1828.] St. George's Chapel, Battersea Fields. NEW CHURCHES.-No. XVIII. ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, BATTERSEA : FIELDS. Ν Architect, Blore. IN the best modern examples of the Pointed style, the common defect is the neglect of assimilating the ensemble of the building to some given period in the history of English architecture. In many instances the features of every description of Pointed architecture are blended into a style which our forefathers never witnessed; hence, however good in detail such a building may be, its want of character prevents it from being viewed by the critical eye with unmixed satisfaction. Mr. Blore has avoided this fault in the present building, and in consequence, his design, humble as it is in point of dimensions and decoration, possesses merit, which the most expensive and spacious building, designed in the false taste we have just deprecated, can never claim. The style adopted in the present instance is the lancet, or acutely Pointed arch of the thirteenth century, prevalent when Pointed architecture was perfected; and however, as a matter of taste, some connoisseurs may prefer the more regular, but on that account more tame, buildings of the school of Wykeham, it must be admitted by all, that for a simple unostentatious parochial Chapel, the architecture of this period is more suited than any other; it allows of an almost total absence of ornament, without the least depreciation of its grandeur, a merit which belongs to no other variety of this style of architecture. Pinnacles, tracery, and niches, are so interwoven with the essential members of all structures posterior to the thirteenth century, that the omission of them infallibly deprives the building of its character; it looks no better than a tree stripped of its foliage. Exclusively, therefore, of the intrinsic beauty of early Pointed architecture, Mr. Blore could not have acted more judiciously, with a limited estimate and confined dimensions, than by the adoption of the style he has chosen. The accompanying Engraving (see Plate 1.) for which we are indebted to the kindness of the architect, shows a north-west view of the structure. The plan is simply a parallelogram, GENT. MAG. August, 1828. 105 having a small chancel and vestry attached to the eastern end. The walls are built of brick, with stone dressings, and the roof is covered with slate. The west front has three lofty lancet windows, the central one being higher than the others. The elevation finishes with a gable, in which is a window lighting the roof; the form of this window is the vesica piscis, the well-known figure formed by the segments of two intersecting circles cutting each other at the centres, which is found in the buildings of this period. At the angles are square buttresses in two stories, splayed at their division; they are finished with octangular pedestals, capped with a simple cornice, and crowned with plain obelisks of the same form. Above the point of the gable rises a small square turret, with buttresses at the angles, and arches in each side; the east and western ones are pierced, and surmounted with pedimental canopies; the others are blank: a square pinnacle ending in a fleur de lis, surmounts the whole. It has on the whole an unpleasing effect, appearing like an attempt at something beyond the architect's means; and is, moreover, at variance with the picturesque open bell turrets, to be found in so many country churches of the same period, and which finish, 1 ke the main building, with gables; the addition of a spire being any thing but an ornament, unless constructed on a large scale. The flanks of the Chapel are uniform; they are respectively made into divisions by buttresses in two heights, the first being finished with angular heads, canted off in manner of gables. The second divisions from the west are occupied by porches of a very picturesque character. The entrance is by a Pointed arch, and the upright is finished by a larger gable between two smaller ones, harmonizing with the buttresses; the first has a niche with a trefoil head in the tympanum, and is crowned with a fleur de lis on the apex. All the other divisions have single lancet windows, the heads bounded by simple sweeping cornices, having their imposts on the peculiar blockings found in buildings of this period. A cornice runs along the wall above the points of the windows, and the elevation is finished with a parapet and coping. The east end has a ga 106 St. George's Chapel, Battersea Fields. ble like the opposite one; in the tympanum a loop hole. There are no buttresses at the angles; and on the point of the gable is a small but very neat cross flory. The chancel projects from the centre of the east end to the extent of one division. At the angles are square buttresses, of a corresponding character with those at the west end of the Church. At the extreme end is a triple lancet window, above which is a quatrefoil lighting the roof; the elevation, like that of the Church, finishes with a gable. In the flanks are single lancet windows. On the south side is a small vestry, which occupies the angle between the church and the chancel. In the east wall of this apartment is a Pointed doorway, and in the southern a lancet window. The interior is exceedingly plain. The ceiling is plastered, and is divided in length by trussed ribs springing from corbels attached to the piers between the windows, into compartments corresponding in number with the exterior divisions, and in length by mouldings at right angles with the ribs, into square pannels. Of the ceiling we can say nothing in praise; it has a modern appearance ill suited to the building. If the timbers of the roof had been exposed, and sprung from the present corbels, the plaster ceiling being omitted altogether, the interior would have displayed a more correct character. The windows are splayed inwardly to a greater breadth than their exterior 'proportions, and above the heads are blank arches springing laterally from the corbels, and forming a kind of finish to the walls. The area is occupied by free seats in the centre, with a walk on each side, and a row of pews against the walls. A gallery, sustained on iron columns, occupies the west and two side walls; the front is ornamented with blank trefoil arches. The pulpit and desks are placed in one group at the eastern extremity of the nave; the former is square, and is not remarkable for ornament. The Chancel is separated from the Church by a Pointed arch, more obtuse than the period adopted strictly allows. This depression is occasioned by the ceiling, and in consequence it interferes with the east window, a defect which would have been avoided, had a timber roof been adopted. The archivolt mouldings spring from a triple cluster of co [Aug. Inmns attached to each of the piers. The floor is raised one step above the nave. The ceiling is a low Pointed vault, crossed by ribs from side to side, which spring from corbels. The triple eastern window is comprehended within a single Pointed arch, an arrangement which was the parent of the mullioned window of after ages. Below the sill is the altar, covered with crimson velvet. In two long niches, crowned with angular canopies, are inscribed on one side the window, the Creed and Paternoster; and on the other, the Decalogue. Much is it to be regretted, that this merely literal adherence to the canon is insisted on; in this case the two tables of the Law are both crowded into one compartment, and the height, as well as the closeness of the writing, prevents the inscriptions from being conveniently read. According to the present construction of the canon, it appears that the subjects must be written up in all cases; whether intelligibly or not is little considered; and as deviations from the canon still exist as precedents for the omission altogether, how far better it would be to allow of these inscriptions being discontinued, at least in any churches where the character of the building is essentially injured by the introduction of them. The font is situated in a pew below the western gallery. It is octangular, and consists of a large basin sustained on a pedestal and moulded base, the material of which it is composed is an excellent imitation of Sussex marble, of which the churches of the period were in general built. It is a plain but excellent specimen of the fonts of the period. Indeed, it is but justice to Mr. Blore to say that the keeping of the design is exceedingly well preserved, with the exception of the turret and the ceiling; the latter was perhaps forced upon the architect, by the necessity, which is sometimes insisted on to a greater degree than necessary, of suiting ancient architecture to modern convenience: the omission, however, if once made, would not have been complained of for the future. The paucity of ornament in the interior detracts from the dignity of a consecrated Chapel of the Establishment, and it is to be hoped that even now the parish will allow the architect to add such embellishments as the nature of the structure imperatively Derrick's Memoirs of the Royal Navy. 1828.] demands,-its present appearance being almost plain enough for a Quaker Meeting. To the taste of Mr. Blore, the design, with the trifling exceptions before noticed, does the highest credit; and his judgment is evinced not only in the choice of the architecture he has selected, but in the uniform accuracy and correctness of the detail. We hope at some future period to be able to bring before our readers' notice a design, the estimate of which may be sufficient to allow full scope to his abilities and his genius. The congregation belonging to this Chapel have assembled for some time in a neighbouring one, which was formerly a Dissenting Meeting. The friends of the Established Church will learn with pleasure from this fact, that her members are on the increase, while the ranks of Dissent are evidently thinned. The cause of this alteration is alone to be attributed to the excellent provision for building New Churches, the benefit of which is now manifested in all parts of the kingdom, but more especially in the environs of the Metropolis. The present Chapel was commenced in Sept. 1827, and was consecrated by the Bp. of Winchester, on the 5th Aug. in the present year, having been completed in the short space of eleven months. The Rev. Mr. Weddell is appointed the first Minister. A Chapel Path, to lead to it from Hope Town on the Wandsworth Road, would be a great accommodation to an increasing neighbourhood. E. I. C. MEMOIRS OF THE ROYAL NAVY. (Continued from p. 7.) HE American Government, after Thaving been for a long time on ill terms with England, and favourable towards France, declared war against us on 18th June, 1812. They did not possess a single ship of the line, and only a very few frigates, but they were powerful ships, carrying from 50 to 60 guns, of large calibre, and were therefore equal perhaps, on the whole, to a common 64 gun ship; and they were fully and ably manned, having many English deserters among their crews. One of these frigates (the Constitution) fell in with his Majesty's ship Guerriere, of 38 guns, in August, when a close action ensued, 107 and she soon had the misfortune to lose her mizen-mast, and, in about an hour after, her main and fore-masts went over the side, leaving the ship an unmanageable wreck: thus circumstanced, after Captain Dacres had made a brave but ineffectual attempt to place the ship so as to continue the engagement, he was under the neeessity of striking his colours. The enemy, however, gained nothing but credit by this action, the Guerriere being so disabled, that she could not be towed into port, and was therefore burnt. This unfortunate affair, which the public was by no means prepared to expect, by reason of the immensity of our naval force, and the long and unbroken series of triumphs over the ships of every other State, was but the prelude to other disasters of the kind; the first of which happened in October following, when the Macedonian, of 38 guns, Capt. J. S. Carden, was captured by the United States, an American frigate, after a very gallant action, maintained for two hours, notwithstanding the very superior force of her antagonist.† The Alert sloop, Capt. T. L. P. Laugharne, was taken in August by the Essex, American frigate. In the course of the current year orders were given for building at Bombay two ships of 74 guns, two of 38, and four brig-sloops; and at the latter end of the year it was determined to build at home, with great dispatch, a considerable number of very large frigates and sloops. The frigates were to be built chiefly with pitch pine, but some with red pine, the whole of both descriptions of timber to be furnished to the merchant-builders from the King's yards at a given price. The ships were to be constructed for carrying 28 guns, 24 (instead of 18) pounders on their main deck, and 20 carronades, 32 pounders, on their quarterdeck and forecastle (48 in the whole), which constituted them an entirely new class of ships in the British Navy. There being at this time a slackness The Constitution mounted 30 guns, 24 pounders, on her main deck; 24 thirty-two pounders, and 2 eighteen pounders, on her upper deck; and had a complement of 476 men. + The United States mounted 54 guns, 22 of which were 42-pounder carronades, and slie had a complement of 478 picked men, 108 Derrick's Memoirs of the Royal Navy. of work in the private yards on the river Thames, both the ships and sloops were soon contracted for, to be built within short periods, the longest by Dec. 1813. The Bellette brig-sloop was lost in the Cattegat in Nov. and nearly the whole of her crew perished. She was commanded by Captain Sloane. About the end of the current year it was also ordered that six of the 74 gun ships lying up in ordinary, in want of repair, should be cut down to frigates, as a match for those of the Americans. Three of them were accordingly treated after that manner, and registered as Razees, but the others were found to be in too defective a state to be proceeded on. The like had been done to three 64 gun ships several years before, which were never distinguished as Razees. We have seen that in 1807 it was deemed absolutely necessary for the welfare of this country, to prevent the Danish navy from being under the controul of the French Government; and in 1812, lest the campaign in Russia should prove exceedingly disastrous to his country, the Emperor wisely committed great parts of his ships that were in the Baltic ports to the care and custody of England, that they inight not fall into the enemy's hands; notwithstanding the more than probability of a successful issue to the campaign, previously to the ships leaving their several ports. The fleet finally left Cronstadt just before the severe weather set in there, and arrived in the Medway in December (escorted by Rear-Admiral G. J. Hope, in an English 74 gun ship sent out for that purpose), consisting of the following ships, viz.......of 100 guns [Aug. long and severe action, in which Capt. H. Lambert was mortally wounded but the ship did not strike until she was dismasted, and had received so much damage, that she could not be carried into any port of the United States, and was therefore, like the Guerriere, burnt by the captors. 1813. In January, the established complements of men for frigates of 40 to 32 guns (of the large class) inclusive, were increased; in consequence, probably, of the unfortunate results of the contests with the American frigates, whose coinplements so much exceeded even those of our largest frigates. The Peacock brig-sloop was taken by an American sloop in February, after a severe action, in which Captain Peake unfortunately lost his life. As an extraordinary number of ships were building in March, I will here insert a particular account of them, as follows, namely, The loss of the Guerriere, and the two other frigates, was exceedingly mortifying to the feelings of the nation, notwithstanding they were taken by ships of very superior force; for not taking into contemplation the vast extent of the ocean, and not knowing what our frigates would have to contend with, the public at large seemed to expect, at the outset of the war with America, that her little Navy would soon be annihilated. By reason, therefore, of the above-mentioned disasters, great exultation was excited on the arrival of dispatches from Halifax, announcing the capture of the Chesapeak, one of the American frigates, mounting 49 guns, and carrying 440 |