Up till now I have described the larger Regency schemes—the monumental work, the churches and galleries and bridges and terraces. There was another side to Regency architecture. Perhaps it can be called a darker side. Growing industrialism required an architecture. Factories and warehouses needed architects, and from the Regency sprang an industrial architecture that was magnificent in its simplicity. Recently I visited Macclesfield. Of the housing in Macclesfield I know little, but I saw in those square blocks of factories, with their broad, oblong windows and pink bricks, cathedrals which were as imposing as the Protestant one in Liverpool. And of warehouses there are countless examples. Plain brick structures like those at St Katharine’s Docks in London; so plain as to be ‘modern’, so useful as to be terrifying. The Regency was not afraid of the machine, for the machine was still under control. Factories were built worthy of the machine. Let no one think that the ‘Industrial North’ contains no architecture. Preston, Macclesfield, Hull, Bradford, the Potteries, and in fact even Leeds, are just as worthy of a visit for their factory architecture as are York and Durham for their cathedrals.
There was good reason for all this excellent architecture. It was the swan song of educated building. The industrialists were becoming rich, but they were as yet unterrified by their employees’ threat
We’ll not forget to pay the debt
Incurred at Peterloo.
and they threw in their lot with an aristocracy that was busy furthering the interests of Empire. With the money gained from growing capitalism and a Parliament unhampered by a Reform Bill, a genius of architecture like Nash would seize his opportunity, flatter himself into a position, employ his willing ‘ghosts’ or hack-architects whose plans he signed, and rebuild the earth. The change, more sudden and more dire in its results than might have been expected, must be dealt with in the next chapter. So far, the educated people were on top. These were the last days of England and the best; she had created a distinct ‘Empire style’, distinct from the French. Her simple architecture was put up in all her colonies, in many of which it has been allowed to remain. It is equally at home there as it is in London; beloved of the Americans, not even despised in Jamaica, the Regency architecture still stands for ubiquity and restraint. British Government houses abroad had an austerity and aloofness that matched the competent officials within them. And if sometimes there was a bit of Mohammedan, Gothic or Chinese decoration, what matter as yet? It was but plaster deep, and behind was a solid British brick wall.
* About which I didn’t then know anything, and still know nothing.
Chapter VII · Middle Class Architecture
The lady, married, found the house too small—
Two shabby parlours, and that ugly hall!
Crabbe, Tales of the Hall, Book XVII
I said in my last chapter that an architectural sin in the Regency period was but plaster deep. There was a certain ostentation then, which, because it was not unsightly, need not be condemned. The Brighton Pavilion, which is now being carefully restored to its original Georgian splendour, is a case in point. Much that was bad originated thence; bamboo furniture, the extensive use of stained glass in the house, columns disguised as palm trees, elaborate fire-irons, frosted glass, an abundance of china ornaments. But in the Brighton Pavilion those objects were displayed with a tasteful abandon. George IV knew a good thing when he saw it. His architects—Nash, Repton and Porden—were men of sensibility. Brighton Pavilion is beautiful inside, even impressive. George IV was an aristocrat; his architects were learned in their art. And he was their patron.
So long as architecture remained in the hands of those that cared for it, no harm was done. Even the fashions could not affect it. A growing tendency to interior splendour at the expense of the exterior of a building, and an incipient Romanticism that was started by Horace Walpole writing scandal from his Gothick palace at Strawberry Hill, furthered by the mysterious doings of William Beckford in his miraculous Fonthill Abbey, no doubt started the trouble. Sir Walter Scott, with his antiquarianism as deep in its understanding of the mediaeval period as those little stucco Gothic houses ranged so neatly in our English spas; Thomas Moore, with his ‘Lalla Rookh’ and its drawing-room orientalism; Southey, with his decorative Eastern fancies; West and Haydon, with their 100 square yard interpretations of history; even the imaginings of Keats and Hood and Shelley, L. E. L. and Mrs Hemans may have contributed to the misconception and over-romanticising of domestic architecture that was let loose shortly after the Reform Bill.
Fashionable authors may have started the idea of trouble, but would-be fashionable people did the actual mischief. I am reminded of Maria Edgeworth’s The Absentee when Lady Clonbrony, the wife of an obscure Irish peer, makes a dash at entering London society by giving a rout. She must have the newest decorations, so she hires Mr Soho, that man of taste, to decorate her ball-room in the newest manner:
The first architectural upholsterer of the age, as he styled himself, and was universally admitted to be by the world of fashion, then, with full powers given to him, spoke en maître….
Of the value of a NAME no one could be more sensible than Mr Soho.
‘Your la’ship sees—this is merely a scratch of my pencil—Your la’ship’s sensible—just to give you an idea of the shape, the form of the thing—You fill up your angles here with encoinieres—round your walls with the Turkish tent drapery—a fancy of my own—in apricot cloth, or crimson velvet, suppose, or, en flute, in crimson satin draperies, fanned and riched with gold fringes, en suite—intermediate spaces, Apollo’s heads with gold rays—and here, ma’am, you place four chancelieres, with chimeras at the corners, covered with blue silk and silver fringe, elegantly fanciful—with my STATIRA CANOPY here—light blue silk draperies—aerial tint, with silver balls—and for seats here, the SERAGLIO OTTOMANS, superfine scarlet—your paws—griffin—golden—and golden tripods, here, with antique cranes—and oriental alabaster tables here and there—quite appropriate, your la-ship feels—
‘And, let me reflect—For the next apartment, it strikes me—as your la’ship don’t value expense—the Alhambra hangings—my own thought entirely—Now, before I unroll them, Lady Clonbrony, I must beg you’ll not mention I’ve shown them—I give you my sacred honour, not a soul has set eye upon the Alhambra hangings, except Mrs Dareville, who stole a peep—I refused, absolutely refused, the Duchess of Torcaster—But I can’t refuse your la’ship—So see, ma’am—(unrolling them)—scagliola porphyry columns supporting the grand dome—entablature, silvered and decorated with imitation bronze ornaments—under the entablature, a valance in pelmets, of puffed scarlet silk, would have an unparalleled effect, seen through the arches—with the TREBISOND TRELLICE PAPER, would make a tout ensemble, novel beyond example—On that Trebisond trellice paper, I confess, ladies, I do pique myself—
‘Then for the little room, I recommend turning it temporarily into a Chinese pagoda with this Chinese pagoda paper, with the porcelain border, and josses, and jars, and beakers, to match; and I can venture to promise one vase of pre-eminent size and beauty—O, indubitably! if your la’ship prefers it, you can have the Egyptian hieroglyphic paper, with the ibis border, to match!—The only objection is, one sees it everywhere—quite antediluvian—gone to the hotels even—But, to be sure, if you la’ship has a fancy—At all events, I humbly recommend, what his Grace of Torcaster longs to patronise, my MOON CURTAINS, with candlelight draperies—A demisaison elegance this—I hit off yesterday—and—True, your la’ship’s quite correct—out of the common, completely—And, of course, you’d have the sphynx candelabras, and the Phoenix argands—O! nothing else lights now, ma’am—Expense!—Expense of the whole!—Impossible to calculate here on the spot!—But nothing at all worth your ladyship’s consideration!—’
But alas for Lady Clonbrony! Both Mrs Dareville and the Duchess, when they swept in late and went away early from the poor lady’s party, made mock of her decorations. The true aristocracy still had its standards of art. But it i
s interesting to see that as early as 1812, when this novel was written, money could be made out of the uneducated rich. And if in 1812 so much money could be made—how much more in 1872, when Sir Georgius Midas had made his little packet; when cotton, railways, iron, cement, gas companies, telegraph companies, steamships, and the thousand methods of mass production in trades unheard of in 1812, had made their appearance and brought with them the wealth which prevented the sun from ever setting, except on domestic architecture, when it seemed to have set for ever. As yet there was a childish delight in the sight of approaching industry. The great Tennyson himself regarded it with a playful patronage in ‘The Princess’:
strange was the sight to me;
For all the sloping pasture murmur’d, sown
With happy faces and with holiday
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads:
The patient leaders of their Institute
Taught them with facts. One rear’d a font of stone
And drew, from butts of water on the slope,
The fountain of the moment, playing now
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls,
Or steep-up spout, whereon the gilded ball
Danced like a wisp: and somewhat lower down
A man with knobs and wires and vials fired
A canon. Echo answer’d in her sleep
From hollow fields: and here were telescopes
For azure views; and there a group of girls
In circle waited, whom the electric shock
Dislink’d with shrieks and laughter: round the lake
A little clock-work steamer paddling plied
And shook the lilies: perch’d about the knolls
A dozen angry models jetted steam:
A petty railway van: a fire-balloon
Rose gem-like up before the dusky groves
And dropt a fairy parachute and past:
And there through twenty posts of telegraph
They flash’d a saucy message to and fro
Between the mimic stations; so that sport
Went hand in hand with Science: …
No, it is not on the Gothic revival that much-abused, if somewhat self-conscious effort to set things aright, that the blame can be laid; nor is it on the improved methods of transport; for travel did no harm to those who made the Grand Tour in the eighteenth century. The cause for the over-romanticising of domestic and civic architecture in the nineteenth century was the wealth of the nineteenth century. Although the Reform Bill of 1832 may have made little difference in the matter of actual class distinctions at the time, not giving at once the Parliamentary power to the capitalist that he needed, it was the first wise step of stealth. Cooper describes the capitalist in ‘The Purgatory of Suicides’ in 1845:
ever of power appearing coy,
Continuing antique symbols to employ,—
Titles and forms of the old Commonwealth,—
Hallowing the shade securely to destroy
The substance of licentiousness: wise stealth
By which the pulse of sovereignty gained vigorous health.
The merchant prince, the manufacturer who had built that fine stucco mansion, was willing to allow the aristocracy some substance of power while it suited his ends. That he was conscious of his own power is obvious enough. You will remember Miss Dunstable, the heiress whose father had made a fortune in ointment, in Trollope’s novel, Dr. Thorne (1858). She is talking to Mr Moffat, the rich son of a tailor, where they are staying in Lord de Courcy’s house:
‘It is a strange thing, is it not,’ said he [Mr. Moffat] recurring to his old view of the same subject, ‘that I should be going to dine with the Duke of Omnium—the richest man, they say, among the whole English aristocracy?’
‘Men of that kind entertain everybody, I believe, now and then,’ said Miss Dunstable, not very civilly.
‘I believe they do; but I am not going as one of the everybodies. I am going from Lord de Courcy’s house with some of his own family…. Yes; wealth is very powerful: here we are, Miss Dunstable, the most honoured guests in this house…. It is quite delightful to watch these people, now they accuse us of being tuft hunters.’
‘Do they?’ said Miss Dunstable. ‘Upon my word, I didn’t know that anybody ever so accused me.’
‘I didn’t mean you and me personally.’
‘Oh, I’m glad of that.’
‘But that is what the world says of persons of our class. Now it seems to me that the toadying is all on the other side. The countess here does toady you, and so do the young ladies.’
And so we watch the new aristocracy leavening the old.
The aristocracy of industry or education does not alter the course of architecture, though indirectly it may affect it. Mr Moffat and Miss Dunstable will possess houses, heavy, indeed, with their furniture, ostentatious perhaps in their efforts in decoration to get away from former styles. No, the chief cutter in Mr Moffat’s tailoring establishment is comparatively rich now, the foremen in Miss Dunstable’s inherited ointment factory want more sumptuous dwellings than those hurriedly erected alongside the factory to house a growing population—erected there, to save money and time in transport.
And those foremen and cutters, the grocer and the haberdasher regain something that will show they are a station above the mere manual workers in the factory and assistants in the shop. A farcical replica of a feudal house is reproduced. Instead of forty rooms, there are four or six. But those are crowded with all the devices imitating wealth that increasing mass production can supply. Bamboo furniture, insecure replicas of work in His Majesty’s Pavilion at Brighton, an harmonium in place of the organ in the grand hall, a terra-cotta ridge tile in place of the stone gargoyle on the ancestral mansion, an Axminster in place of a Persian rug; vegetation in the parlour, since there is insufficient area for a greenhouse. And those neat exteriors, those rows of dwellings spaciously arranged, two storeys high and rarely displaying anything but the most elegant freak of decoration, became coarsened. The architraves of the windows assumed an Italian air, the hall ceiling attempted to imitate the work of Wren; so did the plaster moulding on the outside of the neighbouring public-house. For Londoners the whole area containing that style of architecture is embraced by the old North London Railway which, until the war, ran no trains during church time on Sundays. It runs from Broad Street to Richmond, and traverses Canonbury, Dalston, Mildmay Park, Highbury, Camden Town, Kentish Town, Gospel Oak, Hampstead Heath, Finchley Road, Brondesbury, Kensal Rise, Willesden, Acton, Kew and Richmond, districts which contain every phase of Victorian architecture from the Italianate stucco of Dalston and Hackney to the red brick Flemish revival of Brondesbury and the Venetian Gothic of Kew.
And in grander quarters the same coarsening of architecture went on. I choose London for examples of the styles, because I know London. South Kensington and Pimlico, those long streets with rows of Tuscan porticoes, dark basements, wet, arid squares, where
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates,
those houses in what Mr Clough Williams-Ellis calls the Pimlico Palladian style, and where he says one feels that the architect had one sense lacking, that he was, perhaps, deaf.
Nor was the Gothic Revival of the early and mid-Victorian periods particularly successful. Imitations of the unconscious eccentricities of the mediaeval period, in cast iron or patent stone, unnecessary roughening of the surface of stone, prickly spires and chemical stained glass windows produced a travesty of Middle Ages successful on the surface only: what Mr Alan Pryce Jones describes as a literary interpretation of the past as literary as the Tractarian movement. Who does not know, as he gazes from some hotel or boarding-house window, that inevitable Gothic spire, prickly and mis-shapen, pricking the skyline above the smoky housetops? And who does not realise the full significance of remarks like these in Kelly’s Directories:
LOATHLY-CRUMPET WITH MUCKBY, four miles east of Horncastle in t
he County of Lincolnshire. The living is a rectory, the joint gift of the Pastoral Aid Society and the Bishop of Norwich, and has been held since 1871 by the Reverend Wesley Emmanuel Camp, B.A., of Durham University. The net income is £108 per annum, including glebe and parsonage. The church of St Botolph is an ancient building in stone and flint consisting of nave, chancel, two aisles and an embattled western tower. In 1864 the church was thoroughly restored under the supervision of Gilbert Scott, when the nave was reseated in pitch-pine and a new chancel added in the Decorated Gothic style. In 1880 a further restoration took place, when a new vestry was added and the old organ removed from the west gallery and a fine new one added to the chancel. The floor was also relaid with encaustic tiles. In 1900 the windows were filled with stained glass, depicting Faith, Hope, Charity, Evangelisation, mission work in Africa and kindred subjects, through the generosity of Miss Loathly, of Loathly Hall. The war memorial is in a stained-glass west window. Muckby Church whose living is held jointly with Loathly-Crumpet, yielding £18 a year, is a modern erection built in a pseudo-Italian style in 1764. It is used now only as a mortuary chapel. The chief landowner is Miss Mary Pamela Camilla Loathly, whose mansion, Loathly Hall, erected from the designs of Mr Evan Christian in 1872, is situated in this parish.
Glorious Lincolnshire, where—except for the Edwardian gaiety of Woodhall Spa, that half-timbered Camberley among unexpected fir trees—the Victorian life goes on, unhampered by a convenient railway system and not ‘picturesque’ enough for the main-road motorist.
Here is a poem describing a Victorian church:
The Church’s restoration
In 1883
Has left for contemplation
Not what there used to be.
Ghastly Good Taste Page 9