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The Gothic Revival Movement lasted more than a
century and started with a tantalising reconsideration of a past age with the
ludicrous additions of gardens structures and ended with being used in all areas
of architecture including ecclesiastical and political structures. Linked
in many ways in the eighteenth century to the Romantic view of a long dead age
of sadness and decay, it ignored the brutal realities of that time.
More than just an interest in arches and pinnacles
it sort to draw on lessons of the past and adapt it to the modern age. It
was a time when 'new' men fought to accommodate the new with the old and what
better than choosing an era of construction which produced mind-boggling results
at a time when there was no technology to assist with calculations or the
hauling of massive stone blocks. A time when brute-force was required to
achieve any semblance of civilisation but which resulted in the creation of fine
canopies of stone-work and bright, elaborate stained glass windows.
Two structures in particular can be said to
epitomise the development of the Gothic Revival Movement in England. One
at the start of the era (Walpole's Strawberry Hill) and one at the end (the
Houses of Parliament).
Looking back at how the movement started it can be
said to have it very roots in a fight against imposed religious and political
thinking during the time of the Puritans in seventeenth century England.
Aristocrats, forced to retire to their country estates and barred from taking an
active role in public life, found themselves aware of their landscape and
surroundings for perhaps the first time in many years. Before them lay
evidence of the destruction of previous generations with derelict monasteries
and church buildings. Yet it was one thing to look on past buildings,
another to construct new equivalents.
For centuries the classical proportions of ancient
Greek and Rome had been held up as the ideal of perfection. This had been
revived in the Renaissance. The Gothic had no place in this concept and it
was unlikely to be accepted as beautiful so it was necessary to consider what
other reason lay in such design - by the importance of its effect on the senses
and the experience of the human mind.
Strawberry Hill
Horace Walpole the son of the British Prime
Minister, Sir Robert Walpole, acquired a piece of land, complete with an hold
house in the early 1740s. Although the site was not exceptional Walpole
decided to make something of it and turned back to the medieval. It was
extended and towers added to make his dream come true despite a friend, Horace
Mann, saying "Why will you make it Gothic? I know that it is the taste at
present, but I really am sorry for it."
Walpole loved the melancholy nature Gothic
structures and sort to build on the notion. He looked around for old
glass, old masonry/plasterwork such as that from King Henry VII's chapel at
Westminster Abbey and even the macabre to add to his design (Archbishop
Bourchier's tomb from Canterbury Cathedral was used as a fireplace in the long
gallery). He enlarged the property just as he collected art.
It could be said that he was eclectic in his design
styles for he did not care where the scheme originated but rather whether it
fitted with his plan. This did not mean, however, that he was not
conscious of the need to ensure that the reproduction was an exact match with
passed designs. In fact, he was a demanding employer demanded complete
historical accuracy.
So successful was his scheme that it was copied
elsewhere. Including at Bishopthorpe Palace, official residence of the
Archbishop of York.
 The gatehouse at Bishopthorpe Palace
 Plasterwork detail in hall at Bishopthorpe Palace
More information on Strawberry Hill can be acquired
via the
Friends of Strawberry Hill and about
Bishopthorpe Palace via the
UK Attraction website (tours of the Palace will
be available for groups from 2008 - contact Gordon Smith on 01904 707021)
Houses of Parliament
The fire that destroyed the medieval Palace of
Westminster in October 1834 allowed one Londoner, Augustus Pugin to step in and
create a mature Gothic Revival as in the preceding decades the movement had
resulted in cheap, sham structures that offended Pugin.
By association the Houses of Parliament had to be
Gothic as the notion of Parliament, arising out of the beliefs of Simon de
Monfort, was a medieval institution. Additionally, two original elements
of the building had escaped the fire - Westminster Hall and St Stephen's Chapel
and these two structures set the style for the new building.
A competition was held to decide who should design
the new building and the concept of Charles Barry stood out above the others.
Although more classicist than Gothic supporter he recognised that a building
that was purely built along Classical lines would be tedious due to the length
(some 800 feet) and so he broke up the design with a series of turreted
pavilions on the side flanked by the Thames. Everything was in symmetry
apart from the massive Victoria tower and the slender clock tower that stood at
either end of the structure.
As the remit had been to design a building that was
either Gothic or Elizabethan Barry managed to combine the two in a pleasing
exercise of nostalgia whilst at the same time adopting modern techniques for the
actual construction of the building. Barry knew how to deal with
committees, he knew how to look at the overall scheme. What he lacked was
a knowledge of how to actually get his scheme built particularly from the
practical/technical side and therefore he turned to Pugin. Pugin was a
draftsman by training and had worked with his father who had, in turn been
educated by John Nash. Pugin had the ability to create with ease any
number of intricate and elegant ornamentation for the building that would be
created by 'modern' rather than 'medieval' means.
Unfortunately, since the building's completion there
has raged an argument as who actually designed it -
Pugin or Barry.
Pugin's interior at Westminster
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