THE BRICK CHURCHES

Copyright © 1999 by David H. Fox.  All Rights Reserved

The Audsleys eventually developed a scheme of using brick for the interior of churches.  This material was less costly than stone, but possessed the virtues of being durable and aiding reverberation.  The 2 November 1895 issue of Architecture and Building featured an article entitled,"Brick Church Architecture," probably written by G. A. Audsley:

There appears to be, judging by the little work that has been done in this country, a strange prejudice in the minds of American architects against the use of brick in church architecture.  This prejudice can only obtain on two grounds.  First, the impression that brick is an ignoble material in ecclesiastical architecture, secondly, the want of knowledge of the capabilities of the material in artistic hands, and of what has been done by architects of note in other countries.  It will be better for American church architecture when the advantage of using artistic brickwork is fully recognized, and when our architects give its proper treatment the attention and study it call for and deserves.

When we turn our eyes to the numerous churches which have marked the revival of ecclesiastical architecture in England, we can not help being impressed with the dignity and beauty of the many brick churches distributed over the land, churches which bear no evidences of economy in their construction, no signs which indicate that their architects held brick as an inferior or undesirable material in which to embody their artistic conceptions.  Indeed, on the contrary, we are led to recognize the self evident fact that their architects adopted brickwork on account of its value in color and its general suitableness as a material for both exterior and interior architecture.  A few noteworthy examples will serve to accentuate the above remarks.  The Church of All Saints, Margaret Street, London, built by William Butterfield, the distinguished church architect, is probably one of the most prominent landmarks in the Gothic Revival in England.  It is, strictly speaking, a brick church; red and black brickwork being freely used in both its exterior and interior, associated with stone in the former and with precious marbles, alabaster and other decorative materials in the latter.  The architecture is in the most elaborate treatment of Mr. Butterfield's special style of Gothic, and there could have been no idea of economy associated with the adoption of brickwork, for although the church is by no means large, it cost, including the adjoining clergy house, the sum of about $450,000....

Perhaps the most striking brick interior in England is to be seen in the large Church of St. Margaret, Anfield, Liverpool, built by W. & G. Audsley.  It is a cruciform church nearly 200 feet long and very lofty.  Externally it is built of gray local brick relieved with red and black bricks and buff stone; internally it is finished throughout in red and black pressed brick, with columns of granite and light blue stone, and mouldings and sculptured work in light buff stone.  The effect is rich and harmonious.

Prior to its destruction by fire in 1961, Saint Margaret's Church stood on Belmont Road in the Anfield section of Liverpool.  Its construction was made possible by a gift of £30,000 from William Preston, Mayor of Liverpool. .        A Pictorial and Descriptive Guide to Liverpool (London: Ward, Lock & Co., 1902), 146.   The dedication of the church was reported in the 28 November 1873 issue of The Building News:  

A new church dedicated to S. Margaret, was opened at Anfield, Liverpool, on Tuesday.  The style is Early French Gothic, and Messrs. W. & G. Audsley are the architects.  The general features of the design are a long nave with narthex and lateral aisles, an apsidal chancel, north and south transepts, and a massive centre tower, gabled east and west, and roofed in the saddle-back form.  Mr. Pollock, of Liverpool, was the contractor.  The reredos is of marble and Caen stone.  The ceiling of the nave is of a wagon form, and painted throughout in gold and colours.  The ceilings of the side-aisles are also decorated in gold and colours.  Over the Western doors is a painting of the Adoration of the Magi, extending the whole width of the nave, the work of Messrs. Heaton, Butler, [and] Bayne.

St. Margaret's Church,

 Liverpool, UK

A second use of the brick scheme was mentioned in the 2 November 1895 issue of Architecture & Building, but there is some question as to whether the plan was actually carried out.

The Protestant Episcopal Church for Eckington, Washington, D.C., designed by the same architects, which illustrates the simpler treatment of interior brickwork.  The church is to be built of rich red and deep chocolate brick pointed with buff mortar.  The columns of the nave are to be of polished red granite, with bases, bands and capitals of stone.  Above the nave is a lofty clerestory, the windows of which are on groups of three, divided by pilasters of brickwork having bases and capitals of stone.

Although the dimensions of the site render the church somewhat narrow, an open and spacious chancel is secured by omitting a chancel arch and carrying the roof throughout at the same height.  The chancel being distinctly marked by a low marble wall, by black and green marble corbeled wall pilasters and double roof trusses of richer treatment than those of the nave.....The lofty triplet above the altar, facing north, will never be unpleasantly lighted.  Here stained glass of quiet and full tones of color will have a fine effect.  The timbers of the roofs will be relieved with color decorations and the spaces between them will be decorated.  The scheme of the coloring will be in harmony with the rich red brick of the walls.

We understand that the same architects have in prospect another brick church for Washington, which in size and architectural character will rival their fine church of St. Margaret, Liverpool.

The final brick interior church constructed by the Audsleys was the Saint Edward the Confessor Roman Catholic Church at 8th and York streets, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The construction firm of Melody & Keating completed the building in 1906. .        Allen Johnson (Ed.), Dictionary of American Biography (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943), 1:422. .        Hawks, Edward, History of the Parish of Saint Joan of Arc, Harrowgate, Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Peter Reilly Co., 1937), 45.  The structure featured a nearly exact copy of the interior of Saint Margaret's Church, Liverpool, completed thirty years earlier.  G. A. Audsley wrote the published "Description of the Church of Saint Edward the Confessor" which essentially presented his final thoughts on church architecture in an exhaustive and highly detailed form.  The full text may be seen by clicking on the "Description..." bar at head or foot of  this article.   Excerpts follow:

In designing the Church of Saint Edward, a course diametrically opposite to that which has been almost universally obtained up to the present time, in the manner of Catholic churches has been followed.  No excessive or unnecessary ornament has been lavished on the exterior.

While the interior of the church is properly of more elaborate architectural treatment than the exterior, the same principles which dictated the external design are in full evidence throughout the internal architecture.

Tower:  The principal architectural feature of the external design is the massive tower which rises at the southwest corner of the church to the height of one hundred and sixty-one feet.  The tower terminates, above the belfry stage, in a richly sculptured and moulded cornice and arcaded parapet, four square angle pinnacles thirty-five feet high above the tower cornice, and four intermediate pinnacles nineteen feet in height; all richly treated and sculptured to accord with the rest of the architecture.

Exterior: The next most important feature is the west gable of the nave.  This consists of a deeply recessed arch, twenty-two feet six inches wide and twenty-eight feet high from the floor level in the nooked jamb of which are eight polished granite shafts standing on moulded and sculptured bases and carrying sculptured capitals. The tympanum with in the arch is sculptured with the figure of our Blessed Lord in Glory.  The two massive doors are of oak, hung on large bronze hinges of thirteenth-century design, after the pattern of those of the west doors of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, at Paris.  The rose window, twenty feet in diameter, is a magnificent piece of stone tracery-work, being of twelve radiating divisions--emblematic of the twelve Apostles--richly moulded, cusped, shafted, and sculptured,surrounding a central foiled opening.

The transept projects twenty-two feet six inches from the aisle wall, and is forty-seven feet high to its moulded corbel-table.  



Each of the five sides of its apse is pierced with a lancet window twenty-three feet high, finished in all respects similar to the aisle windows.  The transept is lower than, and subordinate to, the nave, following the authority furnished by the beautiful south transept of the Cathedral of Soissons.  This treatment has been adopted to secure an unbroken ceiling throughout the entire length of the church internally....

The materials used throughout the exterior of the church are [light tan] Indiana limestone and [light gray] Port Deposit granite.  The former is introduced in all the architectural features and details, and is carefully chiselled and wrought to the architect's full-sized drawings.  The granite is employed for the general wall surfaces, and is laid in horizontal courses averaging about six inches in thickness.  This coursed work produces a very beautiful and rest appearance, widely different to the crude and objectionable random masonry so commonly to be seen in American church building, and which is so destructive of artistic repose and foreign to the mediæval school of church building.

All the roofs are covered with mottled green and purple slates which have a very artistic effect.  A handsome gilded metal cross surmounts the apse roof of the sanctuary.

Interior:  All the architectural features are in different shades of gray, relieved in a few instances with subdued red.  The materials used are pressed bricks of three tones. gray limestone, gray terra cotta, dark gray granite (approaching black), red granite, and marble, etc.  Decorative painting of a corresponding refined and subdued character is applied to the closed ceilings of the nave, aisles, baptistery, chapels, and sanctuary, and the open timber roofs of the transepts.

The organ and choir gallery, over the narthex, has a handsome arcaded front of quartered oak and ebonized wood; the latter being confined to the shafts of the small columns, carrying out the feeling imparted to the interior by the profuse introduction of polished black granite columns and pilasters.  Underneath the window stands the organ, artistically disposed so as to  leave the window fully exposed to view.  The case is of oak, handsomely traceried and carved, inclosing the pipe-work of burnished and lacquered tin.

The nave, extending from the narthex arches to the transept arches, has on each side four finely proportioned arches springing from polished black granite columns, two feet in diameter, and corresponding square responds having moulded and sculptured bases, moulded bands, and sculptured of moulded capitals of limestone.

 The arches of the two darker-toned bricks, ornamentally disposed, having an outer ring of moulded bricks, and a bold hoodmould of gray terra cotta, enriched with a beautiful ornament, the original of which is in the Cathedral of Laon, in France.  The columns rise from the floor to the height of nineteen feet, and the arches reach the height of thirty-seven feet to the apex of their hood-moulds.  In the spandrels of the arches are moulded and sculptured corbels on which the bases of the roof-shafts rest.  These shafts are of polished red granite, and carry sculptured capitals from the moulded abaci of which spring the main ribs of the arched ceiling of the nave.  In the lower stage of the aisle walls are the four confessionals, each entered through three arched openings, divided by polished black granite columns carrying sculptured capitals.  Blind arches, corresponding in architectural treatment to the arched openings of the confessionals, are constructed in the remaining four bays of the aisle walls.  Over the confessionals and blind arches are the twenty-four aisle windows, arranged in symmetrical triplets.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ceiling of the nave is of the form technically designated a "pointed wagon."  It is divided into six bays by the large, moulded main ribs which spring from the capitals of the red granite shafts, already mentioned.  These bays are subdivided by the secondary and intermediate ribs into several compartments.  All the ribs are decorated with ornamental patterns in rich colors, while the surfaces between them are covered with a thirteenth-century design, in which there are numerous sacred devices and medallions containing symbols, emblems, and monograms, executed in refined colors on a light ground tint.  The apex of the ceiling from the floor is seventy feet....



The sanctuary extends eastward from the transept arches, of the same width and height as the nave, and terminates in an apse of five sides.  This treatment gives the maximum effect of size, and an unobstructed vista in the interior.  The division of the sanctuary from the nave is simply marked, on the walls by broad pilasters of red jasper, having moulded bases and bands and sculptured capitals of stone; and on the ceiling, by wide moulded ribs, which spring from the abaci of the capitals just mentioned.  Fifteen feet eastward of the pilasters, above described, are another pair of precisely similar, from the capitals of which spring wide ceiling ribs, as before.  Between these pilasters are the arches which connect the lateral chapels with the sanctuary.  The lower stage of the apse walls, which extends on each side and behind the high altar, is artistically relieved by broad horizontal bands of patterned light and dark gray brickwork; and above, at the height of twenty feet from the elevated floor of the apse, is richly moulded cornice of stone forming the ledgment-table of the apse windows, which ascend from it to the height of twenty-eight feet.  In the lateral face of the lower stage of the apse, on the north side, is the beautiful almonery for the preservation of the Sacred Oils.  It is constructed of polished marbles and sculptured stone, and furnished with an ornamental door, securely hinged and locked.  It projects slightly in advance of the wall, and is four feet wide and seven feet high.  Directly opposite the almery, in the south wall, is the sacrarium, similar in dimensions and design, and having a basin hollowed out of its marble base.  The almery and sacrarium are here provided in their proper forms and placed in their proper ritual positions, in accordance with ancient Catholic usage, and for the first time in a Catholic church in this country.

The five large lancet windows of the apse are richly treated internally.  The large spaces between these ribs and the main ribs of the sanctuary ceiling are richly decorated with figures and appropriate thirteenth-century illumination.  In the central space of the apse is a majestic figure of our Lord.....

The altar and its tabernacle and lofty reredos are constructed entirely of choice foreign and native colored marbles and onyx, harmoniously arranged so as to produce a refined effect of color.  All the sculptured capitals, cornices, crockets, finials, crosses, etc., are of cava arena stone entirely gilded, producing a peculiarly rich effect.



The sole aim of the architects has been to produce a true work of Catholic architecture and art, every feature, down to the minutest detail, being devised so as to produce a harmonious whole---a work of architectural music without a discordant note.  To what extent this aim has been reached must be decided by those competent to judge from a knowledge of ancient and reliable Catholic standards.

Though Gothic in style, the plan of Saint Edward's and the other brick churches owes more to the basilicas of ancient Rome than the cathedrals of Medieval Europe.  G. A. Audsley began a series of articles in the 24 November 1894 issue of Architecture and Building on "The Basilica and its Adaptation to Modern City Churches."  Unfortunately the series ended abruptly with the 29 June 1895 issue prior to any discussion of the "adaptation."  It is evident, however, from the plans presented that Audsley had in mind the basilica-style use of columns, rather than the masonry piers of Gothic cathedrals in the naves of his churches.  In what was probably their 1896 competition entry for the Newark, New Jersey, Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, the Audsleys again used columns, but on a much grander scale. .        W. & G. Audsley, "Drawing of Cathedral Nave," The Architectural Archives, the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.