Page:The Building News and Engineering Journal, Volume 22, 1872.djvu/501

 i + - the old-fashioned services of the Scotch churches. June 14, 1872. THE BUILDING NEWS. 479 June 14, 1872 The bone of contention | As one of them, Y am very sensible that a grave responsibility rests upon us, and not very sensible of power adequately to meet it. I must now proceed to detail the special require- ments of a Presbyterian Church, and then briefly to describe some examples of which I have illustra- tions. And I may here explain that, owing to the very limited time at my disposal after agreeing to prepare this paper, I found it to be quite out of my power to collect materials from a distance, and the illustrations are therefore almost entirely from the west of Scotland. The primary idea of a Presbyterian Church is an anditorium—a lecture room—a place where a con- gregation can comfortably see and hear their minister. Till recently this alone was required, regardless of form or appearance, so long, atleast, as there was no resemblance to a Roman Catholic Church, no image, and no ornament of symbolic meaning. No part of the church is regarded as more sacred than another ; it is never formally consecrated, and so little does any idea of peculiar sanctity attach to it, that the average Presbyterian would never dream of taking off his hat in it except during divine service. It is, indeed, sometimes used for social, and occasionally for political meetings. It is, in fact, a place of meeting— a meeting-house, rather than a church—a house of worship. As the sermon is the chief feature in the service, the pulpit naturally is the chief feature in the church ; and a very remarkable feature it sometimes is—especially where there is no other. (Laughter.) In every well-arranged Presby- terian Church the pulpit must be the central point with reference to which all else must be designed. The pews must be so disposed that every ene of the congregation may see the preacher, and hear him easily and distinctly ; otherwise they would lose not only the sermon, but the prayers, these being, as you are probably aware, extemporaneous. lt is wonderful how much the form of a building fulfilling these conditions may be varied ; we have churches simply square on plan, others oblong, or oval with concentric pews—some cruciform, and others T-shaped, some with galleries and some without, some divided into aisles by stone or jron piers, with or without clerestories, whilst others have single roofs of great span with flat plastered ceilings ; and, of course, even in these there are endless dif- ferences in detail. The altered character of the churches and the growing good taste of the community has led to a recognition of the incongruity of any meetings, except for divine service, being held in the church. Hence it is now considered necessary to build, in connection with the church, a good sized hall capable of accommodating from two to three hundred persons. The hall is used for sabbath schools, meetings for the practice of sacred music, prayer, and other meet- ings, and isa very useful adjunct. Besides the hall, the apartments now generally provided are—a session house, or manager’s room, available also for sabbath classes ; a vestry for the exclusive use of the clergyman; a waiting room for the use of ladies, and several retiring rooms and lavatories; and besides all these a beadle’s house is very often added. It is sometimes extremely difficult to arrange all these apartments on the available site, especially in towns; very often it is necessary to put them in the basement, and the church presents the appearance of a three-storied building. Of course all these addi- tional rooms are innovations. In “ the good old times i no such supplementary accommodation was dreamt of. Even a vestry was by no means universally provided, and I could name many parish churches, some of them of rather a superior character, which have nothing of the kindevennow. In connection with this evidence of parsimony, it may be interesting to note a circumstance which, no doubt, greatly conduced to the depression of church architecture throughout the country for many generations. In the rural parishes the burden of repairing or rebuilding the parish churches rested—as indeed it still does— on the “heritors,” that is, the landed proprietors. The mass of the population took the full benefit of their exemption, and were quite unaccustomed to contribute voluntarily for any parochial purpose. Quite naturally, in these circumstances, the heritors refused to spend a penny more than they were com- pelled to-do; and if, unhappily, a new church was required, in nine cases out of ten the erection was more utterly devoid of form and comeliness than the barn of the laird’s home farm. There were excep- tions, of course, but the great majority of rural parish churches erected before the commencement of the present century were hideous in the extreme. Things in this respect have greatly changed for the better; all classes of the community, and all sections of the church—established as well as disestablished— have become accustomed to voluntary effort in a very great measure, and inspired by higher aims, and rather than a secession. was, as in other cases, the interference of the civil power in matters ecclesiastical, and the extent to which such interference might be tolerated. The Evangelical party, which constituted the majority of the Church’s supreme court—the General Assembly—dissatisfied with the position assumed by fhe Crown, and after vainly protesting against it, decided that it was incumbent upon them to sever the connection between the Church and the State. They accordingly did so, and left the Established Church, maintaining that they were still the Church of Scotland, though voluntarily, and they hoped, temporarily, disestablished and free. Now, the great extent of this secession and its peculiar character contributed more, directly and indirectly, to the advancement of ecclesiasticai architecture in Scotland than anything, or probably all else which had oc- curred since the period of the Reformation. Bad as the old parish churches for the most part were, the Dissenters, previous to the disruption in 1843, had generally been contented with worse. The great majority of the people would have thought it some- thing scandalous if the Dissenters had ventured to erect a steeple or swing a bell, and they, apparently acquiescing in the popular estimate of their position, if not deterred by actuallegal enactment, did neither. Their buildings were always unobtrusive and generally unadorned, and their influence on the ecclesiastical art of the country was not appreciable. The Free Church, however, inaugurated a totally different state of matters ; claiming, as we have seen, to be de facto the Church of Scotland, she had no scruples about bells or steeples. Her places of worship, too, were never called chapels or “‘ meeting- houses,” but churches; and they were named not after the streets or localities in which they were situated, but after the churches which had been left behind, and thus we soon had S. George's Church and Free S. George's, S. Stephen’s and Free S. Stephen's, and soon. The effect of thisgreat move- ment onchurch architecture was, of course, notim- mediately apparent. It required immense energy to provide accommodation of any kind for the con- gregations which had so suddenly become houseless, and churches were at first erected of the most economical construction consistent with a moderate amount of comfort, and utterly regardless of archi- tectural effect ; but as the Church became consoli- dated, and its members accustomed to liberality, one congregation came to vie with another in the completeness and beauty of its ecclesiastical buildings, and the makeshift erections of the disruption era were in a great measure swept away. In every town, and almost in every village, the Free Chureh towers and spires became conspicuous, and the Free Church bells held their own, at least with those of the Established Church. Now, this was a distinct innovation. It was something new for Dissenters to assume this position of equality with the Church Established ; and the movement required only to be initiated to be readily followed by other non-estab- lished churches, with obvious results on the develop- ment of ecclesiastical architecture. Emancipated from the restraints of any sentimental delicacy as te the relative position of the Establishment, United Presbyterians, Independents, Wesleyans, and other sects, as well as Free Church congregations, thence- forward aimed at beauty as well as comfort in their buildings, and many of them during the last twenty years haye not grudged to spend from £10,000 to £20,000 for the attainment of these objects, with cesults which to some extent at least Ishall presently bring under your notice. Coincident with the growing appreciation of art, to which I have just referred, arose a liberality of sentiment regarding religion and all its accessories, which year by year is becoming more marked, and which has already greatly changed for the better This has led, among other things, to the introduction of organs and trained choirs, stained glass windows, coloured mural decoration, appropriate furniture, and many minor changes, which, but a short quarter of a century ago, would have been regarded by all devout Presbyterians with superstitious abhorrence. The position, then, to which the Presbyterians (both established and disestablished) have attaived is this —they have now no conscientious scruples about the use of any particular style of architecture, nor about the use of any amount or style of ornament, their aspitations in this direction being for the most part limited only by the means at their disposal ; they have become alive to the propriety of making the House of God in some measure worthy of its sacred dedication, and while still hampered by much ignorance, they are honestly andearnestly struggling towards the attainment of better things. In such circumstances much must depend upon the direction given to their efforts by the architects of the country. I can hardly believe that parish ehurches, such as I have just referred to, would be tolerated now. Among the oldest of the churches built since the Reformation we find some very curious attempts at the revival of Gothic forms. I shall only refer to the old College church, erected in the seventeenth century, and Renfrew parish church (photographs of which were exhibited). About a century later several important churches were erected, especially in our large towns. S. Andrews, Glasgow, is a good example of this class of buildings. It is said to be a copy of S. Martin’s-in-the-Fields, and there is some similatity. There is a similar portico and a similar plan, but the spire is inferior, asis the exterior generally. he interior is exceedingly good; it is divided into three aisles by fluted Corinthian columns supporting yaulted ceilings, the whole, except the ceilings, being of polished freestone. This church was erected in 1739. The architect is not known; apparently there was none. According to a minute of the Town Council, still extant, two~joiners submitted competition plans, and the design of one of them was approved of, and he was employed to erect the build- ing accordingly (laughter). Those who think with the Quarterly reviewer will, of course, not be sur- prised at the excellent result (laughter). I may mention, however, that there is a tradition that the worthy joiner had secured the services of an itinerant London architect—(laughter)—which I am rather in- clined to believe, especially as London architects are found poaching upon our preserves even unto the present day! (loud langnter). Mr. Honeyman supplemented his paper by a few remarks, in which he said that he and his fellow architects in Scotland felt deeply indebted to the architects of England, more particularly to such men as Mr. Street and Mr. Scott, for the good example they had set in reviving the Gothic style of architecture for the purposes of our own day, and especially for churches. English architects had measured and sketched and studied the too-long- neglected and noble works of the Gothic period long before their Scottish brethren did so, and he was sure that the profession throughout the country was deeply indebted to such pioneers. Scotch archi- tects had received a further stimulus to the study of Gothic, too, from the fact that several notable build - ings had been erected north of the Tweed by Mr. Scott, Mr. Street, Mr. Hay, and others. Mr. Srreet, in proposing a vote of thanks to Mr. Honeyman for his paper, and to the gentlemen who had assisted him by supplying the large number of photographs and drawings shown, remarked that Scotch architects had no doubt great difficulties to contend with in, respect to ecclesiastical buildings, but they seemed to be on the right road to a satis- factory solution of the problem which was set them. He was remarkably pleased, on the whole, with the advance in art shown by the works exhibited, and if he might give a word of advice to his Scottish friends it would be to regard their Gothic churches more in the light of Medieval halls, and to study well the best examples of this type of building. He advised English architects, too, to study, measure, and sketch the Gothic churches and remains in Scot- land. This was a comparatively unworked mine, but one which would well repay diligent study. He cordially congratulated Scotch architects on their praiseworthy attempts to engraft Gothic architec- ture upon Presbyterian buildings. (Hear, hear.) Professor Kerr had much pleasure in seconding the proposition, as it was mainly at his suggestion that Mr. Honeyman had consented to read a paper on the subject. During a recent visit to Glasgow he (the Professor) had been much struck with the progress being made in matters architectural in that city, and he thought some account of what was being done there would be very acceptable to the members of the Institute. The Professor suggested that this resolution should also have a wider scope, and take the form of a kind of greeting to the Pre- sident of the Glasgow Architectural Association, Mr. Thomson—‘ Greek Thomson,” as he was called, “the last of the Greeks ”—and to Scotch architects generally. This suggestion having been received by acclamation, the motion was unanimously adopted, and Mr. Honeyman made a few remarks in reply. COMPETITIONS. The Conference next turned its attention to the subject of Competitions. The following is the report of the Committee appointed by last year's Conference to consider the subject :— Report of the Committee on Competitions. At the final meeting of the General Conference of Architects, held at the Institute on May 26, 1871, the following resolution was passed :—‘* That with refer- ence to the subject of * Architectural Competitions,’ the Council of the Institute be requested to appoint a special and permanent Committee—viz., one member from the Council, one member rom the Fellows, one