The Pilgrim Rabbit
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The Pilgrim Rabbit Around and about St Mary’s Church Keeping you in touch July 2020 (Special issue) We are continuing to produce our series of Special Issues of The Pilgrim Rabbit to maintain interest in the heritage of our beautiful church during the COVID-19 situation. These are being produced in digital form only at present, to reduce costs and enable us to produce them more frequently. Please forward this digital version on to anybody who might be interested. Anyone is able to opt in to receive future copies by emailing the church using the address on the back page. All past issues are also available on the website at https://stmarysbeverley.org/heritage/the-pilgrim-rabbit-newsletter/. Introduction “Hand me a pencil”: Beverley framing Pugin’s life Roland Deller, Director of By Libby Burgess Development writes: As we view St Mary’s engulfed in scaffolding, it is interesting to look back on It fills me with great pride that St previous chapters of restoration in the church’s history. Mary’s roster of architects includes two giants of the profession from The nineteenth the 19th century: the prolific English century was, across Gothic revivalist, Sir George Gilbert the country, a hive Scott, and the hugely influential of activity in church pioneer of that movement, Augustus restoration terms: Pugin, who is the subject of this we only have to special edition ofThe Pilgrim Rabbit. look out across the I am indebted to Libby Burgess for Wolds to see the writing the feature article for us eighteen churches about this visionary genius – most rebuilt or restored famously known for his design of ‘Big by the Sykes family Ben’. It has been fascinating to learn – an achievement more about Pugin’s restoration of St unparalleled Mary’s and a joy to discover the part elsewhere in which our church and town played in Britain (and it is Sir shaping his life and work. Tatton Sykes, 5th baronet, of course, It was a short life, lived out during a who famously period of massive social change. quoted that St Pugin looked to medieval Mary’s was architecture to make sense of the ‘unequalled in broken world in which he lived, and England and almost so it is that many of us find in the without rival on the ancient beauty of St Mary’s some continent of peace and deeper meaning in our Europe’). own troubled times. Amongst Approaches to Pugin’s vast legacy is his restoration restoration 150 or of St Mary’s – which helped keep the 200 years ago were place standing for over 150 years. starkly different to We take great inspiration from his today: ‘old’ did not example as we work tirelessly to St Mary’s great West Window. Glass by Hardman, designed by necessarily mean save the building and thereby Pugin. Image © J. Hannan-Briggs from The Geograph. Creative ‘good’ – or even preserve Pugin’s legacy in Beverley. Commons licence CC BY-SA 2.0 ‘important’ or Page 1 ‘valuable’ – and so swathes of also for the societal injusticesand back centuries, had been swept medieval architecture and design the growing industrial cities of the aside by the rise of evangelicalism were overwritten with new Victorian day. His architectural thesis and and non-conformism, and he ideals. career-launching book Contrasts mourned the medieval days when was published only a year before monks looked after the poor, as Oliver Twist, and Pugin was well compared with the brutal th aware of the horrors of Dickensian workhouses of the 19 century. In London, offset against the frivolity Contrasts (argued, according to and decadence of Regency wealth Steven Carver, ‘with the fervour of (think Blackadder III), and the the pulpit and the subtlety of a dubious morals of those in the saloon bar rant’) he proclaimed that theatrical world where he had held architecture was a physical his first job (as a set designer). Pugin expression of a spiritual reality – that biographer Rosemary Hill writes that it was, in essence, sacred: Contrasts was ‘an attack on the On comparing the Architectural world of the Regency, that Vanity Works of the present Century with Fair of stucco-fronted manners, high those of the Middle Ages, the taste and low principles.’ (Its full wonderful superiority of the latter title says it all: Contrast; or, a must strike every attentive observer… Parallel between the noble edifices Who can regard those stupendous Augustus Pugin by unknown artist. Oil of the fourteenth and fifteenth Ecclesiastical Edifices of the Middle on canvas, circa 1840. The portrait centuries, and similar Buildings of Ages without feeling this includes the armorial bearings of the the present day: showing the observation in its full force? Here Pugin family – a black martlet – with present decay of Taste.) Augustus’ personal motto “en avant”, every portion of the sacred fabric meaning “onward”. Image © National As a convert to Catholicism – in bespeaks its origin; the very plan of Portrait Gallery, London. Creative reaction to his mother’s austere the edifice is the emblem of human Commons licence CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 Presbyterian faith – Pugin also felt redemption…. the eye is carried up that much of what mattered in and lost in the height of the vaulting Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin ancient Christianity, the idea of and the intricacy of the aisles; the rich (1812-1852) was, then, unusual in his being part of something stretching and varied hues of the stained time. He actively sought to recreate windows the modulated light, the the styles and aspirations of his gleam of the tapers, the richness of medieval forbears. He felt that the altars, the venerable images of medieval architecture was the the departed just, all alike conspired pinnacle of human achievement, that to fill the mind with veneration for the church building and design from the place, and to make it feel the earlier centuries had been to the sublimity of Christian worship… Such glory of God, and that more recent effects as these can only be produced trends of Classicist architecture on the mind by buildings… (inspired by Ancient Greece and Rome, beauty for beauty’s sake) (Contrasts, AWN Pugin, 1836) reflected everything that was wrong With such a passionate, talented, and with religion and society. His tastes historically significant figure as Pugin, were utterly infused with thetall, it is fascinating that not only is his light spaces, the pointed arches, high work at St Mary’s key to the building pointed windows, and intricate lattice as we know it today, but also carvings of the Gothic age (prevalent Beverley itself was key to his life – in th th from broadly the 12 to the 16 his earliest years, and in his final centuries): however, he felt strongly weeks. that all decoration should be serving a purpose, claiming, ‘it is alright to The son of an architectural draughts- decorate construction but never The Grange in Ramsgate, Kent. The man and writer on medieval home designed by Pugin for his family, architecture, the young Augustus construct decoration.’ from where he made many of his spent much of his childhood visiting It was not a simple rose-tinted designs. The property is now in the care of The Landmark Trust, so you can stay churches, shaping his ideals from an hankering after the past which fuelled there! Image: Alamy Stock Photo by early age. Augustus’ mother was from Pugin’s opinions: it was a concern Malcolm Fairman. Page 2 Lincolnshire stock and so naturally the architect Sir Charles Barry A recurring theme of Pugin’s life was Lincoln Cathedral was an important entered the competition to design that those who were lesser architects visit; however, the family also the replacement building, he but better businessmen found undertook the first of several engaged Pugin to help with the success where he didn’t, but Pugin significant trips further north in 1818 drawings. In the event, Barry did held doggedly true to his ideals. In (when Pugin was just six) covering win, but Pugin designed almost addition to the grand cathedrals, he York, Hull and Beverley. The great every element, from the famous designed countless houses, churches, medieval buildings he encountered façade overlooking the Thames, tiles, and items of furniture. In 1851 were profoundly influential on the with its Gothic spires and carving, to at the Great Exhibition, Pugin showed artistic young boy. Critically, it was the tiniest of interior details, and his complete range of Gothic also in Beverley, nine years later, that furnishings: modestly-priced Pugin met George Myers, domestic tables, plates and apprentice stonemason at garden seats, and sacred Beverley Minster, and this stained glass and vestments, relationship was to prove vital to all showing ‘a vision of the both men’s success in later life: good life in the modern city – when they met again in 1838 one that combined God with Pugin threw his arms round hearth and home’ (Rosemary Myers and declared, ‘You are Hill). the very man I want, you shall execute all my buildings.’ And Despite the prejudices and indeed it was Myers who carried restrictions faced by Catholics out the majority of Pugin’s at the time,Pugin was clearly designs, building no fewer than by this stage in great demand four Catholic cathedrals for him all over the country, a national – Birmingham (the first figure – but Beverley cathedral to be built in England continued to feature. He since Wren’s St Paul’s, and the worked on several occasions at first Catholic cathedral to be the Minster (whose people built in England since the once wrote to him demanding Reformation), Southwark, to know how they should heat Newcastle and Nottingham– their building, to which he within the space of a single replied shortly: ‘devotion’).