Context 159 - May 2019

C O N T E X T 1 5 9 : M A Y 2 0 1 9 51 medieval encaustic tiles. After much, sometimes explosive, experimentation, Minton replicated a medieval kiln and perfected the practice of making encaustic tiles, where different coloured clays are fired together. This was then scaled- up to an industrial enterprise to provide Pugin with the thousands of tiles he needed for his churches and the Palace of Westminster. Before Lord Shrewsbury of Alton Towers inherited his title, he had been John Talbot, living humbly in Hampton-on-the-Hill, near Warwick. As Lord Shrewsbury, he became the fantastically rich benefactor of Oscott seminary in Birmingham and a supporter of Pugin. Following Catholic emancipation, Lord Shrewsbury became a key go-between for the British government and the Vatican, and he promoted Pugin’s work to the Pope. Before Pugin arrived at Oscott in 1837, he sent a copy of his book, Contrasts to Lord Shrewsbury, who loved it. The earl became convinced that gothic had to be the style for the British Empire. Pugin and Lord Shrewsbury worked together to show how their gothic principles could transform society for the better. They built a new alternative to the dreaded urban workhouse, in the countryside at Alton Towers, based on medieval gothic almshouses. Instead of husbands, wives and children being separated, families remained together in these gothic almshouses and were provided with gardens to grow their own food. Their children were given an education in a little school house. Pugin immersed himself in the life of the Oscott seminary, including the planning of the first high mass to be held in England since the Reformation. This was held in Oscott’s chapel, with its interiors designed by Pugin, and he was also involved with the design of the mass itself. He put into practice his Covent Garden theatre skills and even designed the vestments worn by the priests. The colour, exuberance and sense of occasion of this high mass brought him to tears. Following the success of the mass, BishopWalsh commissioned Pugin to design a new Catholic cathedral for Birmingham, the first cathedral to be built in England since Christopher Wren’s St Paul’s. Pugin also built a fine gothic palace for the bishop. In the 1960s, St Chad’s Cathedral narrowly escaped being demolished to make way for Birmingham’s inner ring road, designed by the city’s chief engineer, Herbert Manzoni. The bishop’s palace was not so lucky: Manzoni destroyed it. Saint Chad, who was probably born around the year 623 AD and died in 672 AD, reintroduced Christianity to the midlands after the collapse of the Roman empire. Just before Henry VIII’s Reformation, the Catholic priests of Lichfield Cathedral could see the way things were going and they put Chad’s bones in a box, which was sent into hiding in France. This box turned up at Oscott College when Pugin was there. The bones of the saint are now above the altar of St Chad’s Cathedral in a golden casket designed by Pugin.When Pugin completed St Chad’s Cathedral there was a grand procession to consecrate it, orchestrated by Pugin, with a line of priests walking from Oscott to the new cathedral in Birmingham. When Bishop Walsh arrived at the head of the procession carrying the casket containing the saint’s bones, the cathedral’s main doors were flung open, the choir sang, and the bells rang out jubilantly. It was a momentous day for Birmingham, for the Catholic church and for Pugin. My interest in Pugin is personal. I grew up opposite one of the gatehouses he designed leading into Oscott. Although his gatehouses and the seminary itself still stand and serve their original uses, the council estate I grew up on was demolished when it was less than 40 years old as an architectural and social policy failure.When I was growing up, Pugin’s gatehouse spoke to me of a more excellent world. I later learnt that when he was a teenager he sailed his little boat back and forth from Kent to France, collecting the medieval Christian artefacts from French churches that could be purchased cheaply after the revolution. He donated this collection to Oscott so that the seminarians could learn about medieval Christian arts and crafts. The museum he created is still there. Through his architecture and his writing, and by applying the principles of craftsmanship that he learnt from studying medieval arts and crafts, Pugin demonstrated that the industrial revolution did not have to be just about mass production, but it could also be about truth, beauty and social justice. This caught the attention of influential people, including William Morris and John Ruskin. Pugin was already promoting pre- renaissance art and architecture when Ruskin was a boy. Pugin’s house, The Grange, in Ramsgate, which he built for his own family, is undoubtedly an arts- and-crafts house, built 20 years before the Red House, designed by PhilipWebb for William Morris (which is often claimed to be the first arts and crafts house). It was Pugin’s focus on gothic architecture and authentic building techniques and craftsmanship that made him a forerunner of the arts-and-crafts movement. Why does Pugin not get the credit for this? Throughout much of the 20th century Victorian architecture was reviled, and Pugin himself was almost forgotten. The Grange fell into disrepair and was rescued from demolition by the Landmark Trust as recently as 1997. But it is the A drawing by Pugin of the Bishop’s Palace, Birmingham