PROGRESS OF THE ANTI-PEW MOVEMENT IN THE
ARCHDEACONRY OF EXETER.

A CORRESPONDENT forwards us the following interesting extract from the recent Charge of the Rev. Canon Woollcombe, coadjutor of the Archdeacon of Exeter, describing the satisfactory progress of better principles of church arrangement in that Archdeaconry.

"But one principal point of my inquiries, and one interesting on many accounts, referred to the internal arrangement of the pews; in how many churches of the Archdeaconry the old arrangement of high, square pews has given way, in a lesser or greater degree, to low, uniform seats, whether with or without doors. The returns for the whole Archdeaconry, I think, will be found to be satisfactory. Should there be any error made by me in the details, I shall be obliged by the Rural Deans correcting those errors. And it would, perhaps, be advantageous, if I could learn for our general information on another occasion, where the old system of high pews has been wholly and entirely swept away, and where no distinction remains between the pews of the rich and of the poor. As far then as those returns enable me to judge, I find the statistics as follows. The churches and chapels arranged more or less with uniform pews, are in the deanery of

In this respect the Deaneries of Aylesbeare, Kenn, Plymtree, and Tiverton, stand pre-eminent, for in every one of them the larger half of the churches are so arranged, and it certainly is a cause of thankfulness, that more than one-third of the churches and chapels in the archdeaconry partake more or less of this improvement in the internal arrangement of their seats. It is satisfactory to be able to state thus publicly the testimony of one Rural Dean, that square pews are very generally disappearing by degrees,' and of another, that in his Deanery there are, out of twenty-five churches, thirteen in which the square pews do not exist, while, in some others, a large portion of the church is arranged with uniform sittings, though some square pews still exist by prescriptive right. While from the Rector of one of the most beautifully restored churches in the Archdeaconry, not exceeded, perhaps, by any in the diocese, the effect of the substitution of low, open pews, was stated to me to be, that the congregation are now to be seen regularly on their knees during the time of prayer.'

317

CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS IN LONDON.

OUR periodical review of the progress of practical ecclesiology in London will, on the present occasion, lead us to notice several churches and schools of more than ordinary interest and importance.

S. Alban, Baldwin's Gardens, by Mr. Butterfield, and S. James the Less, in Garden Street, Westminster, by Mr. Street, the former approximately and the latter absolutely completed,-are distinguished from the general run by characteristics which will be best made intelligible if we describe these two churches in face of each other, and indicate the points of strong likeness and equally strong dissimilarity which exist between them. They are each of them specimens of that new or "second method," which has characterised the churches of the Anglican revival built in later years; of which Mr. Butterfield, in All Saints, Margaret Street, and Mr. Street, at Boyne Hill, have already given typal examples. They are, accordingly, both of them, like their archetypes, churches in which the architect has stepped beyond the mere repetition of English mediæval forms, to produce a building in which a free eclectic manipulation of parts has been grafted upon a system of polychromatic construction, having its basis in the fact that London is naturally a brick town. The main differences existing between these two offshoots from the same idea directly correspond with the divergence of idiosyncrasy which the two artists increasingly manifest in their respective works, and which is worth analysing at a little length, as an important contribution to the history of architectural progress. have, indeed, already given two short notices of Mr. Street's church, and an engraving of its exterior will be found in our twentieth volume, in the number for December, 1859. As, however, we have now the advantage of speaking from the actual building, we shall describe it as if we had never previously made any allusion to its existence.

We

S. Alban's and S. James's prove-that which All Saints' and Boyne Hill are hardly sufficient to indicate that Mr. Butterfield and Mr. Street represent very different phases of the second method; or, more properly speaking, that there is no acknowledged confession of faith for that method. It is the combination of various experiments, all capable of fusion, but not necessarily combined with or dependant on each other. There is, on the one hand, the adoption of constructive polychrome; and, on the other, the incorporation into English architecture of features borrowed from the Italian and the Early French Gothics. Italian architecture, whether Romanesque, Gothic, or Renaissance, was the great school in which to learn the lesson of constructive polychrome; but the study of this one feature might, or might not, co-exist with the desire of going to school in Italy for other instruction. It so happens that, while he is so distinguished a leader in the polychromatic party, Mr. Butterfield's works show, by their architectural detail, that in the mass they are decidedly northern and specially English. Mr. Street, on the other hand, has drunk deep of the Italian and Early French springs. Mr. Butterfield, in wielding con

structive coloration, acts as one who spoils the Egyptians, and makes foreign architecture surrender its one superiority to the otherwise more excellent English. Mr. Street rejects the old Gothic of England, and invents his own new style, in which, if it plays any part at all, it merely enters as one factor, together with the Early Gothic of France and that of Italy, and the constructive coloration of southern climates. True to our position of eclectic independence, and respecting very greatly both Mr. Butterfield's and Mr. Street's talents, but not believing in the infallibility of either, we do not now pretend to strike the balance between their two systems. Both architects have much to say for themselves, and each has his weaker points. We shall proceed to describe the two churches in the light of the comparison which we have instituted, and which we flatter ourselves will prove itself in the course of our examination.

Both churches are of the average dimension of the new Anglican town parish church when it has attained the dignity of aisles, (S. Alban's being rather the larger,) and both present the usual features of such a church, chancel with aisles, clerestoried nave with aisles, and steeple, and in each case the material is brick. Great originality of treatment is visible in the handling of each of these features; but the two churches differ at least as widely from each other as they do from the average "Early English" or " Decorated" model. We do not hesitate to accord the palm to S. James' on the score of general coloration. There the chief external material is red brick. At S. Alban's Mr. Butterfield has unfortunately fallen back upon the ordinary yellow stock brick, ineffectively and irregularly banded with red lines of a single brick's thickness. Had these not been introduced at all S. Alban's would not have challenged any notice on the score of external polychromy. As they are there they compel us to say that they ought to be in greater force. A few years' smoke will be almost sufficient to obliterate the traces of their existence. The east end of S. Alban's is of course square, for Mr. Butterfield, as is well known, stands alone among eminent architects in his refusal to accept the apse. However, he makes use of the end wall, as at All Saints, by panelling it for mural paintings, in lieu of piercing a window. At S. James's the chancel terminates not only in an apse, but in one which is curvilinear and not polygonal, divided by buttresses and vaulting-cells into five bays, of which the three central are pierced with three-light windows. But the distinctive spirit of the two methods shows itself more strongly in the steeples than perhaps in any other feature of the two churches, while each steeple stands in strong contrast to all the other towers and spires of London.

Those who have studied Mr. Butterfield's various churches cannot fail to have observed that his rule is always to place his entrance, when it is through a side porch, at the most western bay. They must equally have noticed that in combination with this arrangement Mr. Butterfield is fond of treating the west end of his churches as a species of internal vestibule or narthex, like those which are found at Cologne, or on a gigantic scale at Ely and Peterborough. We do not think that any disciplinary value can now attach to such a narthex; but assuredly,

in a town church at all events, there may be considerable practical convenience in a sort of lobby into which the regular seating is not supposed to extend. At S. Matthias, Stoke Newington, Mr. Butterfield dared to import the saddleback method of roofing a church tower into the streets of London, and was with good reason satisfied with his experiment. All these incidents must have combined to induce him to cast his steeple for S. Alban's into the form of a transeptal narthex, something like that of S. Cunibert, Cologne, growing into a saddleback. The mass is about the width of the church itself, but it gables north and south, each transept as seen in elevation presenting the saddleback form at right angles to and considerably lower than the roof of the main steeple. Centrally, and corresponding in general with the width of the nave rises the main tower itself, with a roof ridge of course prolonging at a higher elevation those of the nave and chancel. The dimensions of this tower being longer from north to south than from east to west, Mr. Butterfield has cleverly masked a disparity which would have been far from sightly in the roof, by disguising it with a double pitch, the lower portion being flatter than the apex; seen in elevation this break relieves the sky line. Entrance to the belfry story is obtained by a newel staircase opening into the nave at the absolute centre of the west wall, and carried up outside like a huge square buttress, relieved with a long, but graceful fenestriform panel of two lights, and dying away into the main west wall, with a bold and superposed capping composed on five sides of an octagonal turret and spirelet. The windows in the western façade are, in the upper story above the roof line of the quasi-transept, a three-light window corresponding with the steeper pitch of the central portion of the saddleback, and flanked by a two-light one on each side in correspondence with the flatter wings, and lighting the belfry story: and on a lower story, and visible from the inside, on each side of the buttress-like staircase, is placed a long two-light window, the two conjointly forming the western light of the church. The north and south sides of the tower respectively exhibit a graceful row of pierced sound-apertures, while the face of each transept shows a rose placed high, and underneath two two-light windows. Internally also, a long two-light fenestriform panel is introduced between the west windows, while the transepts north and south open into the lower space by a narrow arch on the ground story, and above at the clerestory level by a large, long, unglazed quasi-triforium of two lights. The effect of this arrangement is alike simple and effective, and deserves the highest praise. Outside the centre steeple fulfils the purpose for which it must have been designed; original and massive in design, it forms a striking piece of street scenery in a city which is so much in want of salient points. The western composition viewed from the narrow line of Baldwin's Gardens, or of the adjacent court between that and Holborn is eminently minster-like. But this steeple shows best of all from the west slope of Snow Hill, where it is seen across the Holborn valley dominating the opposite height at an angle which lends apparent bulk to the whole structure.

In one word, the steeple of S. Alban's is an exceedingly bold and

happy developement of Northern Gothic, admirably adapted to the inequality of ground with which it groups. The steeple of S. James's is no less emphatically original, but its architect has gone for his inspirations to Southern sources; while a chief merit of his composition consists in the success with which it adapts itself to its level site, and the contrast which it affords to the neighbouring conspicuous sky-linesthe sharp spires of S. Stephen, Rochester Row, and Holy Trinity. Vauxhall, and the somewhat fantastical, but massive and aspiring, Grosvenor Hotel, and to the more distant palace and abbey of Westminster. The steeple stands to the north of the church, flanking its western bay, but detached from the structure, to which it is joined by a short open cloister. Its form-a high, perfectly square, unbuttressed tower-is thoroughly Italian. Bands of dark brick modify the tone of its general colour, while it rises for a considerable elevation with no more lights than a few very long but narrow slits. But at the belfry story each face is pierced with a broad, two-light, unglazed opening, recessed, of three orders, with unchamfered arches. The external plane alone is supported on a circular shaft, with foliaged capitals. Bold louvre plates of zinc are introduced into the openings, while further effects of light and shade are sought for by the daring expedient of introducing in the pedimental heads of each of the four windows, and in circular panels on each side, balls of marble of the size of cannon balls, riveted to the wall by iron bolts, and standing over with their whole circumference. In adopting this feature, Mr. Street seems to us to have overstepped the line of artistic truth. Every projection ought to appear, at all events, to be able, by the known laws of statics, to hold itself in equilibrium: these balls evidently cannot do so. To all appearance they ought to have tumbled down as soon as hoisted up; and their continuous persistence where they are indicates the hidden mechanism behind. If we are to admit them as legitimate, we should have no right to object to projecting statues, not standing on corbels, but seeming to cohere by the contact of their backs, or of the tips of outspread wings. This would be a more extreme application of the principle, but it would not be different in kind from that which is involved in the introduction of these balls. Had they, on the contrary, been hemispheres, they would have been perfectly legitimate in principle, and effective in reality; for it is quite conceivable that a hemisphere of marble may be morticed into the wall behind, by the residue of its own substance.

The vertical line of the tower is arrested by a projecting corbeltable, from which a short slate spire springs, four-sided at its base, but gradually broaching up into a central octagonal one, flanked at each angle by a four-sided spirelet, with the inward angle towards the octagon cut off at the point of contact. The engraving which will be found at page 426 of our twentieth volume will explain forms which it is not easy to reduce to words. The entrance to the beltry story is by an internal turret-staircase; while the ground story of the tower is open, with bold arches on three sides, the north to the street, the east to the parvise, and the south to the cloister and church; only the west wall, against which the turret rests, is unpierced.