How the Anglican church responded to population growth and the need for more accommodation, with the building of 1500 new churches, many of the finest quality.

How the Anglican church responded to population growth and the need for more accommodation, with the building of 1500 new churches, many of the finest quality.

This book is the first comprehensive study of late-Georgian church-building. After centuries of post-Reformation inactivity, the Church of England began to address the desperate shortage of accommodation and build on a huge scale. Almost all the leading architects were involved and, amongst approximately 1500 new churches there are some outstanding designs; buildings of the very highest order architecturally.
In this pioneering study, the churches are considered free from the Ecclesiological zeal that condemned them and has, for so long, prevented their serious study. It will celebrate the best of them and provide valuable insights into the design and planning of the whole corpus. There will be many revelations.
Included is a thorough examination of the stylistic alternatives and contemporary liturgical imperatives, along with their architectural implications. And the book explores a lost world of late-Georgian churchgoing: what people expected and experienced in a church service. Also considered are some of the period's remarkable material and constructional innovations, ones often exploited in church-building, along with the provision of architectural services in the era that preceded full professionalisation.

1) Introduction
2) The Church in Danger
3) Ecclesiastical Architecture and the Question of Style
4) Church Designers and their World
5) Constructional and Decorative Innovation in Church-building
6) Designing for Worship: the practical issues
7) Planning Liturgical Spaces
8) Late-Georgian Worship
9) Seating the Congregation
10) Late Eighteenth Century Church-building: the final triumph of Classicism
11) Church-building 1800-1820
12) The Gothic Revival in West Yorkshire and Liverpool 1800-1820
13) Design Debates and Solutions, c1820: the Commissioners, the ICBS and publications
14) Church-building in the 1820s
15) Church-building in London c1790-1830: from Classical to Gothic
16) Church-building in South-East Lancashire c1790-1830: the role of the clergy
17) Church-building in the 1830s
18) A Brave New World?
19) Conclusions
20) Select bibliography
21) Select gazetteer
22) Index