Alton Castle

The image to the left shows Alton Towers in 1880, designed by Augustus Pugin, near the town of Alton in Staffordshire (not the Alton where the Treaty of Alton was signed). Although what we see now is a magnificent 19th century building designed as part of the Gothic Revival, the place has a much older history.

In the 1st century BCE there was an Iron Age fort on the site, but more continuity started when King Ceolred of Mercia built a wooden fortress there. The place was attacked by King Ine of Wessex in 716 in a battle so bloody that the location was called Slain Hollow (until Pugin turned it into an oriental water garden).

After the Conquest of 1066, the castle was rebuilt and enlarged in stone by the Norman noble Bertram de Verdun, who had been granted land in England by William. It stayed in the Verdun family through three generations of "Bertram de Verdun"s; then, in 1318, Joan de Verdun married Thomas de Furnival. Thomas died crusading in 1348, and the estate went to Sir John Talbot who married Furnival's daughter Maud. Talbot was created the first Earl of Shrewsbury (sort of; I'll explain later). Alton Castle stayed in the Talbot family; the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury was the owner during the 19th century expansion, after which the building was renamed Alton Towers.

In the 20th century the grounds were opened to the public, and now in the UK the phrase "Alton Towers" invokes images of an enormous theme park and resort that has been developed at the site.

But back to the first Earl of Shrewsbury. The first Earl of Shrewsbury was not the first; I'll explain how there were two "firsts" tomorrow.

Augustus Pugin — Reviving the Middle Ages

Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin (1812–1852) was an architect who designed the tower the houses Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the interior of the Palace of Westminster, several churches in England, Ireland, and Australia, numerous other buildings, and at least one castle.

He disapproved of the materialism of the Industrial Revolution, he designed according to "Christian principles," which to him meant medieval. He explained this in his 1836 book Contrasts, or, A Parallel Between the Noble Edifices of the 14th and 15th Centuries and Similar Buildings of the Present Day, Shewing the Present Decay of Taste. 

He brought his "Gothic Revival" style to things other than buildings, and the pictures offer two examples of a chair and a table designed by him and inspired by what he might have called the "medieval aesthetic." I personally find his furniture and accessories odd. The holes in the chair don't match in my (admittedly limited) memory any design motif from the Middle Ages. The side table is even more odd. The quatrefoils hanging down—when they would have normally been oriented upward—seems to be adding architectural motifs into places where they don't quite fit in. Years ago, while visiting the Victoria and Albert Museum, I saw a Gothic Revival chair where the gothic pointed arch that enabled the larger windows of Gothic cathedrals was carved into the wood upside down.

As a fan of the European Middle Ages, I am glad that the 19th century saw value in the art and architecture of that earlier era. I think it possible that, at times, they went too far. (But perhaps that's just me.) An article in Architectural Review on the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth can tell you more.

I think it is better for me to stay focused on his architectural work, such as his castle. His Alton Castle had a long history before Pugin came along to rebuild it, which we'll look at tomorrow.

4 Stages of Gothic—Revival

[This is Part 3; the other 3 parts address Gothic Culture & History, Gothic Architecture, and Fiction.]

Augustus W. Pugin

In 1740, the reputation of the term "Gothic" took an odd turn. The style of architecture mis-named Gothic had been thoroughly denigrated in the previous century, but an 18th century antiquarian trend toward discovering the past and a re-awakening of interest in traditional church views combined to create a movement that looked to the past for inspiration rather than the future.

The so-called "Gothic Revival" grew over time, and influenced art and architecture throughout Europe, and reached Australia, Southern Africa and the Americas. Its spiritual center was England, however, and it found its true champion in the artist, architect and critic Augustus Welby Pugin (1812-1852).

House of Lords, Westminster

Pugin's father was a draughtsman who came to England from France, married Catherine Welby, and settled down to write volumes on architecture—notably Specimens of Gothic Architecture and the three-volume Examples of Gothic Architecture—and to teach his son to draw. Pugin worked in his father's office in his youth, but eventually started getting work of his own. An early job was to design furniture for Windsor Castle. Years later, after dabbling in bringing furniture and carvings from Flanders to England, he was convinced to go into architecture. His business of supplying architectural pieces to people building in the Gothic style failed. He went back to designing for others. He was 18 years old.

At 22, he converted to Roman Catholicism, which lost him some business but introduced him to new contacts. He was employed to make alterations and additions to Alton Towers by the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, and then to build St. Giles Catholic Church, and then to design the Catholic church of Sts. Peter and Paul in Newport. His reputation grew, and he designed houses and churches and furnishings to satisfy the fans of the Revival. The interior of the House of Lords in Westminster is one of his most visible achievements.

But just because something can be done doesn't mean it should be done. The Gothic Revival under Pugin left nothing out: any feature of Gothic architecture could be re-used, no matter its original purpose. The Pugin chair pictured here, for instance, reminds me of one at the Pugin exhibit "A Gothic Passion" that I saw at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London in the early 1990s.* The back is carved as if it were the frame of a stained glass window. It employs the pointed arch that was such an important development in Gothic architecture because of the way it distributed the weight of the stone. Here, something that was vitally functional is made purely decorative. The hanging finials in the front of the chair are another architectural detail that, here, would be functional only if they were intended to impede the swinging of a small child's legs. It seems to me that much of the Gothic Revival style was intended to be as ornamental as possible, employing details that once had purpose but are, in this case, only something to look at, and that possibly make the object less comfortable.

*This may be the first time I have inserted my opinion and personal observation into a post, so I ask your forgiveness if it detracts from the information. I had a very strong negative reaction when I first saw Pugin's work, particularly a chair that had pointed arches upside-down carved into its back.