Description

Christopher Webster seeks looks at Georgian churches in a new light

After centuries of inactivity, around 1800 the Church of England began to address the shortage of accommodation and changing patterns of population, and to build on a huge scale. Many leading architects were involved, and of around 1,500 new churches, there were many outstanding designs.

However, the Victorians – especially the Ecclesiologists and those committed to the Oxford movement – wanted a very different form of Anglican worship, and to achieve this were merciless in their condemnation of the liturgy and architecture they had inherited.

The talk examines these churches and their reception by the Victorians, and seeks, for the first time, to consider them free from Victorian prejudices that have, for too long, compromised their serious study.

Christopher Webster is an architectural historian and Research Associate at the University of York. He has published widely on a range of Georgian and Victorian subjects, including various Leeds architects such as R.D. Chantrell and the development of the architectural profession in the provinces. His most recent book is Late-Georgian Churches.