Alfred Rimmer

“ It is full of that delightful element of the crooked, the accidental, the unforeseen, which to American eyes, accustomed to our eternal straight lines and right angles, is the striking feature of European street scenery. An American strolling in the Chester streets finds a perfect feast of crookedness—of those random corners, projections, and recesses, odd domestic interspaces charmingly saved or lost, those innumerable architectural surprises and caprices and fantasies, which offer such a delicious holiday to a vision nourished upon brown stone fronts. ”

“ On the south side of the market rises up the church with its great gray towers, of which the sun illuminates the delicate carving, deepening the shadows of the huge buttresses, and gilding the glittering windows and flaming vanes.... The rectory is a stout broad-shouldered brick house of the reign of Anne. ”

“ Now, as has been already remarked, Chester is not only a delightful city to walk in, a city which it is a pleasure to have any business to transact in, but its arrangement and the unstudied variety of its houses make it serviceable and economical. The shifting, broken skyline, and the gables of the houses projecting as it were in amicable rivalry into the street, are always pleasant and cheerful to behold. ”

“ Now a broad red wall is one of the most dreary objects of modern civilisation, and, indeed, the side of a square, broken only by rectangular windows, as exhibited in London squares, has doubtless had a depressing and injurious effect on the duration of human life. Russell Square and Bedford Square are familiar instances of this; and how unfavourably they contrast with old Lincoln’s Inn buildings, in the same city, the engraving will show, yet the same architecture that prevails in Lincoln’s Inn would abundantly serve all the purposes of a London square of modern times. ”

“ A hundred lessons in architecture may be gained every time that we walk along a pleasant lane, and the village with a cheerful row of cottages grown over with creepers, and showing tall chimneys, is full of suggestions in light and shade and composition. In all importations of foreign architecture—and it is not pretended that there should be none—the first thing to consider is its fitness for the climate and surroundings. ”

“ Dol, Morlaix, and other towns in the north of France, contain many suggestions for city architecture. Our own cathedrals and great churches were meant to stand alone, and can only be seen at some distance; the churches on the Continent were often designed for the effect they would have in a crowded town; but here again, the old chronic error has to be met, that Gothic buildings suit country scenes the best, and Classic a town, whereas the only place where a classic building can be employed, except by a man of absolute genius, is in the country among heavy foliage. ”

“ The dreary rows of square-headed windows at even distances in long brick walls govern the rooms inside, and imperatively domineer over the convenience of the arrangement. A French writer, speaking of the palace of Versailles, at the time it was built, and regretting that a style had been adopted which demanded this precisely even fenestration, said that it caused a footman’s pantry to be lit by a huge window which had perforce to correspond with a row in a drawing-room on the same front, and perhaps had to be cut in two by a partition, to let the other half do duty for another minor apartment. ”

“ Roman laws are yet the models of advanced European law, and Roman liberty is the father of our own liberty; and though the fantastic attempts that prevailed in the reign of the Georges, to imitate the externals of classic art and literature, when every illiterate rustic was a Phyllis or a Corydon, may have reduced the style to contempt, and cast, as has been said, a discredit upon all classical architecture, this cannot sully the creations of such men as Alberti, Michael Angelo, Wren, or Vanbrugh. ”

“ Ruskin has said that picturesque beauty cannot exist with any manufacturing district where coal is the propelling power. The requirements of such a condition effectually prevent it; but what would be the saving, not only to the picturesque character of the landscape, but the purses of millowners, if water power was more commonly taken advantage of! It has long been a crying reproach to the country that all round our coasts, and in our inland streams, water-power exists that would drive all the machines in the world without exhausting a tithe of its force, or even beginning to do so. ”

“ Never, perhaps, were such permanent and forcible memorials of the past as the Arch of Titus in Rome, the Pont du Gard in the south of France, and the Porta Nigra of Trèves, visited and gazed upon with warmer interest or a deeper sense of their value. We all feel the power that is exerted over us by the ruins of great Castles and great Abbeys. ”

“ No, the change to Italian architecture was not for the better. It is true that picturesqueness was not stamped out of the genius of England, and so a number of the buildings that were put up until the reign of George the Second were shapely and often noble; indeed the classic style has a breadth about it, no doubt, that makes it safe for modern architects to deal with, especially in country houses. Of course the formal rows of windows, if the house is a very large one, are a serious matter to deal with, as far as the plan is concerned. ”

“ Old states of society, old modes of living, obsolete habits of the people, are commemorated in many a small building which attracts little notice from the ordinary passer by. The lives of eminent persons, public events of high significance, have left their mark in villages, and market towns, and wayside places, where these recollections ought to be cherished, and where, if possible, the hand of the destroyer ought to be arrested. It should be added that nearly all such scenes and such fragments are pleasing in their aspect and worthy of the artist’s pencil as well as of the historian’s pen. ”

“ The wealth of England, however, in ancient remains of all kinds is still very great, and nothing illustrates this more strikingly than the fact that for all the changes and improvements that go on in ancient cities like Chester, Shrewsbury, or Salisbury, we still find the antique character left, even if several years have elapsed since our last visit.
The superior beauty of ancient street architecture has already arrested the attention of many landowners. ”

“ E. J. Willson that “no city in England contains so many interesting specimens of architectural antiquities as York. This observation may be especially applied to the remains of its ancient fortifications, a class of architecture of the greater value, since so very few examples are now left standing in England. Clifford’s tower and the four great gates, or bars, are admirable specimens of the castellated style; while the posterns, or lesser gates, with the towers, turrets, and embattled walls that surround the city, exhibit a delightful variety of curious and picturesque forms. ”

“ An architect of some eminence, in reading a paper on Gloucester Cathedral, said (a few years ago) , “I raise my voice against what I consider cankers in modern architecture, where art is so far forgotten in the desire of the architect to obtain for his works a so-called individuality. This individuality is enticing to very young men, who are attracted by the eccentricities of old buildings, or the architect who imports them, for nearly all modern individuality arises from too strongly emphasising and repeating ad nauseam some odd bit picked up in foreign travel. ”

“ In approaching such a county as Oxford, the difficulty is to deal with subjects that are not already too familiar. The city of Oxford has been described a hundred times, and Pugin and Le Keux have almost exhausted its picturesque colleges and halls in their woodcuts and steel engravings. Woodstock is one of the first places an Oxford student or his friends visit, and great as the attractions of its park or palace may be, there is little in it that comes within the scope of the present work.
Banbury, in the northern part of the county, is an admirable example of a fine old English town. ”

“ Of course, unless an architect is also partly an artist he cannot be successful; no amount of learning can compensate for this. The two best expositors we ever had of Gothic architecture, Rickman and Britton, were indifferent architects. Perhaps they may be said to have known more than all who went before them or followed after; and both of them were endowed with a thorough love for their profession. There may be something to urge that they were not brought up to it, one being in a mercantile office in Liverpool, and the other a wine-bottler in London. ”

“ One thing strikes us in these crosses—the smallness of the accommodation for a public market; but then, as now, the market square was covered with awnings or tents. And one of the most picturesque sights in England is an old market square like the one at Hexham, or the one at Salisbury, with their booths, on a busy market-day. Sometimes a cross was built on an octagonal shaft surmounted with a crucifix, or a head with niches and small statues, and an octagonal covering was built up round it reaching to about half the height of the original shaft. ”

“ Macaulay’s History of England tells us how lightly they were esteemed; a chaplain to a family of rank and wealth was hardly held in greater honour than the head gamekeeper or huntsman; and the wealth of the bishops and dignitaries seems almost to have isolated rather than enabled them to mingle with their equals. Ecclesiastical buildings were therefore neglected, happily for the present generation, or else we should have had a dozen grand old Gothic piles replaced by the architecture of Queen Anne or the Georges. ”

“ He seems to be a tall youth, very fair, and somewhat juvenile in his countenance.
Much Wenlock is a charming country town in Shropshire, about twelve miles to the south-east of Shrewsbury; the road to it lies through smiling lanes, and past comfortable homesteads. It was with sincere pleasure that I saw in this part of the country old-fashioned farm-houses that had not kept pace with the requirements of the age, but which, instead of being pulled down and replaced by raw new ones, were tastefully enlarged, and all the creepers and ivy left standing. ”

“ Congleton, in the eastern part of Cheshire, is a fine example of an old English country town that has been built at various times, but has always retained its antique character. It is situated in a lovely country, through which the river Dane quietly flows to the Weaver, and it is hemmed in on all sides with venerable family seats. The buildings tell their own tale in very permanent materials. There are red brick houses of a century and a half old, and joining these are gabled ones of greater age. ”

“ So if we attempt mediæval architecture, though less difficulties are in{179} our way than other essays at revival, we must have our copy before our eyes—and our work looks like a copy too.
The same difficulties never lay in the way of a revival of the classic styles. In all countries where this was attempted, great men were found who could mould their works in harmony with their prototypes, and they display a genius far beyond the mere imitator. In fact, the modes of thought of the Romans of old were more in accordance with our own than were those of mediæval monks. ”

“ It is not too much to say of the majority of them, that if they were required to build a church in some distant county, they would consider it quite sufficient to have a plan of the churchyard and adjoining lanes sent to them, without their having the least idea of the surrounding buildings or trees, or the outline of the neighbouring hills. Infinite pains are taken with details, but though books which treat of these are excellent and numerous, one turns in vain for any architectural work to guide him to a knowledge of what is more important—picturesqueness. ”

“ If beauty in architecture had been encouraged during the last two centuries, instead of being frowned down, we should still have the class of men who were competent. Of course, as before remarked, it would be impossible, in the present nature of things, to re-introduce such a style of contract as that quoted; but one thing we can do,—we can try to arrive at some of the principles of design that influenced the old workmen. There is no code of rules, and to try to design with their pencils will be to many architects of the present day as hopeless a task as to write with Shakespeare’s pen ”

“ Another palace, said to be John of Gaunt’s, is still remaining at Gainsborough, in this county. It is used as a corn exchange, assembly rooms, mechanics’ institute, and part of it is a spacious smithy. There is a large amount of “post and petrel” work, as it is called, or oak and plaster, but there is also some magnificent brickwork, which of course in every way fulfils the requirements of design already spoken of for this material. The octagonal tower, of brick, is beautifully designed, and indeed the enormous buildings bristle over with nearly every kind of device to please. ”

“ He once said, “Gentlemen resident on their estates are like ships in port—their value and magnitude are felt and acknowledged; but when at a distance, as their size seemed insignificant, so their worth and importance were not duly estimated.” The England even of the present century is changed out of all possible knowledge; indeed those are yet living who can look back with a smile at the solemn county balls, which were almost as difficult of access, and as jealously guarded, as a court presentation of these days. ”

“ The black-and-white gabled building that forms the hospital is peculiarly beautiful, and the carvings on it are very fine. There is a spacious open quadrangle round which the buildings run; and the galleries and covered stair are models of picturesqueness and beauty.
Passing through the arched gateway, we come to the fine old porch attached to the decayed hostelry, the “Malt Shovel.” It is extremely quaint, and the bow window in the projection is a very characteristic feature. Many are the relics in the town of Warwick itself that would suit the present work. ”