News
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Pugin Week 2021
St Augustine's Church in Ramsgate has a full agenda planned for this year's Pugin Week. Here we highlight events involving society members but we encourage you to take advantage of all events on offer, shown in the image at the right. Click to enlarge or view the PDF HERE.
The Pugin Lecture 2021
Wednesday, 8th September, 7:30pm at St Augustine's Church, Ramsgate, FREE. Dr Gerard Hyland will give a lecture on the life and works of Edward Pugin, illustrated with photographs of Pugin’s buildings from his recent publication, available HERE.
A Guided walk through Pugin’s town
Sunday 12th September – 2pm £5, meet at the bust of Edward Pugin by the Granville Cinema. Catriona Blaker, Founder of the Pugin Society, leads a fast-moving, fact-filled tour of Ramsgate.
St Augustine's Church in Ramsgate has a full agenda planned for this year's Pugin Week. Here we highlight events involving society members but we encourage you to take advantage of all events on offer, shown in the image at the right. Click to enlarge or view the PDF HERE.
The Pugin Lecture 2021
Wednesday, 8th September, 7:30pm at St Augustine's Church, Ramsgate, FREE. Dr Gerard Hyland will give a lecture on the life and works of Edward Pugin, illustrated with photographs of Pugin’s buildings from his recent publication, available HERE.
A Guided walk through Pugin’s town
Sunday 12th September – 2pm £5, meet at the bust of Edward Pugin by the Granville Cinema. Catriona Blaker, Founder of the Pugin Society, leads a fast-moving, fact-filled tour of Ramsgate.
Scarisbrick Hall featured on Great Canal Journeys
Society member Jamie Jacobs spoke with Giles Brandreth and Sheila Hancock during a stop at Scarisbrick Hall on their trip down the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Jamie states that "it was great fun and an honour to share my expertise with a wider audience to hopefully bring a greater appreciation for Pugin's work." The programme first aired September 1 on Channel 4 and is viewable on demand HERE.
Society member Jamie Jacobs spoke with Giles Brandreth and Sheila Hancock during a stop at Scarisbrick Hall on their trip down the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Jamie states that "it was great fun and an honour to share my expertise with a wider audience to hopefully bring a greater appreciation for Pugin's work." The programme first aired September 1 on Channel 4 and is viewable on demand HERE.
Father Michael Fisher MA, FSA: A Tribute from the Pugin Society
After some time to reflect, the Pugin Society has composed an obituary honoring the life and works of Fr Michael Fisher which can be read HERE.
After some time to reflect, the Pugin Society has composed an obituary honoring the life and works of Fr Michael Fisher which can be read HERE.
New Pugin Society publication by Gerard Hyland - The Life and Works of Edward Welby Pugin now available for purchase in the Bookshop
The Pugin Society is pleased to announce the publication of Gerard Hyland's updated and expanded gazetteer charting EW Pugin's works. The book is a companion to The Architectural Works of AWN Pugin, by the same author, published by Spire Books in 2014. Visit our BOOKSHOP to purchase a copy of the publication.
Despite the growth in Pugin Studies during the past 40 years, no comprehensive catalogue of the architectural works of Edward Welby Pugin (AWN Pugin’s eldest son) has ever been published, an omission that this book - in the form of a Catalogue Raisonné - rectifies, in the hope that it will secure his reputation as one of the most eminent and prolific High Victorian Catholic architects of the English Gothic Revival.
This major study identifies 287 executed works, spread over six countries, whose EW Pugin provenance is established beyond doubt; he alone was responsible for the vast majority of this work, the remainder originating from a few architectural partnerships, the most productive being that with the Irishman GC Ashlin. The corpus of work is organised into 8 categories, each of which is prefaced by a generously illustrated critical analysis that highlights specific points of architectural interest and identifies stylistic interconnections within the wider EW Pugin canon; also included are details of 94 commissions that are known definitely never to have been realised. In addition, there are seven Appendices containing background information, including details of his various architectural partnerships and a useful summary of the totality of his realised buildings in the form of a gazetteer arranged by county, according to country.
The majority of the realised work is ecclesiastical or related, mainly, but not exclusively, for the Catholic Church, and comprises places of worship, convents & monasteries, presbyteries & houses for religious communities, colleges & schools (the majority of the latter being associated with parish churches designed by EW Pugin), institutional buildings (such as orphanages & almshouses), and many minor works, including designs for altars and funerary monuments. The secular work comprises both residential and commercial buildings, as well as additions to/remodelling of houses by other architects. A well-referenced biographical sketch of EW Pugin, based on the fragmentary information available to date, provides a socio-historical perspective to his work.
The Pugin Society is pleased to announce the publication of Gerard Hyland's updated and expanded gazetteer charting EW Pugin's works. The book is a companion to The Architectural Works of AWN Pugin, by the same author, published by Spire Books in 2014. Visit our BOOKSHOP to purchase a copy of the publication.
Despite the growth in Pugin Studies during the past 40 years, no comprehensive catalogue of the architectural works of Edward Welby Pugin (AWN Pugin’s eldest son) has ever been published, an omission that this book - in the form of a Catalogue Raisonné - rectifies, in the hope that it will secure his reputation as one of the most eminent and prolific High Victorian Catholic architects of the English Gothic Revival.
This major study identifies 287 executed works, spread over six countries, whose EW Pugin provenance is established beyond doubt; he alone was responsible for the vast majority of this work, the remainder originating from a few architectural partnerships, the most productive being that with the Irishman GC Ashlin. The corpus of work is organised into 8 categories, each of which is prefaced by a generously illustrated critical analysis that highlights specific points of architectural interest and identifies stylistic interconnections within the wider EW Pugin canon; also included are details of 94 commissions that are known definitely never to have been realised. In addition, there are seven Appendices containing background information, including details of his various architectural partnerships and a useful summary of the totality of his realised buildings in the form of a gazetteer arranged by county, according to country.
The majority of the realised work is ecclesiastical or related, mainly, but not exclusively, for the Catholic Church, and comprises places of worship, convents & monasteries, presbyteries & houses for religious communities, colleges & schools (the majority of the latter being associated with parish churches designed by EW Pugin), institutional buildings (such as orphanages & almshouses), and many minor works, including designs for altars and funerary monuments. The secular work comprises both residential and commercial buildings, as well as additions to/remodelling of houses by other architects. A well-referenced biographical sketch of EW Pugin, based on the fragmentary information available to date, provides a socio-historical perspective to his work.
Passing of Fr Michael Fisher, 1943-2021
We are sorry to have learnt of the passing of Fr Michael Fisher, MA FSA who died peacefully on the evening of Monday, 19 April. He was an exemplary priest, an erudite scholar, and a gentleman whose contribution to Pugin Studies cannot be overestimated – he will be sorely missed.
He was an active member of the Society and facilitated and led many of our tours in Staffordshire including tours at Alton Towers.
Our thoughts are with Isobel his wife and Sarah his daughter and the rest of the family. An obituary written on behalf the Society will follow in due course.
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.
His funeral will be at St Chad's, Stafford, Wednesday (28 April 2021) at 11.00am. It will be live streamed on facebook HERE.
We are sorry to have learnt of the passing of Fr Michael Fisher, MA FSA who died peacefully on the evening of Monday, 19 April. He was an exemplary priest, an erudite scholar, and a gentleman whose contribution to Pugin Studies cannot be overestimated – he will be sorely missed.
He was an active member of the Society and facilitated and led many of our tours in Staffordshire including tours at Alton Towers.
Our thoughts are with Isobel his wife and Sarah his daughter and the rest of the family. An obituary written on behalf the Society will follow in due course.
Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei.
His funeral will be at St Chad's, Stafford, Wednesday (28 April 2021) at 11.00am. It will be live streamed on facebook HERE.
Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash
21 April, 6pm: What happened next to Pugin's 'Realism'? - online lecture by Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin
The Pugin Society is pleased to announce the fourth of our online lectures, where Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin will discuss Pugin's interpretation of and contribution to the architectural concept of realism. Visit our EVENTS page for details.
The Pugin Society is pleased to announce the fourth of our online lectures, where Dr Timothy Brittain-Catlin will discuss Pugin's interpretation of and contribution to the architectural concept of realism. Visit our EVENTS page for details.
'Why I had to study Pugin' by Joanna Lyall, December 2020
“When I first saw St Chad’s that was it. I knew I had to study Pugin,” says Jamie Jacobs who completed her PhD this autumn. Originally from Spring Valley, Illinois, a small town south west of Chicago, Jamie was in Birmingham in 2007 for the funeral of her partner’s grandmother and took the opportunity of touring the Pugin sites and Hardman’s workshop before spending a week in London to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Palace of Westminster.
She then decided to move to England and start her research for a PhD on Principles and Practice: Craft and Mechanisation in the Fabrication of A.W.N. Pugin’s Designs in the Applied Arts at the University of Kent, under the supervision of Tim Brittain-Catlin, then reader in architecture, and former editor of True Principles. The topic of Tim’s PhD was Pugin’s domestic architecture in England.
“I was living in Chicago at the time but it was obvious I needed to be in England for the research and the idea of being so near The Grange, in Ramsgate, also appealed,” she says.
Jamie has a BA in English from Northern Illinois University and a BA in Art from De Paul University, Chicago. She then studied for an MA in Art History from Northern Illinois University, focusing on Pugin and industrialisation.
“A lecturer showed us an image of Pugin’s Glastonbury chair and I became fascinated. I have always wanted to know how things are made, and the ideas behind them,’ she says. A chapter by the late Clive Wainwright A.W.N. Pugin and the Progress of Design as Applied to Manufacture in the catalogue for the 1995 Pugin exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center, New York, also aroused her interest.
The research was made very much easier by the publication of Pugin’s letters, edited by the late Margaret Belcher, and published in five volumes between 2001 and 2015, she says.
A member of the Pugin Society for many years, Jamie redesigned its website which she now manages. In 2018 she gave a paper at the British Association of Victorian Studies conference on Pugin’s work at the Houses of Parliament. In October last year she spoke on Pugin and Hardman’s metalwork in the Palace of Westminster, at a symposium organised by the Pugin Society.
And a bequest from an aunt allowed Jamie to buy her own piece of Pugin – A Waste Not Want Not plate, which she treasures.
Before starting her PhD Jamie taught at the Art Institute of Chicago and now hopes to return to the classroom. While studying at Kent she earned an associate fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.
Jamie will be giving a webinar by zoom on the subject of her PhD to Pugin Society members in February.
“When I first saw St Chad’s that was it. I knew I had to study Pugin,” says Jamie Jacobs who completed her PhD this autumn. Originally from Spring Valley, Illinois, a small town south west of Chicago, Jamie was in Birmingham in 2007 for the funeral of her partner’s grandmother and took the opportunity of touring the Pugin sites and Hardman’s workshop before spending a week in London to visit the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Palace of Westminster.
She then decided to move to England and start her research for a PhD on Principles and Practice: Craft and Mechanisation in the Fabrication of A.W.N. Pugin’s Designs in the Applied Arts at the University of Kent, under the supervision of Tim Brittain-Catlin, then reader in architecture, and former editor of True Principles. The topic of Tim’s PhD was Pugin’s domestic architecture in England.
“I was living in Chicago at the time but it was obvious I needed to be in England for the research and the idea of being so near The Grange, in Ramsgate, also appealed,” she says.
Jamie has a BA in English from Northern Illinois University and a BA in Art from De Paul University, Chicago. She then studied for an MA in Art History from Northern Illinois University, focusing on Pugin and industrialisation.
“A lecturer showed us an image of Pugin’s Glastonbury chair and I became fascinated. I have always wanted to know how things are made, and the ideas behind them,’ she says. A chapter by the late Clive Wainwright A.W.N. Pugin and the Progress of Design as Applied to Manufacture in the catalogue for the 1995 Pugin exhibition at the Bard Graduate Center, New York, also aroused her interest.
The research was made very much easier by the publication of Pugin’s letters, edited by the late Margaret Belcher, and published in five volumes between 2001 and 2015, she says.
A member of the Pugin Society for many years, Jamie redesigned its website which she now manages. In 2018 she gave a paper at the British Association of Victorian Studies conference on Pugin’s work at the Houses of Parliament. In October last year she spoke on Pugin and Hardman’s metalwork in the Palace of Westminster, at a symposium organised by the Pugin Society.
And a bequest from an aunt allowed Jamie to buy her own piece of Pugin – A Waste Not Want Not plate, which she treasures.
Before starting her PhD Jamie taught at the Art Institute of Chicago and now hopes to return to the classroom. While studying at Kent she earned an associate fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.
Jamie will be giving a webinar by zoom on the subject of her PhD to Pugin Society members in February.
Discussion on the Future of Victoria Tower Gardens
In light of the proposal to reallocate the use of Victoria Tower Gardens, Dorian Gerhold presented a talk about the history of this space to The Thorney Island Society which can be viewed HERE. A small expanse of land between the Houses of Parliament, the River Thames, Millbank and Lambeth Bridge, the garden comprises part of the Parliamentary estate and is partly within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Westminster. We thought Society members would be interested in learning about the history of the gardens and the debate concerning its future development. While we are happy to share this excellent lecture, the views presented are those of Dr Gerhold and the Thorney Island Society.
In light of the proposal to reallocate the use of Victoria Tower Gardens, Dorian Gerhold presented a talk about the history of this space to The Thorney Island Society which can be viewed HERE. A small expanse of land between the Houses of Parliament, the River Thames, Millbank and Lambeth Bridge, the garden comprises part of the Parliamentary estate and is partly within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Westminster. We thought Society members would be interested in learning about the history of the gardens and the debate concerning its future development. While we are happy to share this excellent lecture, the views presented are those of Dr Gerhold and the Thorney Island Society.
The Pugin Society presents its first free online lecture
The Pugin Society is pleased to announce the first of a series of online lectures on topics relating to AWN Pugin and the Pugin family. The first of these will be 9 December by the author and historian Rosemary Hill. Visit our EVENTS page for more details.
The Pugin Society is pleased to announce the first of a series of online lectures on topics relating to AWN Pugin and the Pugin family. The first of these will be 9 December by the author and historian Rosemary Hill. Visit our EVENTS page for more details.
This year’s AGM will be held online via Zoom on Saturday 12th December at 11 o’clock.
We will not be able to have the traditional format of the AGM followed by the annual lecture. So that we can make the meeting run smoothly we will be producing an annual report in advance of the meeting that will be circulated to members in advance. This will allow for any questions to be submitted in advance of the meeting so that the officers can answer on the day. For this year it will not be possible to raise issues on the day. We will ask you to register for the meeting and you will then be sent the link via email to join.
At this year’s meeting Joanna Lyall will be standing down after 10 years as Honorary Secretary. The committee would like to thank Joanna for her outstanding contribution to the running of the Society and to its on-going development that she has supported over the last 10 years.
Since the start of the pandemic the committee has continued to meet, and we are all becoming more familiar with Zoom as a format for the meetings. As part of our change to the digital world members are now familiar with the e-newsletter that John Elliott has developed. We know members will be disappointed that there will not be a lecture as part of the AGM so our next development has been to purchase a Zoom subscription for Webinars. This will allow us to host on-line lectures. Our events co-ordinator Julia Twigg is currently working on the lecture programme.
We will not be able to have the traditional format of the AGM followed by the annual lecture. So that we can make the meeting run smoothly we will be producing an annual report in advance of the meeting that will be circulated to members in advance. This will allow for any questions to be submitted in advance of the meeting so that the officers can answer on the day. For this year it will not be possible to raise issues on the day. We will ask you to register for the meeting and you will then be sent the link via email to join.
At this year’s meeting Joanna Lyall will be standing down after 10 years as Honorary Secretary. The committee would like to thank Joanna for her outstanding contribution to the running of the Society and to its on-going development that she has supported over the last 10 years.
Since the start of the pandemic the committee has continued to meet, and we are all becoming more familiar with Zoom as a format for the meetings. As part of our change to the digital world members are now familiar with the e-newsletter that John Elliott has developed. We know members will be disappointed that there will not be a lecture as part of the AGM so our next development has been to purchase a Zoom subscription for Webinars. This will allow us to host on-line lectures. Our events co-ordinator Julia Twigg is currently working on the lecture programme.
Theory of Architecture podcast featuring Pugin author Rosemary Hill
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Rosemary Hill, the writer, historian, independent scholar and author of 'God’s Architect', a biography of the Gothic Revival architect, A.W.N. Pugin and 'Stonehenge', a history of one of Britain’s greatest and least understood monuments, has shared this episode of architect Bruce Buckland's podcast Theory of Architecture. In this episode she covers Pugin, Stonehenge and clothes.
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The power of Pugin. How St Giles Cheadle nudged former Times religious affairs correspondent towards conversion by Joanna Lyall, April 19, 2020
Ruth Gledhill, who worked as The Times’ religious affairs correspondent for 27 years has described how St Giles Cheadle played a key role on her road to Catholicism.
Writing in the Easter issue of The Tablet, where she is now digital editor, Gledhill recalls visiting the Augustus Pugin church, with her father, Peter, an Anglican clergyman, at the age of ten and finding it “almost too beautiful to describe”.
She was left alone in the Blessed Sacrament chapel, “in the chair in which John Henry Newman is thought to have sat when he visited the church after his conversion (“This is the gate of heaven,” he whispered on setting eyes on the sumptuous interior).
“For an hour I gazed transfixed at the tabernacle resting on the alabaster altar, amid the encircling red and gold Minton tiles of Pugin’s extraordinary Gothic revival creation.
“That brief moment of divine sensory overload was the starting point of a journey that, after some meandering, and much spiritual seeking, has at last led to my own reception into the Catholic Church,” she wrote.
Gledhill, now 60, describes how the family ended up living in Staffordshire, where her father was working as an RE teacher at a school in Cheadle, following a period in Barbados where he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, suffered a breakdown and made a suicide attempt. He later accepted a Church of England parish outside Uttoxeter, but life continued difficult for the family which by then included five children.
“I don’t blame my father or his mental health issues for my own alcoholism, or my brother Owen’s suicide at a young age,” she writes. “But the permanent feeling of hunger, and a terrible thirst, spiritual as well as physical, that almost nothing seemed to slake, probably had their roots in these traumatic experiences from my early childhood.”
At the age of 25, when working at The Daily Mail, before joining The Times, she admitted to alcoholism and has been sober since. And she never forgot the feeling of peace experienced at St Giles.
Due to be received into the Catholic Church last September Gledhill ended up in hospital for three weeks suffering from severe acute gallstone pancreatitis and while there had a near death experience. “I have no doubt I would have become a Catholic anyway, but this experience quickened my resolve. Now I was sure.”
“One of the first things I did after my conversion was to re-visit that Blessed Sacrament Chapel in St Giles’, and sit in that same chair and pray quietly,” she writes.
“As a deeply flawed person, needing forgiveness and seeking compassion, I am at home in an institution that is itself deeply flawed and yearning for mercy. And that is what it feels like. Coming home”. https://www.stgilescheadle.org.uk
Ruth Gledhill, who worked as The Times’ religious affairs correspondent for 27 years has described how St Giles Cheadle played a key role on her road to Catholicism.
Writing in the Easter issue of The Tablet, where she is now digital editor, Gledhill recalls visiting the Augustus Pugin church, with her father, Peter, an Anglican clergyman, at the age of ten and finding it “almost too beautiful to describe”.
She was left alone in the Blessed Sacrament chapel, “in the chair in which John Henry Newman is thought to have sat when he visited the church after his conversion (“This is the gate of heaven,” he whispered on setting eyes on the sumptuous interior).
“For an hour I gazed transfixed at the tabernacle resting on the alabaster altar, amid the encircling red and gold Minton tiles of Pugin’s extraordinary Gothic revival creation.
“That brief moment of divine sensory overload was the starting point of a journey that, after some meandering, and much spiritual seeking, has at last led to my own reception into the Catholic Church,” she wrote.
Gledhill, now 60, describes how the family ended up living in Staffordshire, where her father was working as an RE teacher at a school in Cheadle, following a period in Barbados where he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, suffered a breakdown and made a suicide attempt. He later accepted a Church of England parish outside Uttoxeter, but life continued difficult for the family which by then included five children.
“I don’t blame my father or his mental health issues for my own alcoholism, or my brother Owen’s suicide at a young age,” she writes. “But the permanent feeling of hunger, and a terrible thirst, spiritual as well as physical, that almost nothing seemed to slake, probably had their roots in these traumatic experiences from my early childhood.”
At the age of 25, when working at The Daily Mail, before joining The Times, she admitted to alcoholism and has been sober since. And she never forgot the feeling of peace experienced at St Giles.
Due to be received into the Catholic Church last September Gledhill ended up in hospital for three weeks suffering from severe acute gallstone pancreatitis and while there had a near death experience. “I have no doubt I would have become a Catholic anyway, but this experience quickened my resolve. Now I was sure.”
“One of the first things I did after my conversion was to re-visit that Blessed Sacrament Chapel in St Giles’, and sit in that same chair and pray quietly,” she writes.
“As a deeply flawed person, needing forgiveness and seeking compassion, I am at home in an institution that is itself deeply flawed and yearning for mercy. And that is what it feels like. Coming home”. https://www.stgilescheadle.org.uk
