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1829.]

Trinity Church, Marylebone.

NEW CHURCHES.-No. XXI.
TRINITY CHURCH, MARYLEBone.

Architect, Soane.

THE
HE Church which forms the first
subject in the accompanying en-
graving, is situated on the North side
of the New-road, near the eastern en-
trance to the Regent's Park; it is the
last of the five new Churches built in
the populous parish of St. Marylebone,
four of which have already been de-
scribed in our pages*.

In common with the parish or rectory Church, on the opposite side of the road, the usual Church arrange ment has been departed from; in this instance, the principal front faces the south instead of the west, and the altar is at the north end of the building.

In our Magazine for 1826 (vol. XCVI. pt. ii. p. 201), we gave a view and description of St. Peter's Church, Walworth, also built from Mr. Soane's designs; it will be seen by a comparison of the present, with the engraving then given, that the two buildings closely resemble each other. Though not absolute copies, there is that sameness of design which we have already censured as a fault in the works of inferior architects, and which we should not have expected in any building proceeding from the pencil of Mr. Soane.

Walworth Church is a brick building, with the ornamental portions executed in stone; the present is apparently at least a stone building, with certain patches of brick, a novel, it is true, but at the same time a tasteless style of decoration.

The principal front of this Church is made into a centre with side divisions; the first portion consists of a portico of four Ionic columns, imitated from the Temple on the Ilyssus at Athens; they are raised on a flight of steps of equal height with the plinth on which the entire building is elevated, and are surmounted by their entablature. The frieze displays the Grecian fret, an ornament once very fashionable with the designers of fenders and tea-boards, and with which Mr. Soane bas chosen to mark, with a

* Christ Church, vol. xcv. pt. ii. p. 577. All Souls, vol. xcvi. pt. ii. p. 9: The Parish Church, and St. Mary's, vol. xcvi. pt. ii. p. 9.

GENT. MAG. April, 1829.

297

solitary exception, every building he has erected; behind the portico are entrances to the Church, and collateral to it are two plain divisions, containing lofty arched windows, divided in height by a transverse stone; the centhese smaller divisions, with their retral portion is built or faced with stone, built with brick, and form a disa turns at the flanks of the building, are of the front and flanks. Such small greeable contrast with the stone work portions of brick-work rather show a peculiar taste, than indicate an atconceive that in an edifice, where the tention to economy, for no one can funds allowed of a number of expens sive columns, any necessity could exist for leaving a small portion only of the corners of the building destitute of a stone covering,

In the side divisions, the cornice

only of the entablature is applied, and the entire elevation is surmounted by rather an odd finish to a professedly a blocking course and ballustrade, Grecian building.

Above the portico rises a tower in two stories, the first or belfry is square, in plan: in each face is an arched window, with a circular perforation above for the dial, over which the Grecian fret is again introduced. At the sides of the windows, and near the angles of the tower, are insulated columns of the "Tivoli Corinthian' order, standing on pedestals; the story breaks over the columns, and above is crowned with an entablature, which each column is one of those strange ornaments peculiar to the works of Mr. Soane, which, from the description of this Church by Mr. Elmes, in "Metropolitan Improvements" (p.83), we learn are intended for cinerary urns. Mr. Elmes, in general an acute and exThese hitherto nondescript ornaments cellentarchitectural critic, styles “pleasing finials;" they appear to us little more than clumsy attempts at imitating those far more pleasing finials, the pinnacles at the angles of the Church towers of our national architecture. The second story is circular, a peristyle of six columus, of the same order as the tower of the Winds at Athens; the columns are raised on a stylobate, and crowned with an entablature, over which is a blocking course, broken by Grecian tiles at intervals, corresponding with the columns. A cupola, sus

298

Trinity Church, Marylebone.

taining a large vane instead of a cross, crowns this story; the cella is pierced with windows between each alternate pair of columns.

Mr. Elmes, in the work before referred to, thus characterizes this tower: "Since the days of Gibbs and Wren, I consider this steeple, belfry, or whatever it may be called, as the fashion of the day, or the will of the Commissioners insist on the perpetration of such horrors (horrors! forsooth) on the roofs of modern churches, to be the best, always excepting that of Shoreditch. The omission of the pediment gives some approach to the solid tower, emanating from the ground, and surmounted by the steeple, that was the invariable practice of Wren, and the best Italian architects." Now if our readers will take the trouble to turn to some of our engravings of New Churches, they will, without doubt, find many better specimens of towers of the "pepper-box order," than the present; for instance, Mr. Smirke's at Bryanstone-square*, a favourite design, no doubt, as the architect has bestowed it upon about half a dozen new Churches, and Mr. Edwards's at Hoxton t. The first actually rises from the ground, and the second has no pediment before it to ride "cock horse" upon, as Mr. Elmes facetiously expresses himself, and which we believe only applies literally to the works of Mr. Bedford, in the parishes of Newington, Camberwell, and Lambeth; but whether the steeple is to ride on the portico, like the giant Gog on Noah's ark, or to rise from the ground at once, is not the question in this instance. Where it does, like the present Church, rise from the roof, it affords no excuse for denuding the portico of its pediment, without which the columns seem to stand alone, without the appearance of utility. Surely any tasteful observer would rather see the portico perfected by the addition of a pediment, (although it might be surmounted by one of those "horrors," which if the Commissioners had not enforced as appendages to the new Churches, more than one in this parish might be mistaken for playhouses,) than witness such an awkward composition as a portico without a pedi

ment.

*Vol. xcvii. part ii. p. 9. + Vol. XCVII. part i. p. 209.

[April,

The eastern flank of the Church, shewn in the engraving, assimilates in general design with the front already described; it is made into a central and lateral divisions, the former consists of six half columns of the Ionic order, between two pairs of antæ, forming seven divisions, having lofty arched windows in each intercolumniation, divided into two heights by a transom; the lateral divisions have similar windows to the central. An entablature crowns the columns, with the favourite fret in the frieze. Above the side divisions, in common with the west front, the cornice only is retained; and a ballostrade forms the finish to the elevation. The central portion, like the principal front, is faced with stone. The small collateral divisions at each angle, as before observed, are brick. The northern elevation is recessed in the centre, with a corridor connecting the projecting wings, in the style of Walworth Church. Above this are three windows, and the elevation is finished with an acroterium.

THE INTERIOR

is more closely a copy of Walworth Church, than the outside. The galleries have pannelled fronts, and with that and a few other minute particulars, the description of that Church will suffice for the present. The three windows above the altar are glazed with ground glass, and on that account greatly detract from the appearance of the building.

Upon the whole, though Walworth Church is a less expensive building, we are inclined to prefer it to the present. The porticoes which decorate the three principal fronts of this Church are spoilt by the brick additions at their sides; and the lower story of the tower, by the addition of the columns to its several faces, is rendered too bulky for the upper one. The close resemblance of the interior to Walworth Church appears to us a blemish which we did not expect to meet with in the works of so eminent a professor of the science as the architect of the Church now under consideration. An inferior hand might be unable to produce two designs differing from each other; but when we see no sameness in the numerous Churches built by Sir Christopher Wren, we confess we were much disappointed at finding

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ST. PETER, PIMLICO.

Architect, Hakewell.

The second subject in the engraving represents the new Church on the eastern side of Wilton-place, in the paTish of St. George, Hanover-square.

This handsome and chaste building, of the Ionic order, is distinguished by the simplicity and neatness of its decorations, and the harmony of its proportions. The plan is a parallelogram, placed east and west, without aisles, a portion at the west end being occupied by a portico, tower, and lobbies, and at the east increased by the addition of a small chancel flanked by vestries. The west front is occupied entirely by an hexastyle portico of the Ionic order, the columns fluted. The floor is approached by a bold flight of steps, and in the wall at the back are three lintelled entrances to the Church, the heads of which are surmounted by cornices on consoles. The ceiling of the portico is horizontal, coved round its sides; the columns are surmounted by their entablature and a pediment, behind which a low attic rises from the roof of the Church to the height of the apex of the pediment; it is crowned with a cornice and blocking course, and surmounted by an acroterium of nearly its own height, but in breadth only equalling two-thirds of it; this is finished with a sub-cornice and blocking course, and is surmounted by the tower, which rises from the middle. The addition of a steeple to a Grecian Church forms a stumbling-block to our modern architects, forcing them to have recourse to many shifts to convert a Grecian temple into an Eng lish Church, a forcible argument for the rejection of the classical styles altogether in this species of buildings. The introduction of the attic is sanctioned by the precedent set by James in the parent Church, and the effect produced is not bad, as great value is given to the front elevation by it.

The tower consists of a belfry, square in plan, and in elevation con

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sisting of a pedestal, the dado pierced for the dials of the clock, sustaining a cubical story, having an arched window in each face, at the sides of which are Ionic columns, the angles are finished in antis. This story is crowned with an entablature, above which rises a small circular temple, the cella enriched with sunk pannels, and the cornice with Grecian tiles; the whole is crowned with a spherical dome, surmounted by a cross. The steeple has no great elevation, but is upon the whole a very pleasing object.

The body of the Church is built of brick with stone dressings. A small division at the west end of each flank is marked by an antæ; it contains a lintelled window and a circular one over it; the remainder of the elevation contains five lofty arched windows; the walls rest on a plinth of granite, and the entablature continued from the west portico, forms the crowning member; the angles are finished in antis. The west front and north side are shown in the engraving.

The vestries have lintelled doorways in the sides and ends, and are finished at the augles in antis, and in the elevation with an entablature.

The chancel has no window in its eastern front, the flanks have arched windows like the body of the Church, and the walls are finished with the continued entablature. A corridor in advance of the wall connects the two vestries.

THE INTERIOR

is approached by the lobbies at the west end; the body of the Church is occupied on three sides by a gallery sustained on Ionic columns. The floor of the chancel is judiciously elevated on five steps, two of which are situated at the commencement, and above them is a landing, on which is placed the pulpit and desks; the remaining three lead to the portion inclosed within the rails of the altar, which is situated in a bold recess, the angles guarded by pilasters of the Corinthian order; they are surmounted by an entablature, the modillion cornice from which is continued, without the frieze and architrave, round the entire building, and acts as an impost to the ceiling, which is a segmental arched vault made into divisions corresponding in breadth with the windows, the soffites panelled, the central panel in each oc

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