Church building

“ Thus it may be well said that the past quarter of a century was the era of church-building as well as of increase. But the vast energy so displayed was not employed solely in one direction. While thousands of temples have arisen to the honor and glory of God, his afflicted creatures, the sick, unfortunate, and helpless ”

“ A matched-boarded lining to walls and roof is simply varnished, the glazing of the windows is rendered shocking to taste by masses of blue and red colour, and a box pulpit is too much like a box. The excessively plain chancel, arch, and arcades, and general detail of the windows, have evidently been designed with a view to economy; and if, when the nave is built, the same quiet spirit is adopted, we shall be anxious to learn the cost of the structure, which will certainly be a minimum sum, and valuable to note in these church-building days. ”

“ When the question of tearing down the old structure which had withstood the storms of nearly half a century, and the replacing of it with a new one to be built of brick was proposed, there were many in the congregation who had grown up with the church through the long decades of time, and who had watched the building step by step, advance to its completion, and proudly take its place among the sacred edifices of the street of churches. ”

“ A contribution was secured by his efforts from the English firm to aid in building the church. It was a plain white structure with long windows and green blinds. The steeple much resembled that of the present Congregational church, but was smaller. They have been not inaptly compared to two boxes piled on one another. The pleasant-toned [48] bell still hangs in the church tower, and it was music in the ears of the little company of Methodists, when its clear notes rang out over the meadows and hillsides, calling them to worship in a church of their own. ”

“ The practical divorce of Art and Utility has told nowhere more disastrously than in the building of churches. Gothic buildings with 'long-drawn aisles and fretted roof,' designed and adapted for the processional and ritual worship of the Romish Church, have for three centuries been the dreary reverberating theatres of Protestant reading and preaching. Perhaps few of us could recall a more comfortless ideal than a rural parish church in winter, half the congregation excluded from seeing, and the other half from hearing the monotonous reader of prayers and sermons. ”

“ The great age of church-building flourished at a time when other arts and commerce were but just beginning. Whence, out of the dark ages, sprang the skill and knowledge to build such fine and sculpturesque edifices, when other trades were in their infancy, and civic and communal life scarcely organized? ”

“ It is obvious that, from necessary considerations of space, much has been omitted. The elevation of the building, and the treatment of its decorative features, window-tracery, sculpture, etc., belong to another and wider branch of architectural study, in which the parish church pursues the same line of structural development as the cathedral or monastic church, and the architectural forms of the timber-roofed building follow the example set by the larger churches with their roofs of stone. ”

“ The danger [272] of earthquakes precluded the building of lofty structures there, and the priests of the conquering age, which was the great era of construction, rather avoided the hot lands for the cooler plateaus.
The beauty and originality in the churches is principally in the exterior. This is the reverse of the architecture in the homes, for there the outside walls are plain, and skill and ornamentation are devoted to the decoration of the patio. The interior is generally quite commonplace, and a church in one city is very much like a church in another. ”

“ It was but a simple country church, with square pillars of masonry supporting the galleries, from whence light wooden columns rose to the vaulted roof. Indeed, in the old-fashioned building the rural seemed to have been the only style of architecture attempted. The whole interior had been thoroughly whitewashed, however it had fared with the hearts of the worshippers.
During the sermon the stranger was evidently lost in his own meditations. As soon as the service was [Pg 108] over, he followed the clergyman down the aisle to the sacristy, on one side of the main door. ”

“ This fury of rage and perplexity overpast, however, the strenuous folk of those times began the work of rebuilding the church almost before the blackened stones and charred timbers of the ruined building were cold. They employed a French architect, William of Sens, and for four years he laboured in designing and superintending the construction of choir, retro-choir, and the easternmost chapels, incorporating with his work the old Norman towers and chapels which had, in part, survived the great fire. ”

“ One of the oratories became a prison, another suffered a transformation into a house attached to pleasure-grounds, and the Chapel of Holy Cross became a windmill. The original building, built for worship and used for milling, has long disappeared, and the present one, built as a mill and now used as a church, took its place. No attempt has been made to alter the character of the interior, whose oddly timbered circular space is simply fitted with altar, rush-bottomed chairs, and cocoa-nut matting, the great beams painted and here and there [135] stencilled with ecclesiastical designs. ”

“ The plan of the building is remarkable, containing a double nave, each complete with its aisles, choir, and high altar, the cause of this peculiarity being the fact that the miners were of sufficient wealth and importance at the time of its construction to insist upon having a separate church to themselves apart from the townspeople. ”

“ They realise [132] that when an eighteenth century church is swept away, and a handsome building, in an eclectic Gothic style, decked with the best products of modern arts and crafts, rises in its place, the advantage is questionable. Not merely does much good furniture inevitably perish, but a link with the past is destroyed. Eighteenth century pews may not be altogether suited to a fifteenth century church; but they remind us at any rate that the fabric in which they stand has a continuous history. ”

“ Some mural paintings in one of its rooms depict the adjacent hills and river and the interior of the church, and a turret-chamber has a kind of hiding-place or strong-room, with a stout door for defence. Not far from this rectory gatehouse is a half-timber building almost contemporary, with narrow Gothic doors, made up-to-date with an art [Pg 34] istic shade of green. The exterior of the church is fine, but the interior is disappointing in many ways. It was restored at that period of the Victorian era when art in the way of church improvement had reached its lowest ebb. ”

“ I have given a reason why the interior of the church was remodelled, and the like reason may be presumed why before very long some alteration should be made to the outside appearance of the building, for it presents anything else than an inviting one. We are in hope that not many months more and the appearance of the entire superstructure will be changed, but not by any of the trappings above alluded to; only from Christian principles will it be attempted. The remodelling of the inside being completed the place was dedicated to the service of God on the seventh of May, 1854. ”

“ In our own day a congregation, driven out by builders or restorers, can resort to a school room or mission room. In the middle ages, these alternatives were unknown; and the church was positively indispensable. With this in view, the builders were obliged to add their aisles without touching more of the main fabric than they could help. Usually, then, they took the length of the existing aisleless building for the length of their aisles. They then set out the aisles upon either side of the church, building the outer walls, and dividing them into bays by external buttresses. ”

“ All that remains is in the early Decorated style of the end of the thirteenth century. Here, too, upon the north stood the great abbey church, three hundred and thirty-five feet long, a cruciform building consisting of nave with two aisles, central tower, transepts with aisles, chancel with circular apse and chapels, now marked out in chalk upon the grass. All about are the woods, meadows, fishponds and greens of the monks who are gone. ”

“ Knowing this before making my plans, I cut into the wall at this point, and was rewarded, even beyond my greatest expectations, by the discovery of the window-jamb, the monials, and a sufficient portion of the tracery to enable me to restore it exactly to its original design in every respect.
Having thus completed the notice of the alterations in the fabric, it is time to give a proper account of all its architectural peculiarities. The church is internally a rare example of a building as nearly as possible in the same state as when it was first built. ”

“ Said church building shall not be removed from said lot except for the purpose of rebuilding thereon a more expensive or a more convenient structure in which said doctrines of Christian Science only shall be preached and practised. If said church building is removed for either of the purposes above set forth, any and all tablets and inscriptions which are or shall be upon said church building at the time of removal shall be removed therefrom and placed upon the walls of the new edifice. If said building is burned, the Directors shall forthwith proceed to rebuild the church. ”

“ Almost the only other interesting church is a small building attached now to an educational institution for boys. A priest told me it had belonged to the Templars, and at any rate it is an octagonal building with a small chancel on its eastern side, and a smaller circular apse. At the west end there is a small porch. The whole is in a late Romanesque style, and very small, the external measurement of each side of the octagon being only about eleven feet. ”

“ It is an undoubted fact, however, that a much earlier building must have existed on the same spot. The present church, which is 178 feet long and 67 feet broad, probably dates from a short time before that of St. Michael’s, and differs very much from it both as regards its form and construction. In shape it is cruciform, and consists of a nave with north and south aisles, a chancel with chapels, and transepts. The tower and spire are situated in the centre, and are supported on four arches, springing from massive but well–proportioned piers. ”

“ The architect selected, as the site of the building, the space formed by the easternmost bay of the south aisle of the nave and the western side of the south transept. This peculiar position indicates that it was not the work of the monks, but that of the parishioners, who were allowed the use of the nave as their parish church from the days of King Harold II., the founder. ”

“ Where the builders aim at a simple centralised plan, the high central rectangle will form, like the round or octagonal central space of Wilfrid's church of St Mary at Hexham, ecclesia ... in modum turris erecta, and, as at Barton-on-Humber, will possibly be heightened by a later generation into a real tower. The distinction of the side chapel from the entrance porches, becoming more fully recognised, will lead to the building of transeptal chapels at the east end of the nave ”

“ The church can be approached by a doorway at the eastern end of the transept; but the bulk of the worshippers pass through those at the southern or front end—three in number, and rather heavy and dim in appearance. The centre one leads into the body of the building, and we may as well take advantage of it. We are just within; above there is a serious looking groined roof, with a lamp suspended from the middle of it; before us there is a screen, filled in with clear glass, through which you can see the worshippers who seem thin and scattered. ”

“ It is obvious, for example, that the features of a large Church, compressed into a small building, form a mere caricature; and, on the other hand, the features that would be perfectly suitable in a small Church, being increased in their dimensions, to accommodate them to a large building, produce a monster in art. The materials should likewise affect the style of architecture. Many features—such as deeply-sunk mouldings, and traceried windows—which are easily worked in sand and free stones, cannot be produced in our granites and limestones. ”

“ It contains one of the largest organs in America. It is inclosed within a high wall, and a little to the east of it, within the same inclosure, are the foundations of a new temple, estimated to cost ten millions of dollars, but which will not probably be finished for many years to come. An inferior adobe building, also within the walls, is the celebrated Endowment House, where are performed those sacred and mysterious rites of the Mormon Church which no Gentile may look upon, and where the Saints are sealed to their polygamous wives. ”

“ The sacristy is the only portion of the building not so treated. The church has not and never had cloister, chapter-house, or any of the ordinary domestic buildings of a religious house, attached to it; it stood on a new piece of ground, away from houses, and with an open thoroughfare all round, and all this helps in the solution of its singular arrangements. We have but to recall to mind that the relics of S. Elizabeth were visited by more pilgrims for some two or three centuries than any other shrine almost all Europe could boast of, to see the difficulty accounted for. ”