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Howard Colvin, 'Croome Church and Its Architect', the Georgian Group

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Howard Colvin, 'Croome Church and Its Architect', the Georgian Group Howard Colvin, ‘Croome Church and its Architect’, The Georgian Group Jounal, Vol. VIII, 1998, pp. 28–32 TEXT © THE AUTHORS 1998 CROOME CHURCH AND ITS ARCHITECT HOWARD COLVIN 1 he church of St. Mary Magdalen at Croome in the landscaped park. The exterior is carried out TD’Abitot in Worcestershire stands high in the in smooth ashlar, with battlemented parapets and list of Georgian Gothic churches (Fig. i). Less capti- pinnacles at the angles. Inside, those Gothic forms vatingly rococo than the still anonymous Shobdon that appealed particularly to Georgian taste - the and less elegantly geometrical than Henry Keene’s ogee arch, the quatrefoil and the cusped cornice, Hartwell, it is neverthesless an excellent example of are much in evidence as plaster decoration, the what a Georgian architect could make of a commis­ tower alone having, exceptionally, an authentic sion to design a Gothic church. The well-lit nave stone ribbed vault2 (Fig. 2). In fact the tower, and aisles together form almost an exact square; the with its set-back buttresses and pierced parapets chancel, as Pevsner observed, is ‘long for an age that (the latter of a type much favoured in Worcestershire did its chancels short’,1 no doubt in order to accom­ modate the Coventry family monuments; the tower, besides housing the bells, forms an effective feature Figure i. Croome Church from the South-West. Figure 2. Croome Church: the vault of the tower-porch. Howard Colvin. Howard Colvin. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME VIII 1998 28 HOWARD COLVIN CROOME CHURCH AND ITS ARCHITECT and Gloucestershire in the late fifteenth and early the conveyance of the site, dated 4 July of the same sixteenth centuries, as in the Abbey Gateway at year.7 Attached to the deed is a plan of a rectangular Evesham), does suggest some first-hand observa­ church with a tetrastyle portico (Fig. 3, upper). This, tion of medieval prototypes. Otherwise no feature of as A.T. Bolton observed,8 resembled the estate church the church appears to have been derived from any which Brown was later to build at Compton Verney specific source: it was architect’s Gothic, elegant, in 1776-9, and his authorship of it is confirmed by sophisticated and without any claims to ecclesio- a receipt among the Coventry archives, signed by logical scholarship of the Victorian kind, the whole Brown on 3 June 1758, which acknowledges a forming a polite and ornamental edifice quite payment of £70 ‘in full’ for plans, journeys and the different from the relatively humble village church measurement of work on the house and/or grounds, which it replaced.3 with an added note: ‘n.b. The Plan of the Church The old church had stood inconveniently close is included in this’.9 to the north-west corner of the Coventry mansion, The fact that Brown was responsible for the plan and after the 6th Earl had had the house remodelled of the intended classical church does not prove that and the park landscaped by Brown from 1750 he designed the Gothic one that was built in its onwards, he decided to resite the church on rising place and consecrated on 29 June 1763 (Fig. 3, ground some 500 yards to the north-east. As an lower). Bolton thought that Adam, who designed eighteenth-century visitor commented, ‘a church the interior, must also have been responsible for the was not the building that should have been erected structure, but there are, significantly, no drawings here: this was the place for the house ... The for this in the Soane Museum, and all the indica­ expense, however, was perhaps too great. His lord­ tions are that in the church, as in the house, Adam ship found the mansion where it stands, and there­ was responsible only for the piasterwork and join­ fore contented himself with altering a few of the ery. Marcus Whiffen was inclined to attribute the rooms, and in general with giving it a fashionable church to the amateur architect Sanderson Miller, exterior.4 Although it is often supposed that of Radway in Warwickshire, who was a friend of Croome Court is a complete Georgian house, the the 6th Earl and who certainly advised him on the extent to which the main structure of the late seven­ house and landscape, for when these were finished teenth-century building was retained can be seen by the latter wrote (in 1752) that ‘Whatever merits it comparing the plan as it exists today with a sketch­ [Croome] may in future time boast it will be plan in the library of the Society of Antiquaries ungrateful not to acknowledge you the primary showing it as it was before Brown’s alterations Author’.10 Though Miller, whose interest in Gothic began, and also by an accompanying note made in architecture is well known, may have played some 1820 that ‘Will Lyes an old man says the Body of the part in the decision to build a Gothic church instead House is as it was only coated. The four towers of a classical one, neither in his own extensive corre­ [containing at one end the gallery and at the other spondence nor in the Coventry archives does there the library and staircase] were built from the foun­ appear to be any evidence that he was involved in dation’.5 its design. Moreover, his activity as an amateur That Brown was responsible for the structural architect was much curtailed after an attack of remodelling of the house and Robert Adam for the mental illness in 1759.11 If neither Adam nor Miller decoration of the interior is well established.6 The can be credited with the design of the church, then architectural history of the church is not quite so Brown (who designed several other Gothic build­ clear. The Faculty to rebuild it was granted on 16 ings in the 1760s)12 remains the obvious candidate. March 1758, and with it in the diocesan records is In fact, the attribution of the church to him goes THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME VIII 1998 29 HOWARD COLVIN CROOME CHURCH AND ITS ARCHITECT back at least to 1824. In his Historical and Descriptive must be treated with respect. But what is the evi­ Account ofCroome d’Abitot, published in that year, dence of documents and drawings? W. Dean, the head gardener at Croome, says that No systematic accounts appear to have been the church ‘does honour to the taste of Brown, after kept for the building of the church, and no further whose design it was erected.’ Written in the time of payments for making designs for it have been found, the 7th Earl, who succeeded his father in 1809, and but there is sufficient evidence, chiefly in the form no doubt based on family tradition, this statement of original bills, to identify the craftsmen employed. Figure 3. Croome Church Worcestershire, showing, published by A.T. Bolton in his Architecture of Robert and above, the plan of the classical church designed by Brown James Adam, 1922, with additions and corrections. The in 1758, and, below, that of the Gothic church built in lower plan shows the fittings as originally designed before 1759_h3, drawn to the same scale. Based on the plans subsequent alteration.. Howard Colvin. THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME VIII 1998 30 H O WARD C O LVIN CROOME CHURCH AND ITS ARCHITECT Thus the masonry was performed by Robert An inscription reads: ‘Secktion of ye Church and Newman, a substantial Gloucestershire master­ Chancel for Ld. Coventry at Croome mason.13 The carpenter andjoiner was John Worcestershire.’ and there is a scale offeet. This Hobcroft, a Londoner regularly employed by drawing is certainly not from the office of Robert Brown, who was also an architect in his own right.14 and James Adam, nor do the scale and lettering The Westmorland slating was done by another resemble those on the architectural drawings by associate of Brown, the London builder Henry Brown illustrated in Dorothy Stroud’s biography. Holland (senior), whose workmanship he measured The handwriting does, however, correspond exactly in 1760.15 The plasterer, Joseph Rose, and the wood­ with that of the carpenter Hobcroft, who would carver, Sefferin Aiken, were leading London crafts­ have been perfectly capable of making a drawing men who were also employed to execute Robert whose main purpose is to show the construction Adam’s designs for the interior of the house.16 of the roof. Indeed, only two or three years later he No drawings for the church survive among the was to draw out John Chute’s Gothic elevations for Coventry archives, but in Sir John Soane’s Museum Donnington Grove in Berkshire in a highly profes­ there are office copies of some of Adam’s designs for sional manner, and in 1768-9 he was to construct, the interior, and in the Victoria and Albert Museum and apparently himself to design, an elaborate there are two stray designs by him for coloured glass Gothic chapel within the house at Audley End in in the windows, neither of which was executed.17 Essex.18 But at Croome, Hobcroft was acting as These drawings throw no light on the the responsi­ Brown’s subordinate and anything he drew would bility for the design of the church itself, but in the presumably have been to Brown’s directions. collection of the late W S. Lewis, the well-known Does this review of the evidence demonstrate Walpolean scholar, there are two drawings for beyond doubt that Capability Brown was the unaid­ Croome Church, a plan and a section across the ed architect of the tower and body of Croome nave.
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