Pmc. Hampshire Field Club ArchaeoL Soc. 68, 2013, 178-218 (Hampshire Studies 2013) PATTERNS OF BUILDING ON THE HAMPSHIRE-BERKSHIRE CHALKLANDS AND ADJACENT AREAS: ECCLESIASTICAL GEOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY By J.R.L. ALLEN ABSTRACT later to become the Ecclesiological Society (1845). These revivalists (there were others of The use of stone and ceramics for the external fabric Nonconformist persuasion) stirred up a new of late churches in the region (mid-eighteeenth religious fervour and determined for several century to First World War) is found to display decades what was for very many Anglicans a complex patterns that depend on geology, topography'correct' church, in terms of external appear- and newly emerged means of transport, as well as ance, ordering, liturgical functioning and economic circumstanes and changing architectural doctrinal position. A host of architects, artists taste and religious attitudes (notably a profound mid and craftsmen emerged to service the resulting nineteenth-century revival). Flint facings abound on frenzied church-building, which marked rural the downlands and brick, locally in structural poly- and urban areas alike. Aided by improvements chromy, is widespread in the Cenozoioc lowlands. in transport introduced by turnpike roads and Other facings, each with a particular distribution, especially navigations, canals and then railways are of Lower Carboniferous Limstone, Pennant (Darwin 1976, Bagwell & Lyth 2001, Wolmar Sandstone, Swindon Stone, Chilmark-Tisbury Stone, 2007), these artists seized on the opportunity malmstone, Kentish rag, sarsen and terracotta. to work with unfamiliar building styles and Bathstone was widely imported for dressings; less materials and new forms of decoration while common are Uttoxeter-Mansfield stone, Hamstone, drawing inspiration from classical and, more Caenstone, Portland limestone, malmstone, and arti-particularly, medieval models. During earlier ficial Coade stone. The most important architects of episodes of church-building, the emphasis the period were invoved in these ventures but tendedhad been strongly laid on the use of local to accept commissions in particular areas. materials. The main aim of this paper is to create a geologically annotated gazetteer of the 'late' INTRODUCTION churches - that is, those built from the mid eighteenth century to the First World War Unprecedented technological, economic, - to be found in the chalklands of historic social, religious and cultural developments Hampshire and historic Berkshire and in nineteenth-century England created a geologically similar parts of Oxfordshire lasting material record partly in the form of and Buckinghamshire. This large region a multitude of new or significantly modified is, on the face of it, geologically and topo- church buildings. Normally the most conspicu- graphically simple. It is predominantly rural ous of buildings in villages and towns, they and dominated by high, rolling, wooded remain even in today's secular and neglectful downlands. Partly dividing it along the middle times an important focus of community activity. are the eastward-expanding Thames Basin The slumbering Church of England of the lowlands underlain by Cenozoic clays and Georgians and Regency was shaken to its roots sands where most of the main centres of pop- and stirred into action by the emergence of ulation are to be found. The gazetteer is then the Tractarian or Oxford Movement (c. 1833) used to show how the ecclesiastical geology of and the Cambridge Camden Society (c. 1836), this large region was influenced by the devel- 178 ALLEN: ECCLESIASTICAL GEOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 179 opments in the nineteenth century noted ment of the Berkshire Downs and Chiltern above. In particular, patterns of transport, Hills is another natural obstacle. largely determined by geology and topogra- The region boasts several navigations and phy, exercised an important constraint on the canals (Fig. 1). In the south, the medieval ability of church architects and builders to Itchen Navigation linked Winchester with experiment with unfamiliar materials. tidewater at Southampton (Course 1967, Hadfield 1969, Vine 1990). The Andover Canal (1796), following the Test and then the Anton, SETTING similarly joined Andover to the sea; a branch led westward toward Salisbury (Hadfield 1969; The geology and geological history of the Vine 1990). In contrast, the canals to the north region (Friend 2008) have determined its of the chalk massif follow mainly east-west landscape, natural resources and communi- lines. Exploiting the Cenozoic lowlands, the cations (Fig. 1). In the north is the low-lying tortuous Basingstoke Canal (1791) joins Bas- Oxfordshire Clay Vale underlain by the Upper ingstoke eastward with the Wey Navigation and Jurassic Oxford Clay, the Corallian limestones the Thames (Hadfield 1969; Vine 1990). Of and sandstones that form the Faringdon Ridge, especial importance to the development of the and the Kimmeridge Clay and early Cretaceous region was the Kennet Navigation, extended clays and sands of the Vale of White Horse. westwards as the Kennetand Avon Canal (1810). Immediately to the south are the scarped Marl- This linked the Thames at Reading across the borough and Berkshire Downs and the Chiltern Wiltshire downlands with the Avon at Bath Hills, formed by the Upper Cretaceous Chalk (Clew 1968; Hadfield 1969; Allsop 1999). Two Group but dotted with small Cenozoic outliers, lesser northern canals deserve mention. The that rise in places to 250-300 m. These chalk- Wilts and Berks Canal (1810) branched off the lands gradually fall southward toward the Vale Kennetand Avon near Bath to connect Swindon of Pewsey and the Kennet Valley which, at and the Vale of White Horse with Abingdon on Newbury, meets lowlands underlain by the early the Thames south of Oxford (Darwin 1976; Cenozoic clays, sand and gravels at the head Hadfield 1969; Dalby 1986). Further north of the Thames Basin. Scarped Chalk Group still lay the Thames and Severn Canal of 1789 downlands come on again further south in the (Gardom 1901; Household 1969), a venture form of the Hampshire Downs. These descend that aimed to join the upper Severn Estuary southward to a second major outcrop of with the Upper Thames at Lechlade. A north- Cenozoic clays, sands and gravels that underlie south branch, the North Wilts Canal (1819), the low-lying Hampshire Basin ranging to the linked the Thames and Severn and the Kennet Channel coast. Eastwards, around Petersfield, and Avon Canals (Hadfield 1969; Dalby 1986). the Hampshire Downs give way to wooded Railways quickly superceded the canals, ridges formed on early Cretaceous sands and gradually driving them out of business (Wolmar some clays. 2007); they proved to be crucial in church The rivers are few, reflecting the dominant building (e.g. Allen 2008, 2011). Crossing the chalk substrate. In the north the Thames, Ock, region are a number of main railway lines that Kennet and Lamboum drain eastward to the radiate westward and southwestward out of North Sea, allowing communication with the London (Fig. 1). The most northerly, largely Thames Estuary and London. The Wey from avoiding the chalk massif, is Brunei's broad- the south is also a tributary of the Thames. To gauge Great Western Railway (1840/41) that the south, the Test and Itchen by contrast flow follows the Thames through the Goring Gap to the Channel coast at Southampton Water, to reach the Vale of White Horse and Bath while the Meon reaches the sea further east. and Bristol beyond, to which branches were The chalk escarpment along the northern edge later added to Windsor, Basingstoke, Walling- of the Hampshire Downs is a major watershed ford, Oxford and Abingdon, and Faringdon and topographic barrier, and no rivers reach (MacDermot 1964a, 1964b; Vaughan 1979; southward across the whole region. The escarp- Karau & Turner 1982; Maggs 1993; Mitchell & 1 8 0 HAMPSHIRE FIELD CLUB AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY Fig 1 Geology, topography and chief communications in the region, together with the locations of the commissions of the main architects working there. Key to architects: C -John Colson; E - G.E. Street; F - Benjamin Ferrey; J - Sir T.G. Jackson; M - Sir A. Blomfield; S - Sir G.G. Scott; T - William Butterefield; W - William White; Y - Henry Woodyer. To avoid the overcrowding of symbols in the Lower Test Valley, the railway between Southampton and Winchester is not separately depicted ALLEN: ECCLESIASTICAL GEOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 181 Smith 1994). A second westward line exploited appeared (Clark 1960; Hughes 1968; Bonnett the Kennet Valley, connecting Hungerford and 1985; Rayner 2002) that were soon put to use Newbury with Devizes by 1862 (MacDermot in church-building (e.g. Allen 2008). 1964a). The most important of the many standard-gauge lines that were to become the Southern Railway (Dendy Marshall 1963; Body ARCHITECTS AND BUILDING RATES 1984; Bonavia 1987) was that from London to Basingstoke (1839) and then Andover (1854), Rapid economic and social change in the Salisbury (1857), Yeovil (1859) and Wimborne early nineteenth century allowed architects to (1866). A line was opened between Southamp- multiply and architecture to emerge as a profes- ton and Winchester in 1839 and extended sion, the Institute of British Architects arising in to Basingstoke in 1840; however, Brunei's 1834 (royal charter 1837) and the Architectural link from Reading of 1848 (Mitchell & Smith Association in 1847. The 291 late churches in the 1994) introduced an incompatible