Columns is the newsletter of the Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields who are leading the restoration of Nicholas Hawksmoor’s church, one of the most important Baroque Columns churches in Europe. NUMBER 16 • SUMMER 2001 Please support us by subscribing or making a donation. Use THE FRIENDS OF CHRIST CHURCH SPITALFIELDS the coupon in this issue to make a donation, or telephone the REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 276056 Friends’ office on .
The designs for completion To everyone’s delight the Friends have now completed the repair of the external stonework of the church, securing a safe and considerably extended life for the building’s fabric. This great achievement would not have been possible without the support of our donors; we have been most fortunate in securing funding in all sorts of ways to reach this milestone. Both public and private money has been generously given to preserve this great building for future generations. We can now look to the second phase: works to the interior and the completion of the restoration of the building. The interior will be restored to its appearance circa to , while taking into account its primary role as a church and also its use for secular events, including the provision of modern electrical and heating installations and other facilities. The Friends have been given a most generous donation to commission the Scheme Design Report and tender documents. This is a fully designed scheme (equivalent to an RIBA Stage Jeremy Quinn ‘E’ report) to finish the interior; it will enable A recent view of the newly consolidated and cleaned the project to be thoroughly prepared for tender exterior of Christ Church and site. This support is crucial and shows great foresight, because although essential, no results are the evidence of the development of the designs. visible until much later when the work starts. We Any changes to the original design that must be hope that other donors will be equally generous made in order to meet current needs and legislation, when they see the plans. are carefully evaluated. The Friends have appointed, generously spon- The papers for the Commissioners for the Fifty sored by the Monument Trust, Malcolm Reading New Churches were deposited in Lambeth Palace Associates as advisors to the project, to oversee in , when the Commission was wound up, and the design team and drive the project forward. the papers are still kept in the library there. These Their work is being generously sponsored by papers provide an exceptionally complete record the Monument Trust. The specialist professional of the details of the executed works. The detailed team appointed to advise us and to produce the entries in the bills submitted to the Commission by various design drawings and schedules includes the trade contractors and the final records of all the Whitfield Partners, architects, Cook & Butler, payments made to the contractors provide a vital quantity surveyors, Hockley & Dawson, structural guide to the parts of the interior which were altered engineers, Hilson Moran Partnership, heating & or altogether destroyed in the nineteenth century. electrical engineers and Arup Acoustics. The documents for the works and alterations The approach to the design of the proposed carried out in the nineteenth century supplement works has been based on the surviving documentary, these papers and provide valuable clues as to the physical and archaeological evidence; the physical appearance of items which have been destroyed, context and careful comparison and analysis of all such as the reredos. All the physical evidence, How to support the Friends To become a Supporter of the Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields please make a donation of a minimum of £ p.a. (£ for overseas). Supporters receive the Friends’ quarterly newsletter Columns. They also receive advance notice of lectures and other special events that the Friends organise. Your gift will be matched by Lottery funding at a ratio of to . £ donated to the Appeal enables the Friends to do £ of restoration work. In addition, if you are a UK taxpayer, we can now claim a further p for every pound you give us. Please sign the declaration below. You can give money in two ways: by cheque (banker’s or CAF), or by Banker’s Order. Banker’s Orders allow us to plan with more certainty and help keep down our administrative costs. Please complete the appropriate part of this page.
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Columns 16 Recent gifts The Friends are grateful to the many individuals Gifts of between £ and £ and organisations who are giving with such Mrs M A G Fenston generosity to the Restoration Appeal. We value The Sainer Charity donations large and small. We would like to Mr Steven Elliott thank the following for their recent donations, Mrs Myra Malkin and those who prefer to remain anonymous. Wessex Fine Art Study Courses Mr Alexander Ratensky Gifts of £, Mrs Karen Cross Linklaters & Alliance Mr Ralph Cunningham The Trusthouse Charitable Foundation Fergus Parnership Consulting Inc Mr W T J Griffin Gifts of £, S Gruffat & M P Enrile Ashurst Morris Crisp Dr Anne Hogg Herbert Smith Solicitors Lassco Architectural Antique Salvage* Mr Jeremy Hill Lesley David Trust The Cromarty Trust* Ms F Maccoll McCorquodale Charitable Trust Gifts of £ Mr James T Nelson Mr Henry Barlow Mrs P Pinder Foreign & Colonial Investment Trust Mr R Pryor The G L Doubleday Charitable Trust Mrs P C A G Smith St George-in-the-East* Gifts of £ Mr C K Stratton-Browne Mr A F Nafzger The Modiano Charitable Trust* Mr & Mrs S Summerson Ms Lena Tibblin-Borg Sir Anthony Touche David Whitehouse
Gift of £ Gifts of between £ and £ Robert & Caroline Schwartz Foundation C J Carey Ms Catherine Pantsios Gifts of £ Mr John M Woodbridge Mr C J Cazalet Ms Nathlie Bachich Clifford Chance Miss Joan Tyrell Mr M I Godbee Architectural Dialogue Limited Johann Gulotti C Bascaran & A W de Brunner Mrs P Pinder Mrs S Chalker The Bates Charitable Trust Mr S P Datta The Worshipful Company of Fruiterers Ms L P Heller Ms Alison Humby Gifts of £ Mrs R Legge Mrs Myra Malkin Mr Alan Linsley Mr J C Peck Mr Neil Losson The Modiano Charitable Trust Mr Michael Manser Mr H Mathews Mrs C McElhayer Mr Ben Phillis Mr & Mrs John Rawlings Mr & Mrs James Stenner Lady Stirling Mr & Mrs W V Templeton The Friends of the V&A Mr R Thomson Ms Judith Weir
* for the Richard Bridge Organ Appeal
in particular holes in the walls and columns for Thank you beams and joists, old fixings, surviving sections The campaign to restore Christ Church relies of woodwork, has been carefully examined and on the support of many people. We would like recorded. to thank the following who have recently given During the development of the designs, the us support details of the documentary and archaeological evidence have been checked with the proposed We are most grateful to the Spitalfields Society design and the designs adjusted accordingly. This for matching the London Borough of Tower constant review has been carried out with the Hamlets’ grant for repairing the water trough on aim of producing a design where the size, shape Commercial Street. and quantities of the components are similar to the details given in the accounts, and where the Ashurst Morris Crisp for printing this issue of position of details of the construction tally with Columns and for other printed material. the archaeological evidence. It is inevitable that in order to meet the current We are also grateful for help in kind from Herbert needs of the church, the parish and the various Smith and Linklaters & Alliance; Vail Printers for organisations that currently use the church, that printing the Hawksmoor London Churches leaflet; some changes have to be made to the original Bowne of London for the Friends’ supporters design and that some the fittings, such as the box leaflet; Libby Spurrier for allowing us to use Charles pews in the interior, cannot be restored. Where Maude’s photographs of Christ Church. alterations have been made, an evaluation has been made of the impact of the alteration on the We would like to thank those who come and integrity of the original design and the appearance help both in the office and at special events. We of the church. The proposed designs have taken are particularly grateful to Fiona Ligonnet and into account the need to incorporate details to Christopher Woodward who provide reliable balance or compensate for aspects of the original design which might otherwise be lost. Support The complete final designs have enabled the The Friends’ Office is run with a small number Quantity Surveyors, Cook & Butler, to produce of staff in order to keep our overhead costs to detailed cost reports reflecting current prices. Given a minimum. Please contact the Friends’ office: the success in completing the exterior of the church, . the trustees have decided to be more ambitious and to plan for an ideal and total restoration of the Volunteers interior. Additional items to upgrade the church We need volunteers for work in the office, which for modern concert use will include a lift to permit might include help with the mailings, and also at full disabled access between the crypt and the main our special events. church; provision of glazed screens to the west end Our next event is Open House on the nd and openings, partly for improved noise exclusion and rd September. This is always very popular and we also for heat conservation and provision of basic expect between and people to visit over toilet facilities in the crypt. the weekend. Please make a note of this in your The Friends are looking for £. million to diary and let us know if you could help with selling finish the building. £. million have so far been cards or refreshments. Thank you. raised and we are going to appeal for specific items in the interior such as the panelled fronts Postage to the galleries, the carved brackets and the three If you or your business could help with postage brass chandeliers which will light the main body facilities this would help enormously with our of the church. mailings.
Please call the Friend’ office for further details of how you can help. Please consider giving generously. The prospect of a fully restored Christ Church to the vision of Hawksmoor is in sight. We urgently need your support.
Friends’ events Book review Andrew Martindale
HAWKSMOOR’S LONDON CHURCHES: ARCHITECTURE AND THEOLOGY by Pierre De La Ruffiniere du Prey. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, £, ,
Visit to Easton Neston and Drayton House Surprisingly little has been written in recent years Thursday 21st June about Hawksmoor’s London churches, and even less remains in print: the principle source, reprinting many There are still a very few tickets left for this Friends’ of the architect’s letters and drawings, remains Kerry visit that offers a rare opportunity to visit two Downes’ Hawksmoor (nd edition, ), now almost important houses in Northamptonshire. The first, a generation old. It is forty-four years since the Survey Drayton House, is of many periods, including a of London published their monograph on Spitalfields, magnificent Baroque façade of the s by one which contains a record and analysis of Christ Church of Inigo Jones’ pupils, William Talman. The that has not since been bettered or even equalled by second, Easton Neston, is the only country house descriptions of the other five surviving churches that designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor between make up Hawksmoor’s work for the Commissioners of and . Our expert guide for the day will be Bruce the Fifty New Churches Act. In such a field Professor Bailey, Drayton’s Librarian. Meeting at St George du Prey’s fine monograph should be particularly Bloomsbury, near Holborn Tube, we shall travel in welcomed, as it greatly increases the readily available a comfortable bus, and stop at a country pub for information on the churches, and examines them in a lunch (not included in the ticket price). thought-provoking and insightful way. Places are limited and will be allocated as The churches of St Alphege Greenwich, St Anne received. The cost including bus, entrance fees, Limehouse, St George Bloomsbury, St George in guide and notes, is £ per person.Paid-up Sup- the East, St Mary Woolnoth and Christ Church porters may book at a reduced rate of £. Please Spitalfields will be well known to anyone who has even telephone the Friends’ office, to see a passing interest in the subject. Professor du Prey’s if you can reserve a place. greatest achievement here is to make everyone stop and think about these marvellous buildings again, and Open House to think of them in quite a different light. By fully Saturday and Sunday, nd and rd September examining Hawksmoor’s training under Wren, and its background in the study of early Christian and pagan Christ Church will once again be open for the buildings, Professor du Prey succeeds in bringing his Open House weekend. Access to the nave may be reader into the circle of highly educated men, and the limited but the Old Vestry Room, the gardens and books they wrote, that are the bedrock of Hawksmoor’s the new Crypt chapel will be open. designs. The book then fully examines the churches themselves, and the evolution of their design, in the light of that academic background. This is not a quick, or easy book to read. It contains an immense amount of original research and thought, and reproduces many original sources, particularly drawings and engravings. The marshalling of this information is professionally handled, and the design is well considered. If this reviewer has any criticism, it would be that the quality of the colour photography, which does not achieve the very high standards of the rest of the book. Surely the west front of Christ Church, now looking so magnificent after its restoration, deserves Mathew and Juliet Cestar who were married at Christ to be better represented than by the pre-cleaning Church on 6th May 2001. Matthew and Juliet invited photograph reproduced in this book? their friends to make donations to the restoration in lieu of wedding presents. The Friends are most grateful Andrew Martindale is Casework Secretary at the Georgian for this generous gesture. Group
Personal column obelisks topped by a gilded globe, bringing a final Richard MacCormac resolution to the tremendous forces below. The interior of Christ Church may not as Walking past Christ Church, as I have done readily declare the passionate complexity which daily for many years, has not made Hawksmoor’s characterises the exterior but there are equivalent masterwork familiar to me. Its great architectural compositional and spatial themes. The seven gestures retain their strange potency and continue bays of the nave are intersected by a transept to astonish and invite my curiosity. To suddenly consisting of three bays marked out by clustered be faced with the vast unadorned white flank, columns and piers and above by three coffered with its deeply cut round windows above the barrel vaults on each side. The first and last bays double arches of the aisle, blocking the south are set beyond the main volume of the nave end of Wilkes Street is so surprising that you by screens each consisting of four Corinthian might be in Rome or in the Rimini of Alberti’s columns supporting entablatures which extend Tempio Malatestiano. out from the aisles. At the west end this arrange- Of Hawksmoor’s London churches Christ ment provides for galleries and frames the Church is the only one to command a long organ. At the east end it fulfils the liturgical axial vista. Turning into Brushfield Street from role of separating the chancel. But Hawksmoor’s Bishopsgate you are confronted by an almost architectural intentions were also to create spaces overwhelming anthropomorphic presence, and within spaces and to use the Corinthian columns it is interesting to imagine how even more and their entablatures to give the volume of the savage this confrontation might have been had nave a sense of equivalent containment on all the church been built without the portico as sides and to mediate between the nave and the originally intended. As it is, the Serlian motif lesser scales of sanctuary and vestibule. of the portico dominates the West front, and Hawksmoor’s first proposed site for the church the belfry arch with entablature on each side was at the north end of Brick Lane where it and tripartite composition above reiterates the would have been at the periphery of eighteenth portico’s great thematic idea. century Spitalfields. On its present site the church The portico can also be read as an extension stands as a focus for the extraordinarily mixed of the volume of the nave out beyond the West community of co-existing interests, ranging from front. With the plinths which extend out on each the wealth of the City to the poverty beyond side of the steps and the pilaster-like projections Brick Lane and from Whitechapel to Bethnal of the north and south flank walls, a powerful Green Road. The restoration of Christ Church, sense of the longitudinal rather than centralised its role as place of worship, its increasing use character of the design is apparent. It also as a venue for music and cultural activity and becomes evident that this is not an architecture its architectural presence make this strange made up of separate elements added to one masterwork a fantastic symbol for the regenerative another, porch, spire, chancel, but a composition energy and creativity around it. of visibly interlocking masses. Seen from the west the shoulders of the tower form a massive cross Sir Richard MacCormac is a partner of the axial plane of masonry rising from the plinth to architectural practice MacCormac, Jamieson, intersect the longitudinal connection between Pritchard whose offices are in Spitalfields. portico and nave. The effect is amplified by the huge concavities to the north and south of the belfry which deliver a sense of the structure of the tower piercing up through the volume of the building. And this is exactly what happens internally where the masonry core of the tower rising from the entrance is hollowed out at each level to form vestibule, vestry room, and then ringing chamber and belfry emerging above the roof. Externally, the rising stages of the tower Published by the Friends of Christ Church Spitalfilelds elaborate and resolve the cross axial theme. The Registered Charity No. recessed core of the tower emerges above the shoulders as a square base for the spire, which The Old Vestry Room, Christ Church, Fournier Street, in turn consists of two intersecting pyramidal London Telephone