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1828.]

St. Katharine's Hospital, Regent's Park.

ST. KATHARINE's.

THE HE accompanying Engraving represents the new Church and Hospital buildings, which are situated on the east side of the Regent's Park. Fig. 1 shows the west front of the Church and the houses of the Brothers and Sisters, comprising three sides of a quadrangle, the public road forming the fourth. There is but little of a collegiate character about the present pile of buildings, which are more remarkable as being something between a hospital and a palace.

The Chapel, in the centre of the eastern side of the quadrangle, is built in the style of architecture which prevailed at the commencement of the fifteenth century. Why that particular period was selected by the architect, he can best answer; it has no connection with the foundation of the church, nor does it assimilate with the domestie buildings of the establishment.

The west front of Winchester Cathedral seems to have been the authority for the same view of the present structure, but it falls short of the majesty of the original, as every reduction of cathedral architecture to a smaller scale generally does. The chapel consists only of a nave without side ailes, the small wings seen in the view, which have the appearance of such appendages, being the Chapter-house and School of the establishment. The octangular buttresses at the angles of the design up to the pedimental cornice of the front are plain, above which each face is enriched with an upright panel with a trefoil head. The most objectionable part of the design is the surfounding minute pinnacles seeming to grow out of the moulded cap of the buttress, and to be put there without design; and the taller pinnacle in the centre of the group, capped by a finial ending in an iron rod, has an unfinished appearance. The doorway, with its square weather cornice, and the magnificent window above it, are in a better taste. The latter is divided by perpendicular mullions into seven lights, which are subdivided by a transont stone at half their height into two tiers, each light has an arched head, inclosing five sweeps; the spacious arch of the window is entirely filled up with numerous minute compartments assimilating in design with the larger mullions, and displaying on GENT. MAG. July, 1828.

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the whole a correct and elegant composition. Above the cornice of the window are three shields of arms, the central is held by an angel, and the two others are crowned with antique crowns. The flanks are partly built of brick, and partly of stone, and all the windows are situated in the upper part of the wall; they are divided into three lights by mullions, and the heads of the arches inclose quaterfoils. It is but just to say, that the stone work of all the windows is executed in a very correct and masterly style, but the mixture of brick and stone in the building is to be regretted, as it shows too much of that modern taste for outside show, which is observable in the neighbourhood of the Hospital.

The east front is built of brick, and shows a lamentable falling off from the principal front. The omission of the buttresses at the angles and every portion of architectural ornament, except the window, which is a copy of the western, is another specimen of the same false taste. Where can there be found an ancient building in the Pointed style which is not equally well finished throughout? The addi tion of ornamental façades to shabby buildings was reserved for an age of modern improvement to discover.

A neat cross botoné in stone crowns the gables of both the fronts. The two wings are built of brick, with stone dressings, and are made in height into two stories; in the lower are doorways of a less ornamental character than the centre; and in the upper are pointed windows, with a single mullion under a low arch, the head of which is orna mented with uprights; at the angles are brick buttresses capped with pinnacles of stone.

The walls, pierced with obtuse arches, filled in with iron railings, instead of tracery, which unite the Chapel to the domestic buildings, are in the poorest style of carpenter's Gothic; the poverty-struck appearance of these appendages is disgraceful to the structure, and even the excuse of utility is wanted to apologise for their excessive meanness. Something of the same kind disfigures the House of Lords; and a cloister of a similar design exists in Lincoln's Inn. Are these authorities for an architect to copy from?

The houses of the Brothers and Sisters are built in the domestic style of

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St. Katharine's Hospital, Regent's Park.

the sixteenth century, of brick, with stone dressings; and here the architect has succeeded more happily than in the ecclesiastical portion of the pile; the two windows in the ends of the structure, the gables over the attic windows, and the picturesque chim ney Alues, give an air of originality to the houses, which, upon the whole, are rather pleasing specimens of a class of modern buildings which excusably departs from the strictest adherence to authorities, inasmuch as an architect must necessarily unite in a dwelling house modern convenience with pic turesque effect.

Two lodges in the fore-ground, of a subordinate character, with arched doorways, crowned with square weather cornices, and surmounted by shields of arms, complete the eastern pile of buildings, which forms the first subject in the plate.

A pump is intended to be built in front of the Chapel; it is a neat design, executed in stone, consisting of a poligonal pedestal raised on steps, and crowned with a crocketed cupola, ending in a finial; it has the appearance of an ancient conduit, and ought to have been what it seems-the addition of an iron pump-handle is no ornament.

Fig. 2 shows the principal front, and one of the flanks of the residence of the Master of the Hospital, which is erected on the other side of the

road, facing the collegiate buildings. The style of architecture is the same as the houses already described, but the enrichments are more lavishly ap plied. The front consists of a porch covering the doorway, having an ob tuse arch of entrance, and being crowned by a pierced parapet; above this is a multangular bow window of an antique design, similar to the windows of King Henry the Seventh's Chapel. On each side the entrance are rectangular bow windows in two heights, over which the principal elevation is finished with gables; the flank is in a plainer style of architecture; the bow window, the characteristic feature of the period, which the architect has adopted, is also introduced; but the other windows assimilate with the modern dwellinghouse style, the mullions being superseded by sashes. The stables seen in the distance are in a subordinate style; they might at first sight be mistaken for the houses of the poorer members

[July,

of the establishment,-the bedes women, whose dwellings do not appear to enter into the present arrangement of the Hospital.

The shields of arms, Nos. 3 and 4, Occupy the square panels, surmounted by weather cornices, seen in the ends of the houses in the first subject in the engraving. No. 3, is the arms of Henry III. impaled with [Or,] four pallets [Gules], being those of Eleanor of Provence, Queen of Henry III. the second foundress of the Hospital.— No. 4 is the arms of his present Majesty, with the roses of York and Lancaster. The antique character given to the armorial bearings and embellishments is highly creditable to the sculptor.

The interior of the Hospital being in very early state of forwardness, will form a subject for a future notice.

The architect of the present range of buildings is Ambrose Poynter, esq. a pupil of Mr. Nash's, and he has unfortunately adopted the meretricious and too fantastic style of architecture of his instructor; in whose designs in the Pointed style, the follies of Wyatt are more apparent, than the excellencies of those buildings from which genuine authorities can alone be taken. E. I. C.

ON ENGLISH TOPOGRAPHY..

[For the following Essay on English Topographical History the public is indebted to the Rev. Joseph Hunter, F.S.A. It is extracted from the Preface to the History of the Deanery of Doncaster, the first volume of which has been recently delivered to the subscribers. In these admirable remarks the sources of the Topogra pher's information are most judiciously unfolded, and they will form an excellent guide to every future student in similar inquiries. We have selected those portions which have a general bearing.]

NEARLY three centuries have

elapsed since Leland and Lambarde, the fathers of English Topography, were pursuing their useful labours. Since that time there has been a succession of men who have applied themselves to collect the scattered fragments of the history of the civil or ecclesiastical divisions of our country, and to arrange them in proper order.

1828.]

Mr. Hunter on English Topography:

The result of the labours of many inquirers in this department of our historical literature has been given to the public through the press; so that the number of the counties, or of the inferior subdivisions, of which the public are in possession of minute and accurate descriptions, now exceeds the number of those which are not described.

It is something to a country, and especially to the curious and critical inquirer into its arts, its literature, and its history, that there are books which contain minute descriptions of distant objects, from which the information desired may often be gained with as much advantage as it would be were we to undertake a toilsome journey to visit the object for ourselves. Yet it can hardly be denied that, through some cause or other, topography has fallen amongst us into some degree of disrepute. But who will venture to say that it does not lend a useful light to inquirers in almost every department of our national literature? who will say that there is not room for the exercise of some of the higher powers of the mind? or that learning, both classical and indigenous, may not be successfully applied? And if, amongst our topographical writers, there are Some who have possessed no other quality but plodding industry, and some of even a lower form, whose volumes consist only of the pilfered stores of some ingenious or pains-taking predecessor, there are others who have brought to the study both knowledge and genius such as would ennoble any subject, and in the ranks of those who have cultivated this department of our literature, there are some, living and dead, from whom the public admiration will never be withdrawn.

The disrepute in which topography is held by some cultivated minds, may perhaps arise from the habit of looking upon the whole field of literature, and seeing that topography is almost confined to England,-it appears to have the general voice against it; or of accounting nothing valuable which is not sanctioned by the example of the classical ages. True it is that topography, in the sense in which it is now used, is a literature peculiar to the English nation. It cannot be said to have extended itself even to Wales or Ireland. No shire of Scotland has yet been described as our English counties

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admirable descriptions of their princiare described. Foreign nations have pal cities and towns, but their topographical writers have not yet learned to ascend the rivers, and penetrate the recesses of their pasturable forests, showing us where men in the infancy of society fixed their habitations, and I where and how the village churches arose in the infancy of Christianity. So little do foreign nations know of mained to be discovered within the their country, that even Pæstum rememory of man. The ancients had geographers. But who is not ready to no topography. Strabo and Mela are say, would that the ancients had! How inestimable would be a work on minuteness and accuracy and painful a Roman province, composed with that research which appear in our "Surrey" or "Durham." Those who graphy should remember this; and also are disposed to undervalue our topothat topography is not the only subject in which England has the proud distinction of taking the lead nations of Europe. among

Own

the

So does science. It is admitted that It limits the empire of imagination. where the genius of topography has set her foot, there are no interminable sible fastnesses, no unknown haunts wilds, no trackless forests, no inaccesof human society or of solitary hermits. But the domestic incidents which she makes of antient customs, which she brings to light, the display and the occasional glimpses which she affords of the manners of ages long gone by, invite to that more agreeable fiction in which fable is united with historic truth, delighting while it instructs the reader. Perhaps we owe "Kenilworth" to Ashmole.

those who have devoted themselves to Topography may reckon amongst her, some very celebrated names. To mention none who are living, she boasts of Leland, Camden, Dugdale, Gale, Stukeley, Warton, and Whitaker, men who have a high reputation in other names of great celebrity, men other departments of literature; and topographical writings. But she may who are distinguished only by their proach but to rank high among the rest her claims, not only to escape rehistorical literature of our country, formation to be found gathered togeupon the curiosity and value of the inther in the books which compose a

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Mr. Hunter on English Topography,

topographical library. No books aid, equally with these, researches into the progress of society, and the relative positions of different portions of it at different periods. These are the materials from which we gain our best acquaintance with the history of the arts which support or embellish life; there are treasured up the remains of fading superstitions, lost usages, peculiarities of manners and of dialect, which serve to illustrate the origin and progress of nations, or of political institutions which are still flourishing. The topographical writer, better acquainted than the general historian can be with the scene of memorable events, will ordinarily be found describing those events with a more minute accuracy; better acquainted also with the domestic history and private circumstances of eminent persons, he sees relations and dependencies which escape the more general observer, while they have had considerable effect in determining their public conduct. It is in books of this class that we find accounts of the works of our remote ancestors, some existing, some entirely abolished and lost. We are introduced to the mystic circle of the Druids; the sepulchral tumulus of the antient Briton; the roads, the altars, the temples, and other remains of our Roman conquerors; the earth-works of the Saxons; with the castles, churches, monuments, and effigies, remains of the feudal times. There we see the direction taken at different periods by the benevolence or the piety of our ancestors. No such critical investigations of claims to hereditary distinctions are to be found as those which appear in some of our topographical works, as there is assuredly no more successful mode of investigating genealogies than by pursuing the descent of lands and manors with which an honourable name has been connected. Even the splendour and purity of our aristocracy may have been in part preserved by the labours of our old topographers; as certain it is that a claimant of an honourable title, in this very Session of Parliament, finds a powerful argument arising out of "The History of Warwickshire," against a claim which has other appearance of being unfounded. In lower affairs of life the information contained in these books has been of service in perpetuating or preserving the purity of charitable foundations,

(July,

and in diffusing information generally on questions of descent, so often misapprehended, and where misapprehension too often opens the door to litiga tion. The genealogical details have sometimes a higher bearing. It is a question at this moment of no small political consequence what proportion of the population of the Morea are of genuine Greek descent. It would no longer be a question had the Morea ever had its topographical historian, By the decision of it the policy of more than one state might be influenced.

But why should not Topography make at once her appeal to the taste and feeling of every one not utterly devoid of a natural curiosity, and especially to every one of cultivated mind, if there is not a great difference between living in a described and an undescribed county?, The difference is analogous to that between living in an old and in a new country. In the former case, there is not an edifice, a church, or a manor-house, a cross, or a little fragment of ruin, that is not connected with some incident or some character that makes it an object of interest. Topography calls up the spirits of the past generations. We see them gliding among the trees planted by them; we see them in their proper apparel, and with all the rank and port which belonged to them. Where there is po written recovery of the past, we can live only with the present generation; in the ages which are gone by, all is indistinctness, and the want of accurate knowledge often betrays itself in ludicrous absurdities.

What we have chiefly to regret is, that in this island, remote as it is from the primæval seats of civilization, there is less to reward the diligence of the topographical inquirer. Ours is, after all, a new country; not so new as some, but compared with other countries of the civilized world we are but of yesterday. Of the great majority of the places mentioned in my volumes, the earliest notice is in the days of King Edward the Coufessor, not quite eight hundred years ago; and what is the case with the Brigantian portion of the island, is the case with other parts of it. Even our most illustrious cities,

AQVAE SVLIS, EBORACVM, or LONDINIVM herself, as objects of topogra phical interest, sink into insignificance when we name Rome or Athens, Tyre, Babylon, Thebes, or the Holy City,

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