PLACES OF WORSHIP
Historic Places of Worship The English Heritage strategy for historic places of worship Richard Halsey Places of Worship Strategy, Implementation Manager
English Heritage will be working with many partners to support local communities caring for places of worship in order to secure a future for these buildings.
There are well over , listed places of in until the introduction of Government worship in England, nearly , in the care grants for places of worship in , no regular of the Church of England. The buildings range funding came from taxation. Neither do in date from the th to the th century; many the central denominational bodies regularly stand on sites that have a much longer history support fabric repairs, though a few grants and of human activity, and they contain some of the loans can be arranged locally. In particular, country’s best art and craftsmanship. As active the Church Commissioners of the Church of support declines in some areas, denominations England have no responsibility at all for existing are rationalising available human and financial parish churches; they essentially fund the clergy, support to maintain their core activities of new churches and central functions. mission and worship. Many congregations We all need to work in partnership to struggle to maintain these historic buildings, harness the huge support that exists within the which are their sole responsibility and which general population. have no realisable financial value until they It remains the task of thousands of cease to be used for religious purposes. Such volunteers to maintain and repair their places specialised buildings are not easily converted of worship, using whatever grants and advice to other uses, however, without the loss of the they can get and, most importantly, seeking the intrinsic architectural and historic interest active, as well as financial, support of the wider for which they were listed. Of at least equal community. importance, their value as the central focus of a That support is often readily given, but community and the embodiment of its history there is an uneven spread of historic church is also threatened. buildings in the population; eight rural Church It is now widely recognised that keeping of England dioceses contain % of the nation’s these buildings in use for worship, in whatever churches set within only % of the population. form that takes, and possibly in combination Something like % of parish churches are in with another subsidiary purpose, is most likely the smallest communities representing less than to secure their future (see Derrick, –). % of the population. They cannot organise There are many national and local organisations fundraising and repairs alone. devoted to maintaining historic places of Already, many professional people, such worship, which help congregations or trusts as architects and accountants, give freely of financially, but as congregations fall, concerted their time, but their help ought not to be action is needed. presumed to continue forever. Others volunteer to help in many ways (see Cooper, –). Securing the future They need guidance and support to ensure that their aspirations are fulfilled. Running a A recent survey revealed that % of people medieval parish church is quite beyond the think that central taxation and Government normal working experience of most people, are responsible for funding what are, in effect, and mistakes can be very expensive to correct, publicly accessible buildings (see Griffiths, however well intended. English Heritage would –). In fact, from the abolition of Church rates like to help train and fund people to ensure that
| Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn English Heritage / Patricia Payne BB034234 ©
Church of All Saints, Newborough, Staffordshire (Grade II), by J Oldrid Scott, 1889–1902, on a medieval site. An integrated designation system will in the future facilitate recognition of the whole site value.
volunteers make the most of the support and According to a survey conducted in , resources they already have. £ million is the best estimate for annual expenditure on repairs and maintenance to Rising costs places of worship per year. The same survey pointed up the wide variation in expenditure Since the introduction in of state-aid for between denominations and types of buildings, places of worship in use, between and but it also showed that a large number of buildings have been offered major repair grants congregations spent less than £, per each year. Since the establishment in of year. In one respect, this could be seen as the Heritage Lottery Fund, English Heritage encouraging, indicating that small-scale has worked in partnership jointly to offer a maintenance and cyclical repair are being total of over £ million (at prices), an addressed. On the other hand, it could indicate average of £ million per year for major works that only the symptoms, not the causes, of to all listed places of worship. In recent years, fabric problems are being attended to. the number of buildings in receipt of grant- It is notoriously difficult to discover the size aid has remained steady at around , with of the national bill for repairs or the timescale almost the same number of applicants being for getting them done. Estimating urgency and turned down for lack of funds. Many of these cost is not an exact science, being subject to grants, however, are awarded to places that an individual surveyor’s philosophy of repair as have received them before – inevitable, perhaps, much as any technical ability. In , it was if small congregations are tackling a backlog estimated that, if Government offered grants of work. It is clear, though, that many more to the value of £ million per year to listed congregations should be applying. places of worship, congregations should be
Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | PLACES OF WORSHIP : Historic Places of Worship
able to tackle the backlog of repairs. In Church gallant few to shoulder the burden of building Needs Survey, published by English Heritage maintenance without strong external support? and the Council for the Care of Churches in Can new uses be found for these buildings to , an estimation was given – based on an ensure that they continue to play a key role in inspection of Church of England and the community? non-Anglican places of worship (not all listed) in five representative areas – that annual grants New strategy of £ million were needed to keep listed places of worship in good repair. Our Commissioners The first stage of our strategy, to be developed recently agreed to support initial work to jointly with a number of partners, will include: establish these immediate fabric needs. • Taking stock of the condition of the historic fabric, as well as the number of buildings Adapting to change with ‘fabric at risk of loss’ • Examining the feasibility of running a Ensuring that a historic building has a viable maintenance grants scheme alongside and, therefore, sustainable use is the key to established grants for major repairs keeping it in good repair. One of the great • Training people to help congregations joys of visiting churches is to understand how understand the history and significance of they have been adapted over time to match the buildings in their care contemporary forms of worship and interests. • Creating a network of advisers to help Today’s congregations also need to adapt their congregations maintain the fabric of their buildings to current needs, though re-orderings place of worship of interiors and external additions have always • Guiding congregations on the re-use and been controversial. To achieve changes that adaptation of historic places of worship, enhance rather than damage the architectural based on the experiences of the last years. character, without losing important historic fabric or fittings, requires both knowledge of the significance of what exists and the skill to design and make new work worthy of its If people understand their building, setting (see Pordham, –; Serjeant, –; they will value it; by valuing it, they O’Donnell, –; Velluet, –; Barter and will want to look after it; in caring for Hatton –; Durran, ). Such issues are, of it, they will help others enjoy it. From course, common to all historic buildings in enjoyment comes a greater thirst to use, but they become more critical for places of understand it and the ‘virtuous circle’ worship because these buildings are often the begins again. most significant in their locality and are seen to With their graveyards, rectories and be part of the surrounding community. parish halls, the parish churches of English Heritage, as the lead body in the England embody the social memory of historic environment sector, wants to secure the communities. future for as many historic places of worship We cannot expect congregations to as possible. It is the duty of English Heritage have the same needs today as they to protect the historic environment, but we did in the s. Liturgy, like any other need to have an eye on the future as well as form of etiquette, is always in a state the past to offer advice on what needs to be of subtle change. Today’s ordering done now. We are, therefore, working with certainly wasn’t yesterday’s and is very many partners to provide better information unlikely to be tomorrow’s. on the state of the historic places of worship We need to work out how we can in England. Money continues to be needed help the daily worshipper and user of to pay for essential repairs, but where should the church to understand just what it the available funds be targeted? So far, grant is about the building that they cherish schemes have been successful in putting and enjoy – what drives them to care many places of worship all over England into for it. a good state of repair. Will those that have been repaired, however, be kept in good order Dr Simon Thurley, Chief Executive, (see Russell, )? How many buildings that English Heritage, from a speech to the require repairs have not been included in grant annual conference of the Council for applications and for what reasons? Is it practical the Care of Churches, Canterbury, to expect the denominations to keep and use September far more buildings than they need or to ask the
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The Future of the Ecclesiastical Exemption A way forward Peter Beacham Heritage Protection Director
A far-reaching review of the future of this exemption is part of a major reform of the heritage protection system.
Exemption as a model approach No statutory framework for the protection of England’s historic environment could claim Looked at in this perspective, the way in to be truly comprehensive unless it embraced which the ecclesiastical exemption is used by our historic places of worship. English Heritage the exempt denominations to manage their has always supported the Government’s historic sites and buildings has much to offer decision to review the future of the ecclesias- to the reformed heritage protection system. tical exemption – the opt-out from the The protection afforded is generally more secular system of heritage controls for certain comprehensive than that offered by the listed denominations which have parallel regulatory building consent mechanism, embracing regimes in place – as part of its wide-ranging fixtures and fittings as well as matters of artistic reform of the heritage protection system in this and aesthetic judgement. country. The way in which the Church of England’s This review should be welcomed by Faculty Jurisdiction system sees the church supporters and critics of the exemption alike. and churchyard as a consecrated entity, It is only by seeing the exemption in the subject to Faculty control, prefigures the wider perspective of managing the historic holistic designation of church and churchyard environment as a whole that we shall be able to envisaged by the reformed heritage protection judge its true value and performance. system of registration. Also, some of the exempt Before looking at the Government’s denominations have long-standing systems suggestion for the future of the exemption, it is of inspection in place that encourage longer- important to understand the scope of reforms term strategic thinking about the repair and to the heritage protection system itself. In June maintenance of their assets. , the Government decided to proceed with English Heritage has warmly welcomed the reform in stages between now and ⁄, Government’s suggestion in its consultation the earliest likely date that legislation could be paper, The Future of the Ecclesiastical Exemption, passed to implement the new system in full. that the strengths of the exemption are Because the reforms are so radical, primary such that the system deserves to continue legislation will be required to create a unified and to be helped to be even more effective. single Register of Historic Buildings and Sites English Heritage believes that the exempt in England, matched by a single heritage denominations should be encouraged to consent regime. demonstrate that their individual systems are The Register will bring together the robust and effective enough to deal consistently current listing, registration and scheduling with all their varied constituencies, especially regimes, while the single consent will integrate with reluctant or downright recalcitrant local scheduled monument consent and listed operations. We believe that the solution must building consent. Crucially for the future of the lie in developing more effective partnerships exemption, provision will be made for statutory between those denominations which are management agreements that can take the place exempt, local authorities, English Heritage and of regulation by individual heritage consents for other interested parties. complex sites.
Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | PLACES OF WORSHIP : The Future of the Ecclesiastical Exemption
Pilot projects or scheduled monument consent procedures that any other historic site (from a great house English Heritage, through our experience of to a farmstead) might enjoy under the new working in partnership with the Government, system. The agreement – between the exempt local authorities and owners in piloting reforms denomination, the local authority and English to the heritage protection system, believes that Heritage where appropriate – could be run such partnerships are best constructed from the by the denomination for an initial period of ground up. We are exploring with the exempt ten years, reviewable and renewable thereafter denominations the possibility of setting up for further quinquennial periods. It would a small number of local pilot projects to test default to the normal regulatory mechanisms the feasibility of a management agreement if the agreement were seriously or persistently approach that could become common practice breached. under the reformed system throughout the There is a huge amount of work to be done. historic environment. We need a range of sites: If we can proceed steadily and in partnership, a group of urban and rural places of worship, a building confidence and trust, learning from cathedral and its precinct, perhaps a group of our experience of piloting the new heritage Methodist chapels. protection system in all its many aspects, it is Medieval decorated floor For each pilot project, an agreement would possible to see a way forward in which the so- tiles in the Chapter House, be drawn up on the same principles that the called ‘exemption’ would actually become the Westminster Abbey, new system would apply to all complex historic norm, the rule not the exception. That would depicting King Edward the assets: comprehensive designation of the whole be the moment to lose this misleading phrase Confessor (d. 1066), one site and its future strategic management seen as from the language, representing as it would of the founders of the an entity. This could include the same freedom the recognition that the way historic places of Abbey, giving a ring to St from close regulation through listed building worship are managed is indeed mainstream. John the Evangelist. English Heritage Photo Library / Patricia Payne ©
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Building Faith in our Future The future for church buildings Paula Griffiths Head of Cathedral and Church Buildings Division, The Archbishops’ Council (formerly Assistant Regional Director, East of England Region)
The Church Heritage Forum’s policy statement, launched on 18 October 2004, called for more support for the nation’s church buildings.
Nobody who cares about the historic but who looks after these buildings? How can environment can ignore the significance of they be sustained for the future? There is often church buildings. Professional and public an impression that church buildings are a public interest covers many aspects of that significance: utility, available for everyone. In terms of the how churches illustrate the development of Church’s wish to serve the whole community, architecture from Saxon times onwards, the this is true. It is the regular congregation, historic continuity they represent, their beauty, however, who must maintain the buildings and the quirkiness of their memorials, their treasury support the activities within them. of art, sculpture, wall paintings, stained glass Even in this apparently secular age, faith and many other crafts, or the way they fit into matters. A recent survey of the census the landscape of a rural village, a market town to a Home Office report, published early this or a city. All aspects of the historic environment year,1 indicates that between % and % of are there. Indeed, % of all Grade buildings the population say they are Christian. Setting are Church of England churches. (Although aside the question of why they do not fill the this article is written primarily from a Church churches on Sundays, these figures indicate of England perspective, the arguments that that the activities within those buildings matter. follow apply equally to places of worship of Research sponsored by the Church of England other denominations and other faiths. Please in conjunction with English Heritage last year read it accordingly.) strikingly supports this survey,2 revealing that So far, the arguments are uncontroversial, % of adults in Great Britain had been into a church or place of worship in the previous months, including % of Christians, % of those of other faiths and % of those with no religion. Besides attendance at regular services, reasons given for visits included:
The Revd Diane Johnson 2004 • Attending funerals (% of respondents), ©
memorial services (%), weddings (%) or baptisms (%) • Attending concerts or theatrical performances (%) St Philip’s Church, • Attending community events (%; % in Leicester. This late 19th- rural areas) century church serves as a • Visiting with family or friends (%) focus for the local Anglican • Seeking a quiet place (%; nearly % in and Muslim communities. inner-city areas or city centres) Rebuilt after a fire in 1996, • Going past and feeling the need to go in (%). it now includes flexible In addition, views were expressed on the space for community and importance of the church building as part of the multi-cultural activity as historic environment and the life of the local well as Christian worship community: and activities. • % saw their local church as a place of
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worship, % as a local landmark and % buildings. What gives churches a special place as a historic place. is that they are buildings of living communities • % would be concerned if their local still used for their original purpose. We include church or chapel were no longer there. also those churches in the care of the Churches • % agreed that churches should also be Conservation Trust, which, although no longer used for activities other than worship. used for regular worship, remain consecrated, • % thought the Government already many holding a small number of services funded maintenance of church buildings, during the year. The Trust, funded by the St Mary’s Church, % thought it should – and % believed DCMS (%) and the Church Commissioners Potsgrove, Bedfordshire that local taxes should contribute. (%), is in fact the only part of the Church of (Grade II*). The quiet England that receives guaranteed funding from tranquillity of this 14th- Increased interest in churches the Government as opposed to discretionary century rural church, repair grants, although the DCMS contribution now looked after by the Against this background, we face an has remained constant in cash terms since Churches Conservation extraordinary dilemma. Never has there been ⁄. Trust, sums up the so much interest in the historic environment, If you visit any major cathedral during the significance which church but never has there been so much to manage, week, you will probably find tourists studying buildings have for many. whether churches or other historic sites and guide books, guided tours explaining points of interest, school parties using the building to learn about National Curriculum subjects such as maths, art, history or religious education. You may hear the organ playing, see preparations for a play or concert, see an exhibition of cathedral treasures, have a cup of tea and a cake, and buy souvenirs in the shop. Underpinning all this activity is the daily pattern of worship – the rationale of the building’s existence – and its work in the community with groups of all kinds. The same pattern is repeated on a smaller scale in parish churches across the land. A study of the diocese of Norwich3 identified an extraordinary range of activities taking place in the church buildings: music and drama events, day-care facilities for the elderly, village quizzes and a teddy bear parachute jump from the church tower. Similarly, a church in Leicestershire has provided space for a well- used Post Office, and a programme funded by the Millennium Commission (Rural Churches in Communities Service) has enabled modest adaptations of rural churches to include other activities, such as cyber cafés or luncheon clubs, while continuing primarily as places of worship. Urban and rural churches alike use their buildings imaginatively, bringing all sections of the community together.
Economic benefits Churches and cathedrals also directly benefit the economy. A survey in 4 showed that church volunteers in Norwich provide , hours of social action services within the city of Norwich each year, equal to full- time workers. The cost of employing them would have been £, at today’s national minimum wage of £. per hour. Research carried out in estimated that the , Kate Weaver 2004
© churches of all denominations in Yorkshire and
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the Humber provide social action worth £– £ million per year.5 Trevor Cooper (–) suggests that if these figures were scaled up Alex Rowe 2003 to include the approximately , churches © in England, then the value of social action undertaken by churches in England could be as high as £–£ million per year.6 A recent survey for the Association of English Cathedrals and English Heritage shows that visitors to cathedrals directly generate spend of £ million.7
Repair costs Much of this activity represents a new confidence among churches and greater readiness to proclaim what has often been unsung work. There is an increasing recognition, however, that the work cannot be done alone. The financial support from public public funding. The statement also suggests St John the Baptist sources, particularly English Heritage and the models of good practice for the Church itself. Church, Whitbourne, Heritage Lottery Fund, as well as local regional We recognise the need for a professional Worcestershire (Grade bodies and voluntary trusts, has been much approach to buildings and building projects, II*). With the help of appreciated. So, too, has the Listed Places of the need to build capacity within the church a grant from the Rural Worship Grant Scheme, which has enabled and the need to keep our own legal structures Churches in Community VAT to be reclaimed on repairs of listed church as effective as possible. In particular, the way Service Programme, a buildings. There are challenges, though, that forward for many parishes will be to take a new two-storey structure remain, including the pressures of small regular careful look at what the buildings can provide accommodating a kitchen, congregations, high repair costs, the impact and how they best fulfil the needs of their lavatory and two meeting of new legislation on volunteers and the lack different communities. The best use of a quiet areas was built. of understanding by many potential partners country church with box pews, for example, about what the Church can provide. would probably not suit a large modern town Existing public funds are not sufficient to church. English Heritage’s policy leaflet, New support the Church in the role it plays in the Works in Historic Churches, which supports nation’s life. Church of England churches appropriate adaptations to keep buildings in use alone spent £ million on repairs in ; the for the future, is welcomed (see Derrick, –). combination of support from English Heritage, There is a need for more money, but also for the Heritage Lottery Fund and reclaim of VAT recognition and partnership. We hope that our together covered less than % of the costs. policy statement will stimulate discussion and Figures being gathered from parochial returns action and will build on the foundations already for , not yet complete, indicate that the laid down, to ensure a sustainable future outstanding repair costs on listed churches in for our church buildings for this and future two dioceses alone – Norwich (£ million) and generations. Chelmsford (£ million) – equal the whole 1 Home Office Citizenship Survey, , Religion in amount available from the English Heritage/ England and Wales Heritage Lottery Fund repair scheme for 2 Opinion Research Business (ORB), October , ⁄. The achievements are considerable but Annual Religious Survey of Religious Affiliation and fragile. Practice, including perceptions of the role of local churches and chapels 3 Diocese of Norwich, November , Church Buildings: The Church New policy A source of delight and a source of anxiety Heritage Forum 4 Survey undertaken by Keswick Hall-based research brings together The Church Heritage Forum’s policy organisation OPERA in June representatives 5 Churches Regional Commission for Yorkshire and statement, Building Faith in Our Future, the Humber Ltd, Angels and Advocates: Church social of national and seeks to set out the issues, celebrate existing action in Yorkshire and Humberside ( New Market local church achievements, develop greater understanding Street, Leeds, ; www.crc-online.org.uk or email interests in and seek partnership. Its key recommendations [email protected] matters relating 6 Cooper, T How do we keep our Parish Churches?, are addressed to outside partners: seeking The Ecclesiological Society (PO Box , New Malden, to the Church’s a more explicit recognition of what church ; www.ecclsoc.org) built heritage. buildings provide, as well as a greater level of 7 Further details will be published in Heritage Counts
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Keeping Parish Churches Facts and figures for Church of England churches Trevor Cooper Chairman of Council of the Ecclesiological Society and member of English Heritage’s Places of Worship Panel
The volunteers who look after our parish churches are working hard to maintain them but are under pressure.
At his recent inauguration, the Bishop of churches are not close to modern centres Gloucester called for ‘a slimmer, fitter Church’, of population. For example, % of church suggesting that it might sometimes ‘mean buildings are today in communities which letting go even of the church building we’ve together contain less than % of the population. loved all our lives.’ Nor is Gloucester alone in As might be expected, parish incomes differ having to give thought to the future of Church enormously. At the lower end, about , Benington Church, buildings. Why should this be? This article parishes have ordinary income of less than Lincolnshire (Grade I). The provides some facts and figures to put the £, per annum. chancel is a surprise: of situation in context. It deals only with Church Many church buildings are already used Early English date, it has of England (CoE) parish churches (using the for purposes other than worship, and this springers on either side for term loosely, to include chapels), as these can provide a source of income as well as a a vault that was never built. provide the great majority of listed places of service to the community. Uses range from the The future of the church is worship. ubiquitous mother and toddlers group, to major uncertain.
Who cares for church buildings? There are about , listed CoE parish church buildings (more listed churches than there are petrol stations), with about , in each of the three grades of listing and a further , unlisted. This enormous estate of listed buildings is looked after by small, independent voluntary groups – parish church congregations – using their own money, or carrying out fund- raising in their spare time (see Griffiths, –). On average, the number of adults in each church building on Sundays is between and , totalling something over , on a typical Sunday. Not everyone, however, turns up every Sunday; probably about . million adults attend with some degree of regularity. In addition, there is a cadre of full-time staff – the clergy – with about one clergyperson for every two church buildings. Congregations vary in size. In , some , parishes (%) had over adults attending Sunday services. On the other hand, roughly parishes (%) had ten adults or fewer worshipping on Sunday. One reason for David Digi / Digital Atlas of England these small congregations is that many rural ©
| Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn David Digi / Digital Atlas of England ©
Benington Church, Lincolnshire, a Grade I listed building now up for sale following its closure as a place of worship. schemes in which the buildings are a focus for used buildings, is not so easily available to the urban regeneration. There are no overall figures, CoE. but wider use of church buildings is certainly Looking ahead, the best estimate is for a on the increase. rate of closure of at least 60 churches per year Parish churches attract millions of ‘tourist’ on average for the foreseeable future – at least visits per year (probably between and equal to the previous highest rate, seen for a few million visits), and, for many other people, the years only in the s. Many of these closures buildings are an essential backdrop, even if not will be buildings of very high quality, such as visited. By encouraging tourism in this way, Benington Church, Lincolnshire (Grade ). The well-kept churches contribute significantly to Churches Conservation Trust, which was set local economies. Unfortunately, very little of up to preserve the best buildings and has more this money actually reaches the churches to than already in its care, will be quite unable help pay for repair bills. to absorb those closures, as its grant (about £ million per annum) has been reduced by some Pressures % in real terms.
There are various pressures on parishes. One How well are the buildings cared for? is financial: the CoE has a pensions crisis. Although voluntary giving has been rising – up Despite these pressures, it seems that the by more than a third in ten years, after allowing majority of church buildings are being kept for inflation – many parishes have found that an in reasonable condition or better. There is no increased proportion of their income is needed register of church buildings at risk, however, so to support the central funding of clergy salaries we have no firm statistics. Keeping churches and pensions. In one diocese, for example, % in good repair costs a great deal of money. In of parish income is now contributed to the , parish volunteers raised £ million for central pot, compared with % in . This repairs, about £, per church building on puts real pressure on church maintenance. average. This was a typical year. About £ Here we must scotch a myth: the CoE is not million of this money did not come from large fabulously wealthy (nor, myth number two, has grants but was raised by parishes under their it lost all its money through bad investments). own steam. We should all be grateful. After pensions, the subsidy to parishes from central investments is only about p per week for each adult who attends church. Another pressure is falling attendance, a The views expressed here are the problem shared with most other Christian author’s own and not necessarily those denominations in England. In the last of the Ecclesiological Society. This years, all-age attendance at CoE churches has article is based on his report, How dropped by about % and the number of do we keep our parish churches? salaried clergy by a similar amount. Fewer than (Ecclesiological Society, , ISBN % of churches have been closed, however, ), available for download and new ones (% of the total) have been or purchase from www.ecclsoc.org. opened to meet new needs. Sources for additional material are The option taken by other networks, such as included on the website. pubs and banks, of simply closing their under-
Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | PLACES OF WORSHIP
New Work in Historic Places of Worship New guidance from English Heritage Andrew Derrick Coordinator, English Heritage’s Places of Worship Panel, 2002–4
This document, published in 2003, explores the issues of new use and adaptation of historic places of worship that face all faiths and denominations.
English Heritage wishes to secure the • Achieve high standards of design, materials future of the country’s historic places of and craftsmanship. worship as living buildings at the heart of their These precepts are discussed more fully in communities. We believe that they should be New Work in Historic Places of Worship, which well used, and visited and enjoyed by all. We also contains advice on practical issues such as will work with congregations to accommodate heating and lighting, redecoration and window changing patterns of use while seeking to protection, as well as advice on major schemes protect the special architectural and historical relating to liturgical change or provision of interest of the buildings. additional facilities. Underlying our advice is the aim wherever English Heritage recognises the practical possible to sustain these buildings in use, advantages of locating new facilities within an primarily as places of worship. Alternative existing building, and, where the qualities of uses are not always easy to find and can be the interior allow for this, it is always worth damaging to the special architectural or historic considering as the first option. Liturgical interest of the building – more so than even change is of necessity concerned with the the most radical liturgical re-ordering. We will interior, and the leaflet contains advice on how therefore encourage the continuation of use, such change might be best accommodated both in our advisory role and through our within the constraints of an important historic grants for places of worship. interior. Demographic change and the decline in formal and regular religious observance mean Seating that many of these buildings may have to be used for additional appropriate purposes other Proposals for liturgical change or extended than worship if they are to remain in use and use inevitably give rise to questions about the fabric kept in good repair. Notwithstanding historic benches and pews, often the most the legal, pastoral or theological difficulties, this dominant features of a church or chapel is increasingly recognised by both church and interior. Pews have many practical advantages, secular authorities. but they can restrict flexibility. Some of the English Heritage considers that new work in most difficult cases are those th- and th- historic places of worship should: century ‘preaching boxes’, where fixed seating is • Be based on an understanding of the central to the character and significance of the architectural, historic, archaeological and building, and where the demand for flexibility is cultural significance of the building not easily reconciled with conservation. • Be founded on a clearly stated and Ian Serjeant (–) discusses the criteria demonstrable need used by the Methodist Church when • Respect the special architectural and historic considering proposals that affect historic interest of the building, its contents and its seating. English Heritage is commissioning setting research into historic church seating types to • Minimise intervention in significant historic increase understanding and establish priorities fabric (see Brown, –).
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Building extensions Extensions to historic churches and chapels also English Heritage often provoke controversy. They are difficult to © achieve successfully, especially (as is usually the case) when the budget is limited. It is unusual these days for churches to be extended, as they might have been in the past, for the purposes of accommodating a burgeoning congregation or some other liturgical function; today, the needs of congregations tend to be more prosaic (meeting rooms, kitchens and lavatories). The guidance note commends the building of freestanding rather than linked buildings to house new facilities. Freestanding buildings can avoid many of the difficulties encountered when grafting a new extension onto an ancient structure, and they often afford greater economy and flexibility of design.The practical advantages of linking new facilities to the existing building, however, are often stressed by applicants, and in many cases such arguments are beyond dispute. Medieval buildings are by nature accretive in character and often able to withstand further addition, provided that care is taken with design, scale and materials. More difficult is the extension of those buildings designed by a single architect. Where some form of linked addition may be necessary, it is the experience of English Heritage that the most satisfactory additions to historic churches are those that form an harmonious composition with the original building, appearing as a natural development from it. Aisles, transepts, chapels, vestries and Extended use in St porches all provide an established vocabulary Michael’s Church, for church extension. While the importance Cambridge (Grade II). The of ‘good manners in architecture’ cannot be chancel of this medieval overstated, this should not be interpreted as a church remains in use universal prescription for ‘safe’ or contextual for worship. The aisled design. English Heritage welcomes more nave, (above) which had architecturally ambitious or novel solutions previously lost its historic where the site, budget and brief allow for them, furnishings, now houses as in the new refectory at Norwich Cathedral a cafeteria and other (see Pordham, –). However, we do not community activities. commend the semi-detached solutions often favoured in recent years, whereby new buildings are joined to the old by a ‘glazed link’.
New Work in Historic Places of Worship (Product Code ) may be obtained free of charge from English Heritage Customer Services, PO Box , Swindon, Wiltshire ; Tel ; customers@english- heritage.org.uk. or downloaded from www.english-heritage.org.uk.
Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | PLACES OF WORSHIP
Norwich Cathedral’s new Refectory and Library Extension The client’s viewpoint on the planning process Colin Pordham Project Coordinator
Major development within the cathedral close has shown the importance of regular, informal discussion with approving bodies before formal submissions for planning permission.
The vision of a rebuilt refectory abutting but also with all those bodies entitled under the the south side of the cathedral cloister and Measure to make representations to the CFCE, of a reconstructed hostry or guest hall along namely English Heritage, the local planning the west side was first put forward by the late authority, the Society for the Protection of Dean Hook in a retirement address in . Ancient Buildings and the Royal Fine Art A generation later, and with the need for Commission (now defunct). As the scheme was improved educational and visitor facilities even developed by the architects, regular contact, more pressing, the implementation of that including site meetings, was maintained with vision has at last begun. those bodies before any formal submissions The monastic refectory and the adjoining were lodged. first-floor chamber at the south-east corner The local Fabric Advisory Committee of the cloister were extensive ruins, while the proved a most useful sounding board during the arched entrance is all that visibly remains of planning process. Once the CFCE’s approval the hostry. These were the highly sensitive sites with its detailed conditions was obtained, the selected, in consultation with the authorities, grant of planning permission became a much for the provision of a library extension, smoother process. restaurant, classrooms, song school, exhibition Phase of the new development has been space, meeting room and shop. the completion of the new Refectory and The proposals represented the largest the Library extension, thereby avoiding the extension to any English cathedral in recent interruption of any existing Cathedral activities times and were an early test of the new other than the closure of the cloister car park. procedures laid down in the Care of Cathedrals The smooth working of the contracting process Measure . Very helpfully, the Cathedrals and subsequent building operation owed much Fabric Commission for England (CFCE) to the able and dedicated design team working had produced suggested guidelines for major on the project, a team willing to adapt its developments within cathedral precincts, plans to accommodate the Cathedral’s wishes. and these were carefully followed. Early Essential to the process were professional archaeological assessments and trial excavations project managers reporting to the Project were essential to avoid unforeseen delays at a Management Committee that was established later stage. by the Chapter and chaired by a local but The key to securing the approval of the nationally known architect. The Chapter Clerk CFCE was for very early and informal was a member of the Management Committee consultation, not only with the Commission acting as Project Coordinator and representing
| Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn PLACES OF WORSHIP : Norwich Cathedral’s New Refectory and Library Extension
the Chapter at the design team’s monthly meetings. In a remarkable way the completed buildings Richard Davies © preserve the mediaeval footprint and, with their use of traditional materials, sit comfortably alongside the cloister. The incorporated remains of the original buildings are now more evident and much better appreciated. The eating area at first floor level is light and airy, while the interior of the Library extension has a distinctive beauty of its own. The former ruins have been brought to life again to serve the needs of a new millennium.
Interior (left) and exterior (below) of the new Refectory, designed by Hopkins Architects Ltd. Paul Tyagi ©
Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | PLACES OF WORSHIP
Removing Pews from Historic Chapels The Methodist Church’s approach Ian Serjeant Conservation Officer, Methodist Church
The removal of pews is frequently proposed to achieve greater flexibility. How does the Methodist Church reach a decision?
In , the Connexional Property Secretary an explanatory statement usually suffices. New Room, Wesley of the Methodist Church took the unusual Naturally, the most controversial schemes Chapel (1739), step of overriding the church’s Conservation are those for the wholesale removal of pews Broadmead, Bristol (Grade Officer’s advice and allowed the removal of from original interiors, but it is interesting I). A recent proposal most of the ground floor box pews from James to note that the amenity bodies now tend to for the removal of the Simpson’s Barnby Gate chapel in Newark. This express regret at removal rather than raise ground floor box pews was provoked an outcry among the amenity bodies, objection. The loss of small sections of pews refused. John Wesley, the which thought it demonstrated the failure of to create flexible space or to increase capacity first Methodist preacher, the new system of ecclesiastical exemption. The for wheelchair users, for example, is rarely was a frequent visitor and reason for this decision was clear: the mission of controversial. preacher. the church must take priority. It is interesting to note the growth of that particular church from that point. No such over-rulings have occurred subsequently, but how have other applications been dealt with, and what criteria are employed in reaching decisions? General policy guidance is based on PPG : ‘[L]isted buildings do vary greatly in the extent to which they can accommodate change ... Some may be sensitive even to slight changes ... not just great houses, but also, for example, chapels with historic fittings …’ (.), and ‘Generally the best way of securing the upkeep of historic buildings ... is to keep them in active use ... [E]ven continuing uses will often necessitate some degree of adaptation’ (.). More specific guidance comes from the Methodist Church’s Listed Buildings Advisory Committee to which all major schemes are referred, such as those involving wholesale removal of pews and any proposals affecting Grade or * buildings. A guidance note, Removal of Pews from Historic Chapels, first produced in and updated regularly since, covers all the main issues that must be considered. Where major proposals are submitted, the Methodist Church requires the preparation of statements of significance and need. If the Methodist Church proposal is only for the removal of a few pews, ©
| Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn PLACES OF WORSHIP : Take a Pew
Do many original interiors survive? In Diversity and Vitality: The Methodist and Non- conformist Chapels of Cornwall (Lake, Cox and
Berry, ), published jointly by English Methodist Church © Heritage and the Methodist Church, the authors concluded that few unaltered interiors remain, there having been a regular process of refitting in most chapels. The continuing process of change may, therefore, be viewed as a normal part of the life of any particular congregation. The following cases illustrate the range of schemes that have been received: • St Andrew’s, Psalter Lane, Sheffield, was formed by the amalgamation of a Methodist and an Anglican congregation. The building dates from and was largely unaltered. The Twentieth Century Society objected to the loss of the pews, but on balance, it was thought to be justified because of the need to maximise flexibility of use for the enlarged congregation. • The proposal to remove the majority of the ground floor pews at Truro Methodist Church, Cornwall, proved controversial. The chapel dates from and is by Philip Sambell, refitted in the late th century by Sylvanus Trevail, both notable Cornish architects. Despite objections, permission was granted for the removal of the majority of pews on the basis that the overall scheme was of merit and could not proceed without this crucial element. The subsequent successful implementation of the scheme seems to have allayed the fears over the potential damage to the interior. • The managing trustees at Winsley, Wiltshire, were advised by the Listed Buildings Advisory Committee that the scheme for the removal of all the interior fittings was St Andrew’s Church, they were not part of his original design and unlikely to be acceptable. One of the main Psalter Lane, Sheffield of no intrinsic merit. features of the Arts and Crafts chapel (Grade II), now used by Where consent is granted for the removal of was the relatively complete interior. An an amalgamation of a pews, standard conditions are normally applied amended scheme removing a single pew was Methodist and Anglican as follows: approved. congregation. The pews • Representative examples are to be kept, the • The New Room in Bristol (1739) is the have been removed to location to be agreed. oldest purpose-built Methodist building provide a flexible interior • A photographic record of the pews shall be in the world. A controversial scheme for with a central retractable made prior to their removal. the removal of the ground floor box pews dais. • Pews to be removed shall not be destroyed was recently refused on the basis that even but offered for sale or re-use elsewhere. though the pews were of relatively recent It is important to stress, however, that date (), they had replaced and replicated each case is dealt with on its merits. The an early th century design, and their loss completeness, age, rarity and quality of would damage the fragile character of this the pews are all evaluated, together with iconic building. the statement explaining the reason for the • Overstrand in Norfolk, dating from , is proposal. What is rarely an issue is comfort: the only known non-conformist chapel by Sir certainly, it does not seem to be an issue in the Edwin Lutyens. The proposal to remove all wine bars and pubs where most recycled pews pews was uncontroversial, however, because seem to end up.
Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | PLACES OF WORSHIP
The Church of the Sacred Heart, Henley-on-Thames A threatened dismantling of the Pugins’ High Altar Roderick O’Donnell Inspector of Historic Buildings, London Region
The re-ordering of Henley Catholic Church went to inquiry. English Heritage’s assessment of the proposal to dismantle the altar is explained.
Changes to the Catholic liturgy following cupboard in which the wafers consecrated the Second Vatican Council (–) included at Mass are stored – was to be relocated at a the use of the vernacular rather than Latin in slightly lower level on a lesser sub-structure the Mass, with the priest facing the worshipers. supported on two new columns. The gilt wood Since then, many churches have been radically reliquary box under the altar, a rare survival, The Church of the Sacred stripped of their furnishings to enable this was to be relocated within a new stone forward Heart, Henley-on-Thames revolution in worship. altar. The liturgical thrust was thus to (Grade ll). The east end. The Church of the Sacred Heart at Henley- on-Thames (Grade ), built in , was designed by the architect ASG Butler to include a magnificent high altar of – by AW and EW Pugin. The altar, originally commissioned for a private chapel that was demolished in , had been in storage. In his new church, Butler reinstalled AW Pugin’s flanking statues and EW Pugin’s reliquary and columnar mensa or ‘table’ altar, with its tabernacle, gradines, magnificent figured sculpture reredos, and the stained glass window of as the climax of the east end ensemble. As with many Catholic churches, the sanctuary had been temporarily re-ordered over the period of 40 years since the Second Vatican Council. The Pugin altar was unused, and temporary furnishings, including a fine wooden table altar by the architect Francis Pollen, were introduced to allow Mass to be said facing the congregation. In , the parish priest applied to the Historic Churches Committee (HCC) of the Archdiocese of Birmingham for a Faculty to install a new altar, chair and ambo, and to change levels within the sanctuary. The proposal involved the truncation of parts of the altar,by lowering its steps and dismantling the columns and stone table (which were to be R O’Donnell stored). The tabernacle – the heavily decorated ©
| Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn PLACES OF WORSHIP : The Church of the Sacred Heart, Henley-on-Thames
reduce the emphasis on the former east end Birmingham Archdiocese, the altar was the last arrangement. surviving example of a particularly magnificent Following consultation, English Heritage and altar ensemble. the local planning authority both objected to English Heritage and others pursued their the proposals, as did the Victorian Society, the objection through to appeal – uniquely, third Pugin Society, individual experts and members party appeal is allowed under the Roman of the congregation. Following approval of the Catholic procedures – which was held in June application by the HCC, the case was referred 2003, when the scheme was refused permission. to English Heritage’s Places of Worship Panel. A revised application submitted a year later Our particular concern here was not the was granted permission, and we hope that the philosophy behind the liturgical reform but the former high altar will be repaired and conserved high art-historical value of the altar, as the work as a worthy element in the re-planned of AW Pugin and his son. Following years of sanctuary. vigorously pursued liturgical re-ordering in the Graham Miller ©
The Church of the Sacred Heart, Henley-on-Thames (Grade ll). The reliquary, altar, tabernacle and reredos.
Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | PLACES OF WORSHIP
The Church of Notre Dame de France, London W1 Re-ordering a 20th-century listed church Paul Velluet Assistant Regional Director and Regional Architect, London Region
The recent re-ordering of the distinctive mid-20th- century listed church of Notre Dame de France in Soho is an example of a successful compromise.
In September , the Secretary of State listed a further post-World War churches following a national three-year survey. Among that number was the distinctive church of Notre Dame de France in Soho (Grade ). Designed by Hector Corfiato with Thomson and Partners, the church was built between and in the heart of the West End, on the site of the seriously bomb-damaged brick and iron church of designed by Louis Auguste Boileau for the French community in London. Corfiato’s church is circular in plan, like its predecessor as well as the original building on the site, Burford’s Panorama of . Unlike Boileau’s church, however, the present one comprises a generously proportioned day- lit circular central space contained within a tall arcade of bays, the plain, classical reconstituted stone columns of which support a perimeter gallery above an ambulatory, baptistery, side chapel and vestries. The significance of the church was twofold. First, its liturgical plan – with the principal altar and sanctuary located within the main body of the church, on the east side of the circle – reflected the influence of the Continental Liturgical Movement some ten years before the major liturgical reforms brought about by the Second Vatican Council; and second, the interior was enhanced by a coherent series of modern art works influenced by the French ‘Art Sacré’ movement.
The art works include murals on the walls LLP of the side chapel by Jean Cocteau; a fine large tapestry in the easternmost bay by Dom Robert de Chaumac, woven in Aubusson; sculpture Academy Projects and other carved stonework by Georges ©
| Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn PLACES OF WORSHIP : The Church of Notre Dame de France, London W1
LLP that would have resulted in the loss of key features of the interior: the architect Corfiato’s original principal altar, ambos and fine marble communion rails. Collaborative discussion Academy Projects
© during the first six months of between the architect Gerald Murphy, the parish, English Heritage and the Archdiocese of Westminster Historic Churches Committee, however, led to significantly amended proposals. These gained the support of those consulted as well as the formal approval of the Historic Churches Committee in July , and were subsequently implemented. Those consulted had consistently accepted the liturgical desirability of locating the principal altar closer to the congregation and supported the proposed creation of a small space behind the proposed new sanctuary for a new tabernacle set on a pedestal (replacing the original tabernacle that had been placed anomalously for some years on top of the font). Those consulted argued strongly, however, for the retention and re-use of the original altar at its original size. They thus welcomed the preparedness of the parish to adopt this approach in the final scheme; they welcomed, too, the creation of a new, modestly elevated elliptical sanctuary, with ramped access, the altar at its centre, and the relocation of the original communion rails to the side chapel. Similarly, those consulted argued strongly for the retention in situ of the original matching ambos against the strongly expressed view of the parish that current liturgical practice dictated that only one ambo was necessary. This difference of view was resolved by the agreement of the parish carefully to dismantle, relocate and reconstruct both ambos to The Church of Notre Saupique and his students from the Paris École positions near the curved wall behind the new Dame de France, London des Beaux-Arts; and a mosaic by Boris Anrep sanctuary and to provide a wholly new ambo (Grade II). One of the two set into the front of the altar in the side chapel, within the new sanctuary. original ambos, or pulpits concealed for many years and only revealed While aspects of the detailed design of some (above), reconstructed during the recent re-ordering. of the new works may be open to criticism, the and relocated behind the Of particular relevance in the original design, overall scheme may be regarded as a successful new sanctuary adjacent to both liturgically and artistically, were the reconciliation between the perceived liturgical the newly created space matching ambos, or pulpits, set to each side of needs of today and the retention of elements of around the new tabernacle. the original wide sanctuary where it projected a distinctive th-century listed church. furthest into the body of the church: one with incised motifs and the names of the four great prophets and the other with incised symbols The Church of Notre and the names of the four evangelists. Dame de France, London Proposals for substantial re-ordering of (Grade II). The original the church were put forward by the parish altar set in the newly community from onwards, based on a created elliptical sanctuary literal interpretation of the Catholic Church’s with the new tabernacle, current liturgical teaching. Those consulted, containing the wafers such as English Heritage, Westminster City consecrated at Mass, set Council and The Twentieth Century Society, on the pedestal beyond. were confronted with proposed alterations
Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | PLACES OF WORSHIP
New Research on Places of Worship ‘Open Thou Mine Eyes’ • Psalm 119 Sarah Brown Head of Research Policy for Places of Worship
Research supported by English Heritage will inform decisions affecting historic churches and their furnishings.
Places of worship are central to our cultural in Tower Hamlets. In November , and national identity and offer a place of a conference, Religion and Place Today: contemplation (see Griffiths, –). The skylines Buildings and Urban Communities, organised of our towns and cities are dominated by the in partnership with the Buildings Books Trust, towers and spires of churches and chapels, will be held at the new London Muslim Centre and the ancient village settlement clustered on Whitechapel Road (see News, ). around the church is an iconic image of English life. England’s historic synagogues The Commissioners’ Churches are now attracting the appreciation that they deserve (see Kadish, –), and, in many In the early th century, concern for the neighbourhoods, the distinctive presence of the godlessness of the rapidly growing population Muslim mosque, Sikh gurdwara and Hindu in the new industrial towns of Britain was mandir is testimony to other established faith coupled with a realisation that Anglican church communities. The future of these historic places accommodation in many of them was totally St George’s German of worship must be built on knowledge and an inadequate. Without a seat in an Anglican Lutheran Church, Alie understanding of their significance. Research church, it was feared, vulnerable members Street, London Borough undertaken and supported by the Historic of the Church of England could fall into the of Tower Hamlets Buildings and Areas Research Department, hands of non-conformists or political radicals. (Joel Johnson and some of it outlined here, will contribute to Company, 1763, Grade our appreciation of these buildings and the I), photographed c 1928. communities they serve. Significant numbers of German Protestant Religion and Place refugees fled to London before 1700, but the Religion and Place is a project designed to arrival of the Hanoverian increase our understanding of the importance Court in the 18th century of places of worship in shaping the built was not the only factor environment of the past and in helping to that encouraged further reshape it for the future. In Liverpool and the immigration. St George’s, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, English the oldest surviving Heritage has undertaken rapid surveys of German church in buildings of all faiths and denominations, Britain, was built to serve examining the architectural expression of Whitechapel’s close-knit religious observance and cultural diversity, and community of German forging relationships with communities hitherto sugar refiners. St George’s unfamiliar with our work. A booklet on places is now in the care of The of worship in Liverpool, a contribution to the Historic Chapels Trust, HELP project, will be published in , and with extensive recent we are working with the Buildings Exploratory restoration supported by NMR. English Heritage on a model-making project involving schools © English Heritage.
| Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn Consequently, between and , two government grants totalling the then enormous sum of over £ million were spent on building churches to accomodate over , people. Built to a budget, these buildings generally received a bad press: AWN Pugin’s view was that ‘a more meagre, miserable display of architectural skill never was made’, and ‘Commissioners’ Gothic’ became a term of derision. The Commissioners’ Churches remain one of the least appreciated aspects of the Church of England’s architectural inheritance. Their construction, however, was one of the most significant church building initiatives since the Middle Ages, coinciding with the early stages of the great th-century church building boom and bridging the Regency and Victorian eras, a period of rapid change in the architectural history of the th century. Despite the poor reputation of the Commissioners’ Churches, many nationally important architects (Sir John Soane, Thomas Rickman, and George Gilbert Scott, for example) were employed on Commissioners’ projects. Many other buildings were the work
of less well-known local builders and architects, English Heritage / Peter Williams the subjects of recent regional studies. © In , Professor MH Port’s Six Hundred stone benches along the walls, and occasionally The atmospheric but New Churches (London: SPCK) provided an around the piers, had been provided for the little-known crypt of invaluable inventory of the Commissioners’ elderly and infirm. The Reformation’s emphasis St Anthony’s Roman Churches. A relatively small number of on preaching and teaching – the ministry of Catholic Church, Scotland churches had already been lost and many more the word – made seating for the congregation Road, Liverpool (John altered, most commonly by the addition of a far more important. The pulpit and reading Broadbent, 1833, Grade chancel extension and vestry, the removal of desk replaced the altar as the focal point of II). Built on the site of the galleries and the addition of late th-century the church interior, with benches and pews so-called French Chapel, furnishings. Many more are feared to have been arranged around the pulpit to ensure maximum St Anthony’s is Liverpool’s lost or altered beyond recognition during the visibility and audibility. earliest Roman Catholic last years. Features were introduced to increase comfort church to survive in use. The study of th-century church building during long sermons in unheated churches, during the last years, however, has such as doors to exclude draughts and provide progressed significantly, and a new survey of privacy, cushions, fabrics and even fireplaces surviving Commissioners’ buildings is long for the private family pews of those who paid overdue. Most Commissioners’ Churches are pew rents. As the seating arrangement reflected in inner-city areas increasingly vulnerable to the social hierarchy of a parish, competition the consequences of rapid demographic and for the best seats was fierce and could provoke commercial change. In January , English discord. Locks added to pew doors safeguarded Heritage commissioned the Architectural the claims of pew proprietors, and sextons History Practice to undertake an investigation were required to usher them to their seats, of these under-valued churches. A national though clearly not quickly enough for Samuel database of churches lost and surviving will and Elizabeth Pepys, parishioners of St Olave’s soon be available for public consultation. Church, Hart Street, in the City of London: ‘In the morning to church, where at the door of Benches and pews our pew I was fain to stay, because the sexton had not opened the door’ (Samuel Pepys, The th-century Reformation accelerated the December ). tendency to fill churches with fixed seating for The appropriation of the most prominent the laity. Benches had first been installed in church spaces by the wealthier families of parish churches in the late Middle Ages, but, the parish forced the poor to the margins. for much of the medieval period, only a few By the s and s, the inadequacies of
Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | reasonable doubt can now be entertained of English Heritage / Jonathan Bailey
© a complete and speedy victory.’ In successive decades, many thousands of parish churches installed new pews, or replaced old ones, in the Ecclesiological style. As a result, the box pews, for example, of St Anne and St Lawrence Church, Elmstead, Essex, once a commonplace, are now a cherished curiosity (opposite below). Many late th-century pews included refinements such as a book slope for Bible and hymnbook, a kneeling board or hook to support a suspended hassock or a gentleman’s hat, and a rack with a small tray for wet umbrellas. In many new th-century churches, pews were part of an harmonious scheme. The architect William Butterfield, for example, designed pews for many of his churches and published articles on their utility and comfort. A fierce opponent of the hassock, he advocated kneeling boards as a more sanitary alternative to the infested kneeler found in many an impoverished city parish. The habit of pew proprietorship was hard to break. Pew rents continued to be charged well into the th century, and pews continued to be treated as the property of their regular occupants. Pews were often numbered or painted with the name of the family or the The tower of St John’s church provision in rapidly expanding and estate to which its occupants belonged. A small Church, Bethnal Green industrialising towns, particularly for the poor, brass plate might hold a discreet card with the (Sir John Soane, 1826–8). caused considerable concern in the Church of occupant’s name. In England’s increasingly The eminent and elderly England. The Incorporated Church Building popular seaside resorts, proprietors of the better Sir John Soane designed Society, founded in to support the boarding houses maintained a private pew for three of London’s building and enlargement of Anglican churches, the use of their church-going guests. Pews, Commissioners’ Churches, required that all churches in receipt of ICBS therefore, contain valuable evidence of the though the final designs money should provide free seats in some, if not devotional and social lives of our church and for St John’s attracted all, of the church. Non-Conformist chapels, in chapel-going predecessors. criticism. The original contrast, were plentifully supplied with seats In the st century, many thousands designs of 1825 were set within interiors of majestic, even theatrical of churches and chapels face further similar to those for St character, enhancing the eloquence of the transformation (see Serjeant, –; Barter Peter’s Church, Walworth highly regarded preachers of their day. and Hatton, –; Durran, ). With declining (1823–5) but exceeded For the Anglican reformers of the th congregations, few now require the historic the budget of £16,000. century Ecclesiological movement, private fixed seating that accommodated many Consequently, Soane box pews (or ‘pues’) were a potent symbol of hundreds of regular Sunday worshippers. submitted two variants for the decadence of the Regency church: ‘For Changing styles of worship, as well as the the tower; unsurprisingly, what is the HISTORY OF PUES, but the history desire to include new religious, secular and the short cheaper design of the intrusion of human pride, selfishness even commercial activity, mean that many was constructed, attracting and indolence into the worship of God?’ (JM congregations now prefer a flexible interior criticism from pundits and Neale, ). A campaign for their removal to the constraints of fixed pews. The most local residents. Bethnal and replacement with open, eastward-facing endangered seats are often the finest: chancel Green’s dominant local benches, to emulate what was believed to have seats intended for the choir and clergy. In politician Joseph Merceron been common medieval practice, was launched many churches, the altar has been brought out described the eccentric by the Cambridge Camden Society, and war of the chancel to the east end of the nave or tower as having ‘mortified was waged in the pages of their influential even placed in the midst of the congregation. and disappointed the journal, The Ecclesiologist. By , the Society In these circumstances, choir stalls and clergy Expectations of almost could claim that ‘if we cannot yet announce that seats seem stranded and redundant. every individual.’ every battlemented enclosure, every towering For these reasons, English Heritage partition has been levelled with the dust… so is commissioning a study of the history many breaches appear everywhere… that no and typology of historic church seating,
| Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M
PLACES OF WORSHIP : New Research on Places of Worship M Y 25% 75% Stanmer Church, Brighton (Ralph Joanes of Lewes, B
1838, Grade II), one of C the churches threatened with closure in the recent 50% Brighton and Hove M deaneries review. 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M
Some historic elements, Y such as the late-18th- 25%
century box pews, pulpit English Heritage / Sarah Brown and reading desk that add © 75% much to the character of particularly of th-century and early th- can be done to adapt historic pews, retaining the early-14th-century century developments. What are the basic pew their character and quality of materials and B church of St Anne and designs, and can they be dated? How rare are craftsmanship, while providing greater comfort, C St Lawrence, Elmstead, particular forms, and are there regional and especially for the elderly, infirm or disabled?
Essex, are now considered denominational characteristics that ought The next few decades may well witness a 50% a constraint by many 21st- to be taken into consideration in deciding transformation of church seating every bit as century worshippers. about future use, re-use or disposal? What far-reaching as that of the s and s. This M
research will inform all those involved in the 50% process. Y
The Churches of Brighton and Hove 50%
In June , the Pastoral Strategy Review B
Group’s report was met with dismay by 50% many in the deaneries of Brighton and Hove (Chichester Diocese). The report made a C+M+Y
number of recommendations for church C+Y closure, merger and redevelopment, affecting
churches both of national significance as well C as local importance. The plans envisaged, C+M among other things, drastic changes for the
churches of Barry’s St Peter’s (–, Grade M *), Emerson’s St Mary, Upper Rock Gardens (–, Grade *) and Pearson’s majestic All Y
Saints, Hove (–, Grade ). 25% To ensure that the architectural and historical significance of each building is 75%
taken into account, English Heritage has B commissioned Teresa Sladen to undertake a thorough assessment of the churches of the two C
deaneries. Her work will inform guidelines for 50% similar diocesan and deanery reviews in the English Heritage / Patricia Payne M
© Chichester Diocese and beyond. 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP : Article title M 50% C
B The Diocese of Manchester
75% Strategy, capacity and advice 25% Marion Barter Historic Buildings Inspector, North West Region Y Tim Hatton Historic Church Buildings Officer, The Diocese of Manchester M
C+M An Historic Church Buildings Officer develops strategies
C for historic church buildings and links between parishes
C+Y and the wider community. C+M+Y 50%
B The challenges facing the Diocese of Tim Hatton is now engaged in gathering Manchester were outlined in Conservation information on the vulnerability and overall 50% Bulletin , –. Of the churches within condition of each church building. The aim is
Y the Diocese, about are listed buildings; to establish which churches are joint priorities many are Victorian churches built during for English Heritage and the Diocese. This
50% Manchester’s rapid th-century growth. will inform a strategy that directs resources to
M Due to population changes and other factors, those most in need, either because of the poor some of these historic church buildings are condition of the building or because of a lack of
50% vulnerable to decline and potential closure. capacity within the parish to manage or develop Recognising that the capacity within parishes to the building. C manage church buildings and develop projects Tim Hatton supports the priority parishes
B is a particular issue, the Diocese approached by helping to explore options for increasing the English Heritage in about the potential viability of their church building, advising on 75% for a jointly funded advisory post. At the same grant sources and liaising with local authorities
25% time, the English Heritage regional team and other regeneration agencies to develop wanted to ensure that funds within the Repair community partnerships. Another important Y Grants for Places of Worship scheme reach role of the post is to advise on maintenance. parishes most in need of financial support for A good practice guidance booklet is in M repair projects. preparation, which will encourage a move
C+M Positive discussions between the Diocese and from occasional major repair programmes the regional team led to the appointment of a towards planned preventative maintenance (see C Historic Church Buildings Officer for a three- Russell, ). To be successful, this approach
C+Y year period. Tim Hatton took up the post in would benefit from public subsidy, although no October , based in Church House, where sources exist at present.
C+M+Y he is part of a team providing a range of advice and support to parishes. 50% New facilities in important interiors
B The objectives of the post Many churches wish to create new facilities, both for themselves and the wider community, 50% The post has two distinct, but linked objectives: particularly where the church building is
Y to assist the Diocese in developing a strategic under-used. While this aspiration may be approach to church buildings and to support relatively easy to achieve in church buildings 50% joint priority parishes in the management of where the interiors have already been altered or
M their historic church buildings. damaged or are of low architectural or historic This appointment will ensure that the significance, it can be challenging in buildings 50% Diocese and English Heritage work closely with important interiors.
C together to address issues of common concern, An example of the latter is St Peter’s but there are challenges. New church listings, Church, Blackley, in north Manchester, a
B following English Heritage’s review in Grade * listed Commissioners’ Church, dating of the Diocese’s historic church buildings, from and designed by EH Shellard, a local 75% identified those that are most significant architect. Over the past three years, English
25% for their architectural or historic interest. Heritage has part-funded masonry repairs,
Y | Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y 50% B 50% Y 50% M 50% C B 75% 25% Y M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% building. St Peter’s, however, is unusual in retaining a complete early Victorian interior B
with galleries and gothic box pews. This interior C is part of the special interest of the church 50%
Diocese of Manchester building but also presents an obstacle to its © re-ordering. Tim Hatton has encouraged the M church to consider various options that include an extension, the removal of some of the pews 50% to create space under the gallery, or even a separate church hall. This process will ensure Y that the best solution will be found, to meet 50% local needs and retain the special character of the church building. B
St Clement’s Church, Spotland, in Rochdale 50%
(Grade ), designed by Lewis Vulliamy in C+M+Y , is another example of a Commissioners’
Church with a galleried interior. In , a C+Y grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund enabled the church to provide much-needed community C
facilities at the west end of the building: a new C+M community hall, kitchen and lavatories. A new gallery front further east, and the removal of M five rows of pews, has limited the impact of the Y new scheme on the nave.This is a good example of how a modest scheme can meet the changing 25% needs of a parish within an historic building. 75%
Diocese of Manchester It also illustrates the potential for closer © partnership between local authorities and the B St Peter’s Church (Grade re-roofing and dry rot treatment to ensure that Church of England. Rochdale Social Services C II*), Blackley, North the building fabric will be secure for many now uses the community hall for adults with
Manchester, showing part years to come. The local community needs a learning difficulties every weekday; the building 50% of the nave and chancel. community centre, and St Peter’s Church is the has become a focus for the community. The only public building in ‘old Blackley village’. Historic Church Buildings Officer will explore M
Ideally, the community and church would like the potential for this type of project with other 50% the facilities to be provided within the church parishes. Y 50% B 50% Diocese of Manchester © C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M
A social event at St Peter’s Y
Church amid the early 25% Victorian box pews. The church is the only public 75%
building in the village, B and the congregation is considering options for the C
provision of a community 50% centre for the church as well as local groups. M 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP : Article title M 50% C
B The Diocese of London
75% Church buildings at risk 25% The Reverend Maggie Durran Historic Churches Project Officer, Diocese of London Y M An Historic Churches Projects Officer describes the C+M responsibilities of advising London churches with major C repair needs. C+Y C+M+Y
50% After several years as a vicar in south financial strategies in London, open to other B London, I was appointed in to a part-time dioceses. post as Historic Churches Project Officer in Large sums of money can be raised only 50% the Diocese of London, funded jointly by the if it is clear that the building is viable, the
Y Diocese and English Heritage. My job is to church’s future is relatively secure, and financial advise the Grade and * churches that are management is sound. I advise churches about St Martin’s Church,
50% either on English Heritage’s Buildings At Risk financial accounts and encourage stewardship Gospel Oak, Camden
M register or will be soon unless someone turns programmes, local community networks and (EB Lamb, 1864–5, the tide. I work with the various archdeacons audits of need, as well as an understanding Grade I). After two years
50% and the property department but also with of their own mission and how they intend of monthly meetings, others outside the formal structure. to achieve their aims. The results have been church sales, sponsored C Each church faces daunting challenges, and good. One of the churches has now received walks, donations, and an
B nearly all lack the people and skills to face those (and nearly spent) £ million on its repair and application to the Joint challenges. There is, however, goodwill and conservation project; another has received £. Repair Scheme, substantial 75% commitment that can be supported by someone million and at least ten others from £, funds were secured to
25% with experience in management, development to £,. repair the roof. and fundraising. I work with clergy, church Y councils and building committees to enable, wherever possible, local people to face those M challenges. Most churches struggling with
C+M major building and financial problems are also seeking to understand their mission, the C major purpose behind building projects and
C+Y fundraising. In all cases, a sense of local mission and commitment is essential in securing funds
C+M+Y and plans for the continuation of the building as a place of worship. 50% There is also the question of what to do
B with a building that has become surplus to the needs of the local mission and possibly could be 50% heading for redundancy. In such cases, it may
Y be in the best interest of the building to draw up a business plan, with or without the support 50% of the clergy and church council, for alternative
M or additional uses in order to keep it in good repair for the interests of the local community. 50%
C Financial advice
B In addition to working with Grade and * listed churches on or likely to be on the 75% Buildings at Risk register, I run seminars, Crown copyright. NMR / S Barker BB/10290 © 25% workshops and conferences on fundraising and
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PLACES OF WORSHIP PLACES OF WORSHIP : Article title M Y 25% 75%
Jewish Heritage UK B C
New research and recording 50%
Sharman Kadish Director, Jewish Heritage UK M 50%
A major research project, supported by English Y
Heritage, is recording the vanishing architectural 50%
heritage of British Jewry. B 50% C+M+Y
The -year-old Bevis Marks Synagogue fostering greater understanding of the historic C+Y is the oldest in Great Britain. This historic environment, including ‘mosques, synagogues synagogue, on the edge of the City of London, and temples as well as churches, chapels and C
has been in continuous use since . In , cathedrals.’ C+M it was the first synagogue to be listed and is M still the only Grade synagogue in England. Surveying the Jewish built heritage in Bevis Marks bears testimony to the stability of the UK and Ireland Y Jewish life in Britain. Since the Resettlement of , during the Puritan Revolution, Jews have The need to record the architectural heritage 25% enjoyed uninterrupted residence in Britain, a of British Jewry has, in the last years, 75% record unrivalled elsewhere in Europe. become urgent because it is disappearing. The
Unlike parish churches and cathedrals, population of British Jewry is rapidly shrinking, B synagogues have been largely neglected currently standing at , ( National by British architectural historians and Census), having fallen from a post- World War C
conservationists, though the Jewish place peak of about ,. 50% of worship has long been part of the urban The Jewish community is not only landscape. English Heritage’s Power of Place: in numerical decline but is increasingly M
The Future of the Historic Environment () concentrated in London and Manchester. Jews 50% acknowledges that ‘in a multi-cultural society, are seldom encountered in those inner-city everybody’s heritage needs to be recognized’ areas of primary settlement colonised by earlier Y
and stresses the importance of education in immigrant generations, such as the East End 50% of London or Red Bank and Cheetham Hill in Manchester. British Jewry has become a largely B
suburban phenomenon. Left behind are historic 50% synagogues that are too far to reach on foot on the Sabbath, when travelling is prohibited in the C+M+Y
Orthodox Jewish tradition. The Survey of the C+Y Jewish Built Heritage in the United Kingdom and
Ireland was begun in under the auspices C of the Jewish Memorial Council to record C+M and research this important but vanishing
architectural heritage. M In , the nascent project was awarded £, seed-funding by the then Royal Y
Commission on the Historical Monuments of 25% England, followed by an Historical Research Trust Award from the Royal Institute of British 75%
Architects and a grant of £, from the B The Ark (ehal), Bevis Heritage Lottery Fund, which enabled the Marks Synagogue, London Survey to begin in earnest. Principal match- C
(Joseph Avis, 1699–1701, funding partners have included The Pilgrim 50% Grade I), Britain’s oldest Trust, the RM Burton Charitable Trust, the Anthony Harris M synagogue. © British Academy and English Heritage. Indeed, 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP : Jewish Heritage UK M 50%
C English Heritage has contributed both grant- and photographic archive, will eventually be
B aid and technical support. deposited at the National Monuments Record The Survey is the first thematic building as a resource for architectural historians, 75% recording project concerning the architectural educators and conservationists of the future. heritage of a non-Christian minority in It currently contains information on some 25% this country. Originally embracing Jewish synagogues, burial grounds and other Y monuments and sites that date from before communal buildings constructed or opened English Heritage / James O’ Davies World War , the Survey has also included before World War , as well as details of about © M mediaeval and modern buildings and sites, architects who designed for the Jewish
C+M both sacred and secular, such as purpose-built community. The database has been designed synagogues, Mikvaot (ritual baths), cemeteries, and implemented by the project’s computer C schools, hospitals, soup kitchens, communal consultant, Dr Syd Greenberg, using Microsoft
C+Y offices and meeting halls. Access, in accordance with the Council of In , a generous grant of £, from Europe’s Core Data Index for recording historic
C+M+Y the Arts and Humanities Research Board buildings and monuments of the architectural (AHRB) through the University of Manchester heritage (). 50% will enable the Survey to include post-World A number of publications have already Middle Street Synagogue,
B War synagogues and sites, in line with English appeared, including a site guide published by Brighton (Thomas Lainson, Heritage’s Post-War Listings Programme. English Heritage to mark the tercentenary 1874–5, Grade II*), with a 50% Following a pilot project in the East End of of Bevis Marks Synagogue. A major book is sumptuous High Victorian
Y London in the summer of , some planned: The Synagogues of Britain and Ireland: interior, awarded English sites have been surveyed in nearly towns An architectural history, sponsored by The Paul Heritage and Heritage
50% and cities across England, Wales, Scotland, Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, with Lottery Fund grant-aid
M Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and the support of the AHRB and photography in 2004. the Channel Islands. The on-site recording
50% includes the compilation of detailed field notes, sketch plans and drawings, and both C internal and external photography. For some
B historic buildings, a full measured survey has been carried out and architectural drawings 75% executed, in accordance with English Heritage’s
25% standards. Priority has been given to sites in danger of Y disappearance or radical alteration, particularly synagogues faced with imminent closure. M The recording work so far has been carried
C+M out by the author, assisted mainly by two part-time professional field workers, architect C Barbara Bowman and archaeologist Andrew
C+Y Petersen, an expert on Islamic architecture. The Survey has benefited from volunteer
C+M+Y labour, in particular, student projects in the Department of Architecture at the University of 50% Huddersfield.
B Fieldwork is preceded and followed up by library and archive research, which has 50% revealed rare visual material on Jewish buildings
Y and sites that no longer exist, destroyed by redevelopment or enemy action. Repositories 50% and private collectors have allowed historic
M photographs, maps and architectural plans to be photographed and scanned into the Image 50% Archive of the Survey database. C Database and publications B The database of the Survey of the Jewish 75% Built Heritage contains both text and a digital English Heritage / Nigel Corrie © 25% image library that, together with the paper
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PLACES OF WORSHIP : Jewish Heritage UK M Y 25% 75% Menorah (seven-branched by English Heritage. The book will include The Survey is active in encouraging candlestick), an ancient a CD-ROM Gazetteer of Jewish Buildings and public access to historic synagogues through B
Jewish symbol rendered in Sites in Britain and Ireland. Details of these and Heritage Open Days, London Open House C mid-20th-century stained other publications can be found at www.jewish- and the European Jewish Heritage Day, the glass by Hardman Studios heritage-uk.org. latter initiated in Britain in by B’nai 50% at Coventry Synagogue. Brith UK. Making historic synagogues better M Designation and Jewish Heritage known is a key to unlocking vital grant-aid for conservation. Several major synagogues, 50% In , there were only three listed including those at Liverpool and Brighton, synagogues, all in London, indicative of mentioned above, have recently benefited from Y the under-representation of non-Christian public grant-aid from the Heritage Lottery 50% places of worship on the Statutory Lists. In Fund and English Heritage’s joint places of , there are over listed synagogues and worship grant scheme. B
former synagogues nationally. As a result of 50%
the Survey, a nationwide assessment is now Jewish Heritage UK C+M+Y being undertaken to determine appropriate
forms of designation for the most significant In April , Jewish Heritage UK was set C+Y Jewish burial grounds. The launch of English up to complement the research of the Survey Heritage’s Religion and Place project (see of the Jewish Built Heritage. Its aim is the C
Brown, ; Conservation Bulletin , –) will protection of British Jewry’s material cultural C+M assist further in redressing this imbalance. heritage, including synagogues, cemeteries and Some synagogues have been upgraded moveable property, such as archives, artefacts M from Grade to Grade *: the two surviving and ritual silver. Y Georgian synagogues still functioning It has been set up with a grant of £, (Plymouth, ; Exeter, ), as well over three years from the Hanadiv Charitable 25% as a group of major Victorian ‘cathedral Foundation and operates under the auspices 75% synagogues’, of which Birmingham’s Singers of the London Jewish Cultural Centre.
Hill (Henry Yeoville Thomason, –) is Jewish Heritage UK provides independent B the oldest surviving example. The Survey professional support to congregations, trustees, is anxious to encourage the preservation burial societies, synagogue and communal C
through enhanced designation of such major organisations that are responsible for historic 50% buildings, some with fine orientalist interiors buildings, sites and collections. They will be as at Liverpool’s Princes Road, Brighton’s able to turn to the agency when faced with the M
Middle Street and London’s New West End, challenges of maintenance and management, 50% St Petersburgh Place. These synagogues, the listing and planning process, as well as of which date from the s, face being made carrying out repairs to specified conservation Y
redundant, having largely been abandoned by standards and, above all, of finding imaginative 50% their congregations in favour of the suburbs. ways of keeping fine old buildings in use. B 50% C+M+Y C+Y Sir Moses Montefiore
Mausoleum (1862, Grade C II*) and Synagogue (1831– C+M 3, Grade II*), Ramsgate,
Kent. The Regency-period M synagogue was designed by the first Anglo-Jewish Y
architect David Mocatta 25% for his cousin Sir Moses Montefiore, British Jewry’s 75%
best known 19th-century B philanthropist. Beside the C
synagogue is Montefiore’s Barbara Bowman for the Survey of the Jewish Built Heritage ©
tomb, modelled on 50% Rachel’s Tomb near M
Bethlehem. Drawings by 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP : Article title M 50% C
B The Shah Jehan Mosque,
75% Woking 25%
Y An Unexpected Gem M Sarah Brown Head of Research Policy for Places of Worship
C+M with acknowledgements to Khalil Martin C
C+Y For over 100 years, commuters on the Waterloo to
C+M+Y Portsmouth Harbour line have caught an occasional
50% glimpse of one of England’s most unusual listed
B buildings. 50% Y
50% The Shah Jehan Mosque in Woking is professionals. This became the home of the
M northern Europe’s earliest surviving purpose- Oriental Institute. built mosque. Its architectural distinction and 50% historical importance are recognised in its The Oriental Institute designation as a Grade * listed building. C Its origins and history are as intriguing as its The Institute prepared Asian students for
B architecture. The building was commissioned careers in the professions and offered language by Hungarian-born linguist and scholar Dr training to Europeans wishing to live and work 75% Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner (–). The son in the East. Leitner filled the Institute’s newly
25% of Jewish converts to Protestantism, Leitner acquired home with an outstanding collection was educated in Istanbul as a consequence of of Greek and Indian art, including a large Y his widowed mother’s remarriage to a Levant collection of Punjabi fabrics. It also became a missionary. powerhouse for the publication of academic M At a Muslim college, Leitner mastered journals in Sanskrit, Arabic and English. By the
C+M Turkish and Arabic, displaying extraordinary s, it was offering degree courses affiliated linguistic prowess at an early age. At , he to the University in Lahore, although it failed to C could speak eight languages fluently and secure full independent University status.
C+Y was appointed interpreter to the British Leitner also concerned himself with the Commissariat in the Crimea. At , he became spiritual life of the students of his Institute and
C+M+Y lecturer in Arabic, Turkish and Modern Greek launched an ambitious plan to build a mosque, and at was made Professor of Arabic and a synagogue, a church and a temple, setting 50% Muslim law at King’s College, London. In aside parcels of land on which to build. Work
B , he was made Principal of Government on the mosque began first, due to generous College in Lahore, a connection of considerable donations from the Nizam of Hydrabad and the 50% importance in the history of the Woking Begum Shah Jehan of Bhopal. The foundations
Y mosque. He dedicated himself to the study of of the Hindu temple were also laid, although the languages, art and culture of the Indian further building was frustrated by Leitner’s 50% sub-continent, transforming the college into the untimely death in . The plots for the
M University of the Punjab. synagogue and temple were sold, although Returning to England in , Leitner the church, St Paul’s, Oriental Road, was 50% devoted himself to the foundation of a completed in .
C European centre for oriental studies, a quest that brought him to Woking. In , he The mosque B acquired the buildings of the defunct Royal Dramatic College in Woking, a short-lived The mosque was designed by English architect 75% attempt to create a centre for the performing WI Chambers, who drew heavily on Indian
25% arts and a home for retired theatrical architectural styles studied in the India Office
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PLACES OF WORSHIP : The Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking M Y 25% 75% Library. It opened in October or November simple, with calligraphic decoration its principal , following considerable efforts to ensure enrichment. Gold stars dot the interior of the B
that the building was correctly orientated: dome, and the principal focus of the small C ‘A seaman of the P&O boat kindly went to space is the niche in the east wall, the mihrab, Woking and took the bearings.’ Although small indicating the direction of Makkah. 50% in scale, the building is dignified and well To the north is the iman’s residence, a M proportioned, square on plan, with a wide, spacious two-storey brick house with stone welcoming portal flanked by apsidal pavilions detailing echoing that of the mosque. The 50% providing facilities for ritual ablutions. two buildings stand in a landscaped park The interior, under a spherical dome, is with trees screening the nearby railway line Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25%
The mihrab, indicating 75%
the direction of Makkah, B of Shah Jehan Mosque,
Woking, Surrey, Europe’s C
oldest purpose-built 50% mosque and now a Grade English Heritage / Peter Williams M
© II* listed building. 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP : The Shah Jehan Mosque, Woking M 50%
C and a busy road. While the students of the
B Institute were the most regular worshippers, the mosque has always served a wider Muslim 75% community. Queen Victoria’s Indian attendants made occasional trips from Windsor, and the 25% Shah of Persia, the Begum of Bhopal and the English Heritage / Peter Williams Y
Emperor Haile Selasse were among its most © distinguished visitors. M
C+M Later developments
C The Oriental Institute was very much Leitner’s
C+Y creation, reliant on his energy and wealth, and after his death it was disbanded and its
C+M+Y buildings, art collections and land sold. The mosque remained closed until , when 50% Indian lawyer and Muslim scholar Khwaja
B Kamal-ud-Din of Lahore noticed a newspaper advertisement for a ‘mosque for sale’ while in 50% England conducting a case before the Privy
Y Council. The mosque was on the point of being sold for demolition, but Khwaja took
50% the case to the High Court, arguing that as a it continues to serve as an important place of The main façade of the
M consecrated place of worship it enjoyed the prayer, devotion and education. Today, the Shah Jehan Mosque, same rights as a church and could not simply Woking Muslim population is estimated at Woking (Grade II*).
50% be demolished. He won his case and acquired approximately ,, predominantly from the the mosque, which he reopened in , Kashmir and Mirpur areas of Pakistan. The C with the support of the Lahore Ahmadadiyya mosque, which can accommodate about
B Movement, founding the Woking Muslim worshippers, is used every day for the five daily Mission and Literary Society. The Mission prayers. Between and , worshippers 75% published the first English translation of the attend the Friday mid-day congregational
25% Qu’ran in and the influential Islamic prayer, and on these occasions, and at other Review. times when the congregation is too large to fit Y Khawaja Kamal-ud-Din had almost been into the original mosque, prayers are conducted converted by Christian missionaries in India in a nearby building converted for the purpose. M but instead was inspired to bring Islam to The special significance of the mosque is
C+M England, giving up a lucrative legal practice highlighted in a current project coordinated to do so. His mission enjoyed early success. by English Heritage. In May , a group C By , there were , English converts to of Indian ex-servicemen from Slough visited
C+Y Islam, most of them high ranking, well educated the mosque as part of the project, exploring and articulate. Woking was the spiritual heart historic sites relevant to the experience of
C+M+Y of this nascent convert community. One of its Indian Servicemen who fought in the World most prominent members was Lord Headley, Wars. Muslim soldiers who died of wounds in 50% who campaigned for the foundation of a hospitals along the south coast were buried in
B mosque in London, the capital of an Empire a purpose-built Muslim burial ground near with more Muslim than Christian subjects. the mosque. Their graves are now found in 50% Despite the foundation of mosques in Berlin the military section of the nearby Brookwood
Y in and Paris in , London’s central Cemetery. The visits have contributed to an mosque in Regent’s Park opened only in the oral history project and will inform a travelling 50% s. exhibition planned for the south-east in Spring
M In the s and s, growing numbers . More information may be obtained from of Muslim immigrants from Pakistan and [email protected]. 50% the Indian sub-continent arrived in England.
C Woking’s mosque naturally attracted Muslim families to the area. In , for example, over
B , people gathered in Woking to celebrate the festival of Eid Al Fitr. In , Sunni 75% Muslims took over the running of the mosque.
25% With a growing community of worshippers,
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PLACES OF WORSHIP PLACES OF WORSHIP : Article title M Y 25% 75%
Maintenance B C
How to protect your place of 50% M
worship 50% Joy Russell Senior Architect, Chief Conservation Architect’s Team Y 50%
Modest spending on regular maintenance can reduce B
the need for costly repairs and protect the fabric of a 50% place of worship. C+M+Y C+Y C
Maintenance is the routine, everyday work could be employed to clear rainwater goods of C+M necessary to protect the fabric of a building. debris, and a steeplejack to inspect high-level When carried out regularly, maintenance stonework. Many tasks, however, can be carried M helps prevent the types of failure that occur out by churchwardens or unskilled volunteers, Y predictably within the life of a building and can including using binoculars to inspect roofs for result in major repair costs. missing or slipped slates or tiles or to check 25% Maintenance falls into three main categories: external walls for signs of damage or movement. 75% inspection, to assess the condition of a building, Any problems identified should be reported to report any problems and decide whether repair the architect or building surveyor. B or other work is necessary; specific tasks, such Other examples of maintenance tasks are as testing building services and clearing debris identified in the Calendar of Care on the Church C from gutters; and minor repair, such as fixing of England’s Church Care website (www. 50% slipped slates, replacing broken glass and churchcare.co.uk) and English Heritage’s making temporary taped repairs to leadwork. publication Maintenance Plans (free copies may M
Maintenance differs from repair, which is work be obtained from customers@english-heritage. 50% carried out to put right defects, significant org.uk by quoting Product Code , or decay or damage, and work to return a building from www.english-heritage.org.uk>Conserving Y to a good condition on a long-term basis. Most Historic Places>Conservation Advice>Places of 50% problems suffered by places of worship are Worship). caused by water penetration, so a maintenance Maintenance should preferably be carried B
inspection should concentrate on the external out on a planned basis, to ensure that necessary 50% envelope and, in particular, those elements tasks are not overlooked and to allow the that protect the building from water and damp cost of maintenance to be budgeted for. The C+M+Y
penetration: maintenance plan should be prepared by, or C+Y • Roof coverings; gutters, down pipes and in consultation with, the place of worship’s
associated rainwater goods; external wall architect or building surveyor. It should identify C surfaces and joinery; and drains each element of the building, list the tasks to C+M • Internal roof voids, which will reveal any be carried out, identify the person responsible
evidence of water ingress and attendant and indicate when the task should be done. M fungal or insect attack An alternative is to subscribe to a regular • Internal areas where maintenance problems maintenance service such as that planned to Y
are identified in the external walls and/or start in 2005 by Maintain our Heritage in the 25% joinery Gloucester area whereby, to complement the • Drains and inspection chambers. Quinquennial Inspection, basic maintenance 75%
Some maintenance tasks should be carried tasks such as clearing gutters are carried out B out by a building contractor or other specialist, together with a limited amount of temporary either because they require a certain degree repair on small but critical areas of disrepair. C
of skill and experience or because access to a A similar service is now being investigated by 50% particular element of the building is difficult or the St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Diocese and dangerous. For example, a building contractor English Heritage. M 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP M 50% C
B Excavated Human Burials
75% New guidance on Christian burial 25%
Y grounds M Simon Mays Human Skeletal Biologist C+M
C English Heritage and the Church of England are C+Y collaborating to produce guidelines for the treatment of
C+M+Y Christian burials excavated from archaeological sites. 50% B
50% Every year, thousands of ancient burials in to inform ethical treatment, and for which
Y this country are disturbed by development of reasonably specific guidance might be given. As disused burial grounds, by smaller-scale works three out of every four skeletons excavated as
50% in churches and churchyards, and by continuing a result of archaeological fieldwork in England
M burial in old churchyards. Excavation and come from Christian contexts, the guideline study of these burials increasingly add to our should have widespread application. The main
50% understanding of the past and inform television principles of the Working Group’s deliberations programmes such as Meet the Ancestors and were that: C museum exhibitions such as the Museum of • Human remains should always be treated
B London’s London Bodies. with dignity and respect. There is, however, considerable uncertainty • Burials should not be disturbed without 75% about how best to treat disturbed burials. The good reason. It was noted, however, that
25% law involved – both civil and ecclesiastical – is the demands of the modern world are such complex and unclear. Most archaeologists that it may be necessary to disturb burials in Y are conscious of the need to afford the dead advance of development. respectful treatment and avoid offending • Human remains are an important source of M religious or secular sensibilities, but standards scientific information.
C+M for best practice have yet to be codified. Clergy • There is a need to give particular weight to and parochial church councils seek advice the feelings and views of living close family C about when disturbance is acceptable, about members when known.
C+Y how burials should be treated if they must be • There is a need for decisions to be made in disturbed and about who should bear the costs. the public interest in an accountable way.
C+M+Y In addition, after archaeological excavation and The working group has produced a draft study, there is the question of whether human report which describes the current legal 50% remains should be retained long-term for framework for the treatment of human remains
B scientific study or reburied. and makes recommendations for best practice Feedback from archaeologists, parishes and within this framework. It attempts to balance 50% clergy indicated a clear need for guidance on ethical considerations derived from Christian
Y these issues. As a result, in , a Working theology against the recognised legitimacy of Group was convened jointly by English scientific study of human burials, while being 50% Heritage and the Church of England and aware of public views about the disturbance of,
M included representatives from the Church, and scientific work on, human remains. archaeological and museums organisations, and The report presents overviews of the legal, 50% the Home Office. Its remit concerned burials ethical and scientific considerations associated
C from Christian contexts in England dating with human remains and their context (burial from the th to the th century, including artefacts and monuments). It also provides
B both churchyards in current use and disused practical guidelines for the treatment of such burial places such as monasteries. This context remains in fieldwork projects, summarising 75% provides a coherent body of material to which a the legal, ethical and scientific considerations
25% consistent theological framework can be applied pertinent at each particular phase of work.
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PLACES OF WORSHIP : Excavated Human Burials M Y 25% 75% A summary sets out the main recommendations, which include: B
• If a planned development (large-scale C construction or minor building work) appears likely to disturb burials more 50% than years old, then the relevant area M should be archaeologically evaluated; A human skull from any subsequent exhumations should be the graveyard in the 50% monitored and, if necessary, carried out by deserted medieval village Y English Heritage Photo Library / Jeremy Richards
archaeologists. © of Wharram Percy, in the • The developer, whether a religious or secular Yorkshire Wolds, subject of 50% organisation, should be responsible for one of the longest-running B the cost of any archaeological intervention archaeological excavations
(including post-excavation study of the in Britain (1950–90). The 50%
remains and their reburial or deposition in a human and animal bones C+M+Y museum or other institution) necessitated by from this excavation form
the development. part of an important C+Y • Research excavations of unthreatened burial research archive. grounds are acceptable only if the remains C
are more than years old, if the proposed C+M work is acceptable to close family members of those buried (if known), and if it can be M justified in terms of specific research aims. Y
• If family members request it, excavated ArchaeologicalYork Trust © human remains should be reburied. 25% • In some instances, it may be difficult to 75% reconcile different viewpoints concerning
the long-term fate of excavated human B remains. This most often occurs when the scientific importance of a collection means C
that it is desirable that it remain accessible 50% for research but that other parties with legitimate interests, such as the Church M
or the local community, desire that the 50% remains be returned to consecrated ground. A possible solution in such cases might be Y
the deposition of the remains in redundant 50% churches. The Report recommends that this possibility be further investigated. B
• A standing committee should be set up 50% jointly by English Heritage and the Church of England to serve as a national advisory C+M+Y
body on the treatment of human remains C+Y from Christian burial grounds and to provide
advice in controversial cases. C The Report will be published in late January C+M as part of the Centre for Archaeology
Guideline series. It will be available from M [email protected] and from www.english-heritage.org.uk. Y
The redundant St Saviour’s 25% Church was adapted by the York Archaeological 75%
Trust as its Archaeology B Resource Centre. The
aisles house an archive C
of the Trust’s excavations, 50% and the nave is used as an
educational area. M 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP M 50% C
B Archaeology and Building
75% Works 25%
Y New guidance from ADCA M David Baker Archaeological Adviser on the St Albans Diocesan Advisory Committee and member of English
C+M Heritage’s Advisory Committee C The Association of Diocesan and Cathedral C+Y Archaeologists has published guidance on requirements C+M+Y arising from various works to churches and cathedrals. 50% B 50%
Y The ecclesiastical exemption predates the is to increase knowledge and understanding, first systematic listing of historic buildings through investigation and research that can
50% (in the s), planning controls over them contribute to repairs, academic studies, formal
M (in the late s) and the recognition of education and personal or community interest. archaeological interests (with PPG in ). Archaeological work should take place within
50% Church archaeology was championed by the regularly reviewed research strategies and Council for British Archaeology from the s, address issues based on an understanding of the C as part of the ‘rescue’ archaeology movement. significance of the church and churchyard in
B The CBA advocated that archaeological question. advice should be available for works of repair, There are four principal occasions for 75% alteration and construction. There should also archaeological involvement. During preparation
25% be archaeological members of diocesan advisory of a proposal, before formal consents are committees for parish churches, and advisers to sought, assessment can identify archaeological Y Deans and Chapters for cathedrals. issues together with the means of resolving After a long evolution, a network of them. After consent has been obtained and M advisers was completed, and the Association opening-up works have begun, archaeological
C+M of Diocesan and Cathedral Archaeologists was analysis and recording can provide hitherto formed in . It aims to promote the highest inaccessible information for decisions about C standards of practice in the study of the fabric the approach to repairs and the detailed
C+Y and material remains of a church or cathedral, design of alterations. Repair or construction above and below ground, in relation to its site, work in progress may give opportunities to
C+M+Y contents and historic setting, and community. record temporarily exposed fabric, helping More information can be found at www. future maintenance and diagnosis of structural 50% britarch.ac.uk/adca. problems, and improving understanding
B ADCA has just published a guidance note, of a building’s history. As a last resort, Archaeological requirements for works on churches archaeological work may be needed to record 50% and cathedrals, providing a consistent approach important fabric or deposits before unavoidable
Y to the main types of works upon which ADCA destruction, mitigating the loss by replacing members offer advice. The note seeks to the surviving evidence with information from 50% support the regulatory authorities by indicating properly designed investigations.
M what is expected from parishes and cathedrals This systematic approach is intended to when they devise and commission works. It deal with long-standing problems. Perhaps the 50% will also help architects and archaeological worst is failure by architects and committees
C organisations plan their work. Like the secular to take archaeological matters into account at planning system, the guidance note presents the appropriate stage. Not budgeting for work
B archaeological work as a potentially beneficial because the need has not been anticipated and integral part of the conservation process can set up difficult tensions between wilful 75% rather than as an unplanned after-thought or destruction of the local heritage and yet another
25% burdensome obstacle. Its primary purpose perceived fund-raising mountain to climb.
Y | Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y 50% B 50% Y 50% M 50% C B 75% 25% Y M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M
PLACES OF WORSHIP : Archaeology and Building Works M Y 25% 75% Equally undesirable is the illogical process of commercial church archaeology sits awkwardly requiring assessment of archaeological work, with the ‘the polluter pays’ principle when the B
not as part of formulating the original proposal, only profit is knowledge; grants are not always C but as a condition of consent, when it is too late available to ease the situation. Some continue to redesign or adjust budgets. to feel that the evidently good motives and 50% The types of works frequently encountered objectives of mission exempt them from what M in churches and cathedrals are discussed others see as an environmental and cultural under the headings of repairs, mechanical and responsibility. 50% electrical services and drainage, the churchyard, Voluntary Diocesan Advisory Committee development and human remains. They include archaeological advisers now have to provide Y familiar projects such as the insertion of a complex professional curatorial service in 50% perimeter drainage, the provision of partitioned what has become a commercial archaeological facilities within churches, extensions and world: this is increasingly unsustainable. B freestanding new buildings in churchyards. The Archaeological organisations hungry for work 50%
guidance note cross-refers to the procedures in that commercial world have to train digging C+M+Y of the secular planning system and the recent staff also to think in terms of above-ground
English Heritage/Church of England report on three-dimensional structures. C+Y human remains (see Mays, –). Generally, Notwithstanding such matters, which can it seeks to clarify the archaeological dimension be resolved given the political and professional C through guidelines about types of cases, rather will, the positive opportunities have never been C+M than lay down rules for resolving conflicts better. Archaeology has a much increased arising from individually distinctive situations. public profile with usually positive media Norman foundations M At a time when the ecclesiastical exemption treatment responding to its intrinsic interest. recorded during adaptation Y is under review (see Beacham, –), A powerful way for the church to improve its of the 19th-century nave archaeological considerations are now better connections with the community is through its and aisle as part of the 25% integrated than ever, but several problems historic buildings and sites. These have stories Archaeology Centre at St 75% remain. Funding need is not wholly mitigated to tell people of all ages, believers, non-believers Mary’s Church, Bedford by knowing about it in advance; indeed, non- and people from other religious traditions. (Grade B). B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% Albion Archaeology M © 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y 50% M 50% C
B The National Monuments
75% Record 25%
Y News and events M C+M C
C+Y The NMR is the public archive of English building designs or the people associated with Heritage. It includes over million archive them.
C+M+Y items – photographs, drawings, reports and As well as buildings, the database also has digital data – relating to England’s historic some more unusual listings. There are over 50% environment. , gravestones currently on the website.
B The following information gives details of Where the inscriptions are legible, they web resources, new collections (catalogues are often included in the list description. 50% for the collections below are available in the For instance, a search for gravestones in
Y NMR search room in Swindon) and outreach Malmesbury brings up the unusual story of programmes. Hannah Twynnoy, who was killed in by a
50% tiger.
M Religious structures recorded by Taking a defining photograph of a listed Images of England religious building presents a challenge for the 50% volunteer photographers who are part of the The Images of England website (www. project. They have encountered many problems, C imagesofengland.org.uk) has over , listed including battling with the English weather Headstone dated 1703,
B buildings and monuments recorded under the or being stung by nettles to reach the perfect inscribed to Hannah heading ‘Religious, ritual and funerary’. Items position for the photograph. Perhaps one of the Twynnoy, a servant at 75% range from parish churches and ancient tombs greatest difficulties involved in photographing the White Lion Inn (now
25% to lychgates, coffin rests and ancient burial a church is the need to manage perspective and No.8 Gloucester Street), mounds. distortion to ensure that a church tower does Malmesbury, who was Y Any listed religious building can be not appear to be a leaning tower, unless it really killed by a tiger from a searched for by its name, location or simply by does lean. travelling menagerie lodged M building type. For example, when searching Photographing the , religious listed in the back premises of the
C+M for ‘place of worship’ in the advanced search structures is ongoing work, but almost inn. The inscription reads: under ‘building type’, over , entries are , photographs have already been taken, In bloom of life/ she’s C returned, making the website an ideal starting preserving the history of religious buildings in snatchd from hence/ she
C+Y point for enthusiasts, parishioners, students England for the present and future generations. had not room/ to make and professionals researching the history of defence/ for tyger fierce/
C+M+Y a particular church or monument, or looking Churches in the NMR Collections took life away/ and here at how churches have developed over time. she lies/ in a bed of clay/ 50% Churches of almost every denomination feature For many towns and villages, the church is both until the Resurrection Day.
B if they have been listed. the spiritual focus and one of the most potent In addition, researchers can also search connections with the past. It is not surprising 50% by ‘associated people’, making it possible to that churches – both great and small – have
Y track down the work of architects, designers captured the interest of the photographer or famous people associated with specific as well as the antiquarian and architectural 50% individual buildings. historian. In the NMR’s archives, photographs
M As the website aims to match list and drawings of churches comprise one of descriptions for the , listed buildings of the largest components. The vast quantity 50% England with photographs (there are currently and variety of images afford the researcher an , C over photographs on the site), both the unparalleled opportunity to compare views of modern and old can be viewed side by side. In the same building captured at various times,
B the Religious section, researchers can view early occasionally documenting restoration work in ritual sites, some of the oldest parish churches, progress, with stunning coverage of interiors, 75% and more modern listed churches which have fixtures and fittings. This note concentrates on Mr G Williams 460903 © 25% received a listing to celebrate their unique archive material that the NMR has acquired
Y | Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y 50% B 50% Y 50% M 50% C B 75% 25% Y M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B English Heritage.NMR AA98/07601 © 50% St Margaret and All from a variety of sources outside of English showing buildings before Victorian modification C+M+Y Saints Church, Pakefield, Heritage. or restoration. Cobb’s detailed and meticulous
Suffolk (Grade II*). A reed annotations reflect his unparalleled knowledge C+Y thatcher carrying out repair - : Archive of the subject. work on the church roof, assembled partly to inform and aid church WD Caroe of the family architectural C photographed by Hallam conservation is represented in the life’s work practice Caroe & Partners, and one of the C+M Ashley in 1949. of Gerald Cobb (–) – a series of great figures of the Arts and Crafts Movement,
albums created between the s and s, assembled six albums containing , M with over , items including th- to photographs. These images, which date between early th-century illustrations, postcards, late and , record buildings, especially Y
Victorian and Edwardian photographs, indeed churches, designed, modified or restored by 25% almost every conceivable visual reference to the firm. The images complement a series of cathedrals and greater churches across the architectural drawings by Caroe, now part of 75%
country. the NMR Measured Drawings collection, that B The albums are based on themes or sites, show restoration and modifications, including and for some of the larger sites, such as St St Winifred’s Church, Branscombe, Devon, C
Paul’s Cathedral, which has albums, by parts All Saints’ Church, Sherburn-in-Elmet, North 50% of the building. There are numerous beautiful Yorkshire, and Bell Tower and Water Tower of
images, including many comparative views Canterbury Cathedral. M 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y 50% M 50%
C Norfolk. One quarter of the collection shows
B churches and other ecclesiastical buildings, with strong coverage of interiors. Shots taken 75% before, during and after restoration work are well represented, including over shots of 25% cleaned and replaced bosses (see News, ), English Heritage.NMR AA013461 Y
© angels and woodwork, and craftsmen re-fitting conserved stained glass at St Mary’s Church, M Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, in the s.
C+M In contrast, most of the , images taken by amateur photographer Laurence C Goldman (–) between the s and C+Y s are of south-eastern counties, especially London. Almost two-thirds of the collection
C+M+Y features ecclesiastical buildings. Interior views dominate, including church monuments, fonts 50% and stained glass, captured on colour as well
B as black and white film. The north-west, particularly Greater 50% Manchester and Cheshire, is the focal
Y point of Gerald Sanville’s photographs, taken between and . A partner
50% : The photographs St John’s Church, Smith in a Manchester-based architects’ firm,
M taken by Gordon Barnes and HS Goodhart- Square, Westminster Sanville was also an enthusiastic amateur Rendel are exceptional records of Victorian (Grade I). This former photographer. The collection comprises
50% architecture, particularly churches. Gordon church, burnt out during almost , photographic negatives and Barnes (–) was one of the foremost World War II, was prints, of which about half are of ecclesiastical C authorities on Victorian churches, especially photographed by Gordon buildings, with an emphasis on interiors,
B those in London, and an amateur photographer Barnes in 1967 while it particularly woodwork. Sanville also recorded who used large format equipment to ensure was being converted to a restoration work, such as the uncovering of a 75% good quality images. His collection of concert hall. previously hidden arch-brace and timbered
25% almost , high quality black and white roof at St Luke’s Church, Holmes Chapel, photographs, taken between and , Cheshire, in . Y is predominantly of churches. Exterior and interior views are well represented, including M details of fonts, doors, pulpits, altars and
C+M windows. Such is the quality of the collection that many of its images have been used by C scholars and by lobbying groups to highlight
C+Y and help protect the original fabric of Victorian English Heritage.NMR AA018144
church art. ©
C+M+Y The photographs by the architect HS Goodhart-Rendel (–) also reflect 50% a life-long interest in Victorian architecture
B and probably served as a corpus of images to illustrate lectures on th-century architecture 50% and architects. In addition, there is a
Y comprehensive card index to th-century churches and architects. 50% St Mary’s Church,
M : The majority of the Bottesford, Leicestershire externally acquired collections depict a (Grade I). The chancel 50% wide range of buildings of all periods, often contains monuments to
C concentrated on particular counties or regions. eight Earls of Rutland. This is typified in the , photographs taken This late-16th-century
B between and by Hallam Ashley monument to John, the (–), a professional photographer based 4th Earl, was recorded by 75% in the outskirts of Norwich. Over % of the Laurence Goldman in
25% collection is of East Anglia, and of this, % of May 1969.
Y | Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y 50% B 50% Y 50% M 50% C B 75% 25% Y M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% : The NMR holds several large collections of architectural measured B
drawings, with excellent coverage of churches C by some of the leading and most prolific architects of the th and early th century, 50% including the Scott dynasty, Sir Arthur M Blomfield, Sir Aston Webb, JL Pearson and FE Howard. The importance of this resource 50% lies in the depiction of designs, repairs and modifications of the Victorian period. For Y example, many of FE Howard’s (–) 50% design and working drawings of interior fittings were commissions either for the church B concerned or for Warham Guild or Messrs AR 50%
Mowbray, the church fitters. Also notable are C+M+Y the full-size cartoons for stained glass windows by J Henry Dearle, who worked in the studio of C+Y William Morris, becoming head of the stained glass department at Morris & Co, and whose C style was influenced by Burne-Jones. C+M Catalogues for these collections, and many others, can be viewed in the NMR and on M
www.english-heritage.org.uk/nmr, where full EnglishHeritage.NMR BB98/11401 Y biographical and content details can be found. © Before and after the uncovering of the arch-brace and timber roof at St Luke’s Church, 25% Holmes Chapel, Cheshire (Grade I), recorded by Gerald Sanville during restorations Stained glass online 75% in 1934.
The Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi (CVMA) B specialises in the study of medieval stained glass. Funded by the Arts and Humanities C
Research Board, it has online over , 50% photographs of medieval and later stained glass, mostly from the NMR’s collections. View these M images on www.cvma.ac.uk. 50% English Heritage.NMR BB98/11408 © Y Living Story Project 50% Members of the NMR’s Living Story Project recently took part in a training workshop, led B
by Cre8 Studios of Swindon, on recording 50% and editing moving images using a digital camcorder. The group is producing two short C+M+Y
documentary-style films exploring change and C+Y continuity within the community’s houses, streets and shops.A programme of workshops, C tours, lectures, weekly classes and events will C+M help participants make the best use of NMR resources for work, research or personal M interest. Short introductory tours to the NMR Centre are available, and for those wishing to Y explore the resources in more detail, study days 25% are organised on a number of different themes. 75% B For further information about NMR Outreach events, contact Jane Golding: C
Tel ; Fax ; 50% [email protected]. M 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP : Article title M 50% C
B News
75% from English Heritage 25% Y of England and Roman Catholic cathedrals M Religion and Place Today: Buildings and Urban Communities at the end of June . Applications were
C+M received at the end of July for a total of This issue of Conservation Bulletin will be projects from different cathedrals costing C launched at a two-day conference in November, £. million including VAT and fees. Offers of
C+Y convened jointly by English Heritage and the grants are in the process of being made at the Pevsner Architectural Guides. The conference time of writing.
C+M+Y will investigate aspects of the continuing importance of religious buildings in the st
50% Repair Grants for Places of Worship century. England’s religious and cultural in England 2002–5 B diversity is represented by a range of eminent speakers, and the event will be held at the newly English Heritage and the Heritage Lottery 50% opened London Muslim Centre on Whitechapel Fund have been working in partnership since
Y Road, Europe’s largest and newest Islamic to offer grants to places of worship in community centre in an area of East London England. Through the joint Repair Grants
50% long known for its diversity. Opened in June for Places of Worship scheme, begun in ,
M amidst the celebration of Tower Hamlets’ grants are offered to help meet the essential Muslim community, which raised a substantial repair needs of the ecclesiastical built heritage.
50% part of the funding, the Centre includes a All listed places of worship in England are new prayer hall with spacious facilities for eligible to apply, and applications are welcomed C multi-faith and multi-cultural activities and is from all faith groups and denominations,
B available to all the people of Tower Hamlets. Christian and non-Christian. Grants are considered for urgent repairs 75% Grants for Cathedrals to keep a place of worship structurally stable
25% and weatherproof. Most repairs supported Following a review of the fabric needs of through the scheme are high-level works to Y English cathedrals in comparison with other roofs, towers, spires, high-level masonry and grant pressures, English Heritage has reduced rainwater disposal systems. Grants may also be M funding for its Cathedrals Repair Grants given for other urgent repair work if the historic
C+M scheme to £ million per annum. A survey fabric is at risk of imminent loss or if there is in demonstrated that with the help an emergency affecting the structure of the C of English Heritage grants, cathedrals had building.
C+Y completed % of the fabric repairs identified In the first two years of the current in the survey. For most cathedrals, scheme, grants have been awarded totalling
C+M+Y projected repair costs to are on a smaller nearly £ million to Grade , * and scale, concentrating on cyclical repairs rather listed places of worship across the country. 50% than major projects. Reflecting England’s diverse culture, grants
B However, there remains a small number have been offered to places of worship ranging of the greater cathedrals in England still only from medieval parish churches to an urban 50% part way through major long-term repair synagogue and a Buddhist temple. The total
Y programmes. It is recognized that a new scheme budget for the third year of the scheme is should continue to offer large grants for such £ million. There is a two-stage application 50% cathedrals as Lincoln and Salisbury, as well process, with funding available for working up
M as to provide help to cathedrals for smaller projects in stage one and for the repair work projects, including non-repair projects such as itself in stage two. Applications are considered 50% metric survey and fire protection. in two annual batches; the closing date for C Early in , Grants for Cathedrals was applications for this year has now passed. The designed to the same format as all other English next round of offers will be announced in
B Heritage grant schemes, giving cathedrals a December . For further information on the choice of two streams of application. scheme, please contact Nick Chapple on 75% The application packs for ⁄ grants or nick.chapple@english-heritage.
25% under the new scheme were sent to all Church org.uk.
Y | Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y 50% B 50% Y 50% M 50% C B 75% 25% Y M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% The Anglo-Sikh Heritage Trail Places of worship: useful websites B
The innovative web-based Anglo-Sikh Heritage • The Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi C Trail highlights years of Anglo-Sikh Medieval Stained Glass in Great Britain culture and history. Created by the Maharajah www.cvma.ac.uk 50% Duleep Singh Centenary Trust, the website Over , photographs, mostly from the M draws together Anglo-Sikh sites, significant NMR’s collections. memorials, rare books and manuscripts, and • The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in 50% sumptous treasures and artefacts. English Britain and Ireland Heritage is one of its many supporters. At the www.crsbi.ac.uk Y launch in July, Dr Simon Thurley said, ‘We have Currently includes reports. When 50% pledged £, to develop the Trail and have completed, it will include some , sites in worked closely with the Trust since the start Britain and Ireland (, images). B of the project to help bring this exciting idea • Church Plans Online 50%
to life. We are proud of the significance our www.churchplansonline.org C+M+Y property Osborne House has for Anglo-Sikh Includes some , plans and drawings culture. Visitors can see the exceptional Sikh in the archive of the Incorporated Church C+Y decoration in the Durbar Room, designed and Building Society, which spans the period built by Bhai Ram Singh, and the portraits of from to and is stored at Lambeth C
Maharajah Duleep Singh from when he stayed Palace. C+M in the house with Queen Victoria. English • The Ecclesiological Society Heritage helps communities champion their www.ecclsoc.org M own heritage, and we hope that this Trail will Includes responses of various bodies to the Y help everyone to enjoy and understand Anglo- Government’s recent consultation paper on Sikh heritage.’ In addition to the Durbar Room, the Ecclesiastical Exemption. 25% the website includes the battle standards from 75% the Anglo- Sikh wars at the Royal Regimental Professional training courses Museum at Dover Castle, the first British Sikh B temple in Shepherds Bush, London, and the • Building conservation masterclasses and burial place of Maharajah Duleep Singh in St professional conservators in practice. C
Andrew and St Patrick Parish Church, Elveden, West Dean College, near Chichester, West 50% Suffolk. For more information, visit www.asht. Sussex. A collaboration in specialist training between St Mary’s Church, M Save Our Streets West Dean College, English Heritage and Bottesford, Leicestershire 50% the Weald & Downland Open Air Museum, (Grade I). The chancel English Heritage has launched a Save Our sponsored by the Radcliffe Trust. contains monuments to Y
Streets campaign to improve historic areas and For details, please contact West Dean eight Earls of Rutland. 50% landscapes. According to Dr Simon Thurley, College, West Dean, Chichester ; This late 16th-century ‘Once, England had some of the most elegant Tel ; [email protected]; monument to John, the B
streets in the world, famed for the quality [email protected]; 4th Earl, was recorded by 50% of its street furniture. Today, it is a different www.westdean.org.uk. Laurence Goldman in C+M+Y story. Our historic streets are being trashed by • Professional training in the historic May 1969. ⁄ thoughtlessness and cheap design. Some of environment . C+Y the worst culprits are local authorities, which A wide-ranging programme of one- and should be setting an example of enlightened two-day courses at the Oxford University C stewardship. We need to start by removing the Department for Continuing Education, in C+M clutter and viewing our streets as historic places association with the AFT, the IHBC and in their own right ... We are all pedestrians, and the IFA. M we all deserve better.’ For details, please contact Dr Alison The campaign includes giving advice to MacDonald, OUDCE, 1 Wellington Square, Y the Department for Transport on changing Oxford ; Tel ; 25% regulations to encourage best practice, setting [email protected]. Reproduced by permission of English Heritage.NMR AA99/00536 up design workshops across the country, and 75%
publishing regional streetscape manuals, based B on the widely regarded document published by the London Region in . The aim of the C
manuals is to set out general principles for the 50% conservation, management and design of streets to promote integrated townscape management. M 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP : Article title M 50% C
B A New Act for Theatres
75% Peter Longman Director of The Theatres Trust 25%
Y Theatres need special protection and advice on M alterations or changes of use. C+M C C+Y Most people’s first memory of theatre building type, only a relatively small part of
C+M+Y conjures up childhood pantomimes and a which is visible to the audience or passers- world of make-believe and magic. Today, a by. Externally, traditional theatres are often 50% visit to the theatre might mean spending a few extremely utilitarian in appearance, except for a
B hours in a modern concrete box, or perhaps an decorative principal façade. Décor, both inside Edwardian time-capsule, with long queues for and out, is mainly for effect and usually pays 50% the bar and lavatories during the interval. To a scant attention to any architectural rulebook.
Y Conservation Officer, it might also mean that Features such as plasterwork and curtains, run-down empty building, now blocking the however, contribute significantly to the acoustic
50% local authority’s central redevelopment scheme, properties, while the rake of the stage, stalls
M which a group of protesters are trying to save. and circles will usually have been carefully The power of those protesters derives in part calculated to ensure good sightlines.
50% from the fact that theatres are the only secular Circulation routes were carefully planned building type with a statutory body to protect to ensure that audiences would be segregated C them. The Theatres Trust was established with into different classes. This segregation was also
B all-party support and Acts of Parliament in reflected in different standards of decorative and , and it covers the whole of the treatment and levels of provision, so that, a 75% UK. It was set up to protect theatre use, on the hundred years ago, only about a third of the
25% basis that most theatre buildings occupy prime audience would have expected to enter through sites that would be far more valuable in any the front door and to have proper lavatory and Y other use. Indeed, if it had been left to market bar facilities. People were about four inches forces alone, there would probably be no shorter on average then, and much of the M theatres left today. seating was on benches, the location of which
C+M Theatres in use are now regarded as sui is usually still reflected in the dimensions of generis in planning terms, and the Trust is a balcony tiering. C statutory body that must be consulted on any Backstage conditions are often similarly
C+Y planning application affecting land on which antiquated, reflecting a time when scenery there is a theatre. This can include adjacent was essentially two-dimensional and would be
C+M+Y developments and extends to all theatres, old delivered by horse and cart. Also, the décor and new, regardless of whether they are still does not allow for modern lighting levels or the 50% used as theatres. Most local authorities have paraphernalia of equipment that now appears in
B planning policies to protect theatre use, and an auditorium. many theatre buildings are now listed. Theatres In short, modernising one of these buildings 50% would appear to be well protected. is a job for experts, as ill-judged alterations
Y Unfortunately, though, theatre operation can have unforeseen consequences. Proposals now no longer generates sufficient profits to alter theatres no longer in use must also be 50% to pay for modernisation, let alone to create considered carefully to ensure that they do not
M new buildings. Until the last years, inadvertently preclude a return to theatre use. theatre buildings were regarded as essentially There are many examples across the UK of 50% ephemeral, to be knocked down or altered at ‘sleeping beauties’ that have been triumphantly
C will – a process hastened in late Victorian times returned to life. by the fact that their average life expectancy was There are also many examples of theatre
B only about years before they burnt down. buildings that have been successfully adapted In conservation terms, a traditional theatre for other uses, such as cinemas, bingo halls 75% building poses a number of contradictions. or places of worship These new uses neither
25% It is a highly sophisticated and complex require significant physical alterations nor put
Y | Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y 50% B 50% Y 50% M 50% C B 75% 25% Y M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% the buildings into a class use (such as a pub) Decorative panel at where the increased land value makes a return Blackpool’s Grand Theatre B
to theatre use prohibitively expensive. in course of cleaning as C The Trust is always happy to advise part of an Heritage Lottery applicants and planning authorities on the Fund supported scheme. 50% options available and the precedents, and M we pride ourselves on our pragmatism. We are regularly consulted on wide range of 50% issues, from valuations, planning matters and organising campaigns, to the appointment Y of suitable consultants and design teams. We 50% are not, however, a preservation body. It is no part of our brief to suggest that everything B should be saved or that no building should be 50%
altered. Theatres were made to be altered, and C+M+Y in practice we find that English Heritage and planning authorities like Westminster, which C+Y have a great deal of experience of the needs of Sheffield’s Lyceum Theatre theatre, are extremely helpful when considering was restored and reopened C the sort of alterations necessary to enable a in 1990 after having been C+M theatre to adapt to meet modern expectations. empty and under threat Ian Grundy M
Please make use of us! since 1972. © Y 25% 75% B C 50% M 50% Y 50% B 50% C+M+Y C+Y C C+M M Y 25% 75% B C 50% John Walsom / Arts @ RHWL Team M © 50% Issue : Autumn | Conservation bulletin | Y 50% B 50% 50% B 50% Y
50% PLACES OF WORSHIP : Article title M 50% C
B New Publications 75% from English Heritage 25% Y 18th-century London’s Smaller the outwardly regular appearance of a courtyard M Houses house. The surviving structures display much of
C+M their mid-th-century appearance. by Peter Guillery PRICE £65 + £5 P&P C ISBN 1873592 639 / PRODUCT CODE 50212
C+Y Eighteenth-century London was Europe’s Hardback, 400 pages, 20 colour & 279 b/w illustrations biggest city and greatest industrial centre.
C+M+Y Three out of four Londoners were artisans or Gateshead Publications may labourers, and % of the city’s population be ordered from 50% lived in largely manufacturing districts in by Simon Taylor and David B Lovie English Heritage B Southwark and Tower Hamlets. This wide- Postal Sales, c/o ranging study is derived from a number of Gateshead has often been overshadowed by Gillards, Trident 50% surveys in inner-London districts where some Newcastle, its northern neighbour across Works, March
Y modest th-century houses have survived the River Tyne, yet its history covers the Lane, Temple from the once-plentiful housing stock built development of a northern industrial town Cloud, Bristol
50% for artisans and labourers, though they are during the th and th centuries. This period ;
M largely unrecognised, unprotected and newly of great change is explored through a study Tel ; vulnerable to regeneration investment. This of the town’s everyday historic landscape: the Fax ;
50% study of vernacular buildings offers significant legacy of railway engineering, the construction ehsales@gillards. insights into an important but neglected branch of the Team Valley Trading Estate (a nationally com. C of urban studies. significant example of a state-sponsored Please make all
B Published by Yale University Press for the Paul attempt to engineer economic change), new cheques payable Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, in public buildings and rapid growth of new in sterling to 75% association with English Heritage. housing. The book concludes with a discussion English Heritage.
25% PRICE £40 + £3.95 P&P of the conservation of the historic environment Publications may ISBN 0 300 10238 0 / PRODUCT CODE 50762 in a new period of great change. also be ordered Y Hardback, 351 pages, 291 illustrations PRICE £7.95 (no P&P) from www.english- ISBN 1 873592 760 / PRODUCT CODE 52002 heritage.org.uk. M Acton Court Paperback, 82 pages, 88 illustrations C+M
C The evolution of an early Tudor courtier’s house
C+Y ISSN - by Kirsty Rodwell and Robert Bell Product Code
C+M+Y Conservation Bulletin Acton Court is the architectural study of a Appears three times a year 50% Tudor Manor house, where the building itself Mailing List: B sheds light on the social and cultural history of mailinglist @ english-heritage.org.uk the time. For more than years, the Acton Tel 50% family and their successors, the Poyntz family, Editor:
Y occupied the substantial manor house at Iron Karen Dorn Acton in South Gloucestershire. Successive [email protected] 50% remodellings and extensions of their th- Editorial Address:
M century moated manor house reflected the English Heritage, Savile Row, growth in wealth of the Actons, and later London 50% the increasing prosperity and rise to favour Designed by Boag Associates Ltd
C of several Poyntz family heirs, culminating Produced by JW Offset Ltd in a three-day visit in by Henry . www. english-heritage.org.uk
B Archaeological evidence has shown that © English Heritage a new east range was most probably built English Heritage is the Government’s 75% especially for this royal visit. The last building lead body for the historic environment.
25% development in mid s gave Acton Court
Y | Conservation bulletin | Issue : Autumn M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y 50% B 50% Y 50% M 50% C B 75% 25% Y M C+M C C+Y C+M+Y