Abney Park Chapel
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Abney Park Chapel, is a Grade II Listed chapel, situated in Europe's first wholly nondenominational cemetery, Abney Park Cemetery, London.
Opened in May, 1840, it was the first nondenominational cemetery chapel in Europe (and probably the world - since the chapel at Mount Auburn was a later addition). It pioneered a building style, and encouraged revewed interest in the careful blending of earlier styles.
It was primarily the work of a design team consisting of George Collison II (acting as client and having particular enthusiasm for Mount Auburn's approach), William Hosking (architect and engineer with an interest in Egyptology and classical buildings), and George Loddiges (botanical scientist and horticulturalist primarily concerned with the setting of Abney Park Chapel, featuring a nearby rosarium and a collection of American plants on the Chapel Lawn).
Location and Orientation
The first matters to establish were the design principles and layout; since this was to be the first non-denominational chapel for a European garden cemetery, there were no existing guidelines. What should it look like ? Where would it be most appropriately located within the park ? How should it be aligned in the landscape ? And which direction should it face ? William Hosking, in discussion with George Collison II developed a plan to site the novel chapel at the very heart of Abney Park foregoing any positioning close to the main entrance; as trees lining the Chapel Walk matured, it would gradually be revealed as one approached through a sylvan landscape setting. The sinuously designed Chapel Walk would be lined with conifer trees for their all-year-round screening effect and double-up as a carrige drive. Not only would nature be appreciated, but the main entrance (where a radical 'Egyptial Revival' approach was to be taken for a long and dramatic frontage) would not be eclipsed.Nonetheless, the chapel was not to be 'hidden' away in the centre of the estate, even as its trees matured. Collison sought a prominent and unapologetic landmark that would be seen from a good distance beyond the cemetery well into the future. To achieve this, whilst not being conspicuous at the main entrance, considerable height was required. William Hosking considered this to be best suited to a steeple, but it would need to be much higher than any other in the vicinity, surpassing that of the local parish church, to maximise its effect.
The Blending of Styles
To celebrate its unique message of religious harmony, the chapel was to be a blend of conventional and unique characteristics. William Hosking drafted and redrafted an increasingly elegant solution to this design problem, his earliest designs being rather too costly for his clients purse. It was eventually settled that the chapel would essentially follow gothic revivalist architecture (as was also later agreed for the addition of a chapel at Mount Auburn), thereby offering a 'high church' note as a counterpoise to what critics might claim to be the somewhat 'unchristian' style of the entranceway (Egyptian Revival). In this way the chapel was to contribute balance to the cemetery's philosophy of nondenominational harmony and reflect the ecumenical leanings of Isaac Watts who had lived at the parkland estate a century before. Adoption of 'gothic' was also a recognition that the style might gradually become associated with ideas and values that nonconformists held dear, for example its associations with animals and plants, and was partially a rejection of the views of those who promoted it in the 'High Church' and 'Chriatian' terms advocated by Pugin. Indeed, the gothic style did gradually become associated with a raft if ideas that Pugin would have found an 'unacceptable reading' of its meaning.At this date, however, the Gothic style, was still a somewhet sensitive matter for nonconformists given Pugin's views; hence, the decision at Abney park that the 'Gothic Revivalist' character should be downplayed, though predominate. Thus the chapel was to accommodate more than one gothic tradition (from the castle as well as the church) through its design approach; to incorporate some neoclassical aspects; and and its architect, William Hosking, was asked to look further afield that England, for examples. To help achieve the desired result, a 'low gothic revivalist' style, stock brick rather than traditional stone was used for much of the exterior, introducing a visual quality similar to the Brick Gothic style of Baltic countries, Sweden, Estonia etc. Moreover, neo-classical features (i.e. semi-circular arches) were carefully composited into the horse carriage entrance (porte cochere), and each viewing turret bore a simple romanesque oculus to let light onto its newell staircase, rather than a pointed or quatrefoil gothic window or an oculus whose aperture was in the gothic style.
The concept of introducing classical elements into a gothic design had previously used in England only on rare occasions, such as for the Little Castle at Bolsover in Derbyshire, built after the Reformation, from 1612. It symbolised a connection with Romanesque-Gothic religious buildings of continental Europe, such as the monastic basilica of St. Procopius, Trebic, Czech Republic, where Jewish and Christian cultures co-existed; now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Hosking's search for a thoughtful and appropriate design for the three rose windows of the chapel, may also have been influenced partly by the St. Procopius basilica which incorporates a rare example of the use of a naturalistic ten-part rose window. All wild roses have five petals and five sepals or multiples of this number, as do theor fruit. Similarly a lime, orange or lemon which belong to the Roseaceae family will also normally show ten fruit segments, as can be seen if cut in half. The adoption of a botanical rose window introduced an element of classical learning and reason rather than the tendency of gothic towards the more elaborate and supernatural. Its choice would also have suited the horticulturalist and scientist George Loddiges who was on the design team for he saw the hand of the Creator in the beautiful natural designs of botanical species and varieties. His multi-part work, 'The Botanical Cabinet' took a distinctly more religious view of botany than competitor's illustrated works such as Curtis' 'Botanical Magazine' and was noted for its piety. Near to the chapel with its splendid botanical rose windows George Loddiges laid out a special rosarium to bring attention to this rich and diverse plan family. The botanical rose windows would also have suited George Collison for his ancestral town was Beverley in Yorkshire, where he would have been familiar with the widespread use of the White Rose of York as a symbol and have seen it reproduced, taking up the theme of the rose, in the rare ten-part botanical rose windows of Beverley Minster.
Ultimately the botanical rose windows at the Abney Park Chapel provided a strong symbolic detail that dovetailed the chapel to the design of the grounds and its rosarium, besides offering the beauty of simplicity and a compliment to the Creator; a design of considerable thoughtfulness as came to typify William Hosking's learned and historical approach to architecture.
For the pointed gothic windows, grouped in threes, no tracery was used, also representing careful thinking about simplicity of design. For the steeple, William Hosking drew on the fourteenth century Bloxham church in Oxfordshire for design inspiration. Its steeple, the tallest in the county, is octagonal in cross-section and gains additional elevation from a raised octaganal base with a decorated rim; and the spire itself is of graceful, elegant simplicity unlike more ornate gothic steeples with buttresses and decorative crockets. These low Gothic characteristics suited Hosking's purpose well, though he added a flourish of colour banding to the steeple - a Victorian fashion.
The final result was a chapel, complete with its unornamented yellow stock brick walls, a tall, eye-catching yet gracefully simple steeple, and simple botanically accurate rose windows, created a dramatic but tasteful and purposeful piece; one that epitomised its low gothic nondenominational function well, whilst establishing Abney Park as a local landmark visible from the thoroughfares of Church Street and the High Street, and from Woodberry Downs in the middle distance.
The Single Cell Layout
Perfecting the chapel had necessitated a long process of interation and re-design to meet the wishes of the Cemetery Directors for a new nondenominational style. William Hosking mastered the brief admirably, providing them with a chapel building that achieved the company's objective remarkably well, both in its choice of materials and style of design.However, of equal significance was its layout in plan section; for the chapel comprised just a single internal chamber that would be available to all, regardless of denomination; marking the chapel out in a practical, functional sense, in addition to its external appearance, as the first nondenominational cemetery chapel in Europe. Moreover, its cruciform plan adopted equal arms as in a Greek cross, giving conceptual strength to this concept of equality before God, through its design approach. At a time when cemeteries had to have separate denominational chapels or at best, a double-cell arrangement, Hosking's chapel was entirely unique to European cemetery design.
The Axial Vista in memory of Isaac Watts
That the eventual design for the chapel avoided the temptation towards eclectic over-adornment sometimes associated with excesses of romantic mediaevalism, for which the derogatory term Gothick can be used. By satisfying the Abney Park Cemetery Company Directors' preference for a low gothic style, William Hosking helped focus visual attention on the chapel's one elaborately designed elevation - the crenelated and decorated south elevation. This facade was set between two octagonal stair turrets, with newell staircases inside, illuminated by simple oculus windows. These led to dramatic viewpoints over Dr Watts' Walk, as well as to an internal viewing platform above an ogee arch with trefoil panels and quatrafoil. the whole effect created an almost theatrical backdrop to the south chapel lawn. As such it almost 'spoke' to the vista to which it was conspicuously aligned - a new axial walk in Dr. Watts' memory being laid out due south. Thus the chapel would be aligned with Dr Watts' and Lady Mary Abney's former place of residence - Abney House, Church Street.
Orienting the chapel this way proved problematic to engravers who took artistic licence to illustrate Abney Park Chapel as if it were aligned perfectly in between the main entrance pillars ! However, its purposeful 'turning away' from the commercial entrance to enable its most elegant facade to face a planned vista and walk in memory of Dr. Watts, was important to capture the spirit of the park. It symbolised the Abney Park Cemetery Company's deliberate land assembly of the Fleetwood House and Abney House grounds to conserve it for dedication to the life of Dr Watts, and in memory of his benefactor Lady Mary Abney. The cemetery company ensured that its official engraver, George Childs, issued a perspective of Abney Park Chapel ('Dr Watts' Chapel') along the axial vista of what was to be laid out as Dr Watts' Walk. This was distributed free to all shareholders.
Dr Watts was an important figure for the cemetery founders. During his life but more so after his death, he had become associated with the nondenominational concept now being espoused by the cemetery company. Although Dr Watts had been a lifelong religious Independent, he had been honoured in death by a memorial in the Anglican Westminster Abbey, and his hymns and scholarly teachings had become widely favoured by moderates of many denominations. Where better, when Edward Hodges Baily RA FRS was commissioned a few years later to design London's only public statue to the life of Dr. Isaac Watts, than to situate it in Dr Watts' Walk in front of the Abney Park Chapel ?
Support and Controversy for the New Approach
Endorsement of Hosking's place in architectural history along with the all important guiding hand of his client George Collison, came once the final design was agreed. The foundation stone was laid by noneother than the Right Hon. Sir Chapman Marshall, Knt., Lord Mayor of the City of London in the presence of the Sheriffs of the City and County. Indeed, the City.Though the purpose of Hosking's masterly orientation and design received considerable praise, there remained some for whom the completed chapel, not being adherent to strict, or particular, gothic principles, was deemed to be of 'poor design' and 'pretentious'. Hosking's criticics emanated principally from groups such as the Cambridge 'Ecclesiologists' who were pursuing an Anglican revivalist agenda and favoured one particular stylistic approach, even within the Gothic tradition. The balanced design worked as planned however, the cemetery attracting Dissenters and Anglicans in roughly equal numbers initially, before it became especially populat with the former. Moreover, in later years other architects, notably George Gilbert Scott also went beyond merely copying the past, and began to produce designs in their own personal manner, creating buildings that sometimes mixed elments of the English Gothic style with features other countries and periods; indeed Scott believed a new genre would develop from such an approach.
Counterbalancing the critics were other 'arbiters of taste' who concluded that Hosking's cemetery design worked exceptionally well, notably John Loudon. Loudon had been critical of the catacombs at Kensal Green as 'bad taste', and had also found the 'pleasure-ground style' at Norwood cemetery objectionable; yet offered only praise for the new principles of cemetery layout, mangement and design at Abney Park. And John Britton, who had co-authored one of Pugin's books promoting gothic revival architecture, was soon to work in partnership with William Hosking to devise a restoration scheme in Bristol for an Anglican church.
The Landscape Setting
The design team included not only the architect William Hosking, but also the botanist and nurseryman George Loddiges. Moreover, the ethos of Abney Park Cemetery was distinctly botanical. The plans for the chapel therefore featured a nearby rosarium and a collection of American plants on the Chapel Lawn. This, combined with the unusual A to Z arboretum around the cemetery's perimeter, the pre-existing 'stately timber' or 'well timbered grounds' that included some early introductions of trees fron North America from around 1700, and the plans for special interest tree collections along some of the northern and central walks, led John Loudon to describe Abney Park Cemetery as the most ornamented of the London cemeteries. This attention to an educational and botanical interest in landscape design was becoming fashionable through the work of John Loudon and his ideas of the 'gardenesque'. However, no garden cemetery in Europe had ventured to adopt this style to the degree it was employed at Abney Park. As Brent Elliot wrote in his "Garden History" journal review of a reprint of Loudon's book on cemetery design (1843;1981 reprint), "It seems to me that much of what Loudon recommends is drawn from the example of Abney Park Cemetery".The Chapel Today
Today Hosking's novel chapel continues to merit acclaim as an outstandingly attractive architectural set piece of special importance amongst the Magnificent Seven London garden cemeteries of the time, and indeed throughout Europe. It also has significance in relation to the general evolution of ideas and schemes for nondnominational burial grounds and cemeteries, establishing itself as the first to incorporate a nondenominational chapel and other characteristics that lead to it being considered today as the first wholly nondenominational garden cemetery inEurope. However it has been closed for thirty years and is a 'building at risk' despite re-roofing and other structural repairs. Plans are being progressed by The Abney Park Cemetery Trust to re-open it and give access to the public and communty groups once again along with an improved nature and landscape setting.External links
References
- Loudon, J.C. (1843; 1981 reprint). On the Laying Out, planting & Managing of Cemeteries. Redhill, Surrey: Ivelet
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