out in the sticks on inheriting the family estateContinue reading “Amateur extravagance in the Welsh Marches”
A newly discovered work by George Gilbert Scott Junior
George Gilbert Scott Junior (1839-1897) is not an overlooked architect. At any rate, he shouldn’t be. He was recognised in his time as a hugely talented designer, yet never received his posthumous due for a number of reasons. One, inevitably, was that he was overshadowed by his more famous namesake father, but his breakdown, relativelyContinue reading “A newly discovered work by George Gilbert Scott Junior”
Less Eminent Victorians 