Category Archives: Sacred Places

‘Buried Lives’ in Barton-on-Humber

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St Peter's Church, Barton-on-Humber

St Peter’s Church, Barton-on-Humber

Barton-on-Humber is not Hull.

If King Edward I had not taken over the port of Wyke, where the River Hull drains into the northern shore of the Humber, in 1293 and turned it into Kingston-upon-Hull, Barton might be better known.

Nevertheless, the haven on the south bank of the Humber prospered gently through the centuries on the strength of its rich agricultural hinterland, alongside its downstream neighbour Grimsby, the great fishing port.  Maritime industries such as shipbuilding and rope-making continued well into the twentieth century, alongside other industries based on local products, such as brick-making and malting.

Following the excellent Barton-on-Humber Civic Society Town Guide reveals an attractive mix of prosperous eighteenth-century housing and dignified nineteenth-century public buildings.

But the real evidence of this town’s considerable antiquity is that, like Hull, it has two parish churches close together.  Indeed, until the early 1970s, both served the same parish.

St Mary’s, which remains the parish church, has fabric dating back to Norman times.  St Peter’s, however, has a tower that is unmistakably Saxon in style – with enormously thick walls and narrow internal arches, and exterior walls decorated with stripwork and triangular-headed windows – though its builders were more likely of Viking descent.  Two-thirds of the original church still stands, with a slightly later upper stage to the tower and a spacious medieval church repeatedly extended over the centuries.

Thomas Rickman (1776-1841), the architect who originated the terms ‘Norman’, ‘Early English’ and ‘Decorated’ to describe phases of gothic architecture, determined the chronological sequence of late Saxon and early Norman architecture on the principle of “structural stratification” visible in the tower of St Peter’s:  simply, the lower walls must be older than the upper stages, so if the top of the tower is recognisably Norman, the base must be earlier.

Since St Peter’s was deconsecrated it has been thoroughly investigated by English Heritage archaeologists, and now houses a fascinating exhibition of based on the examination of some 2,800 skeletons, most of which now rest in an ossuary on site while some, with intact coffins and grave goods, are shown as part of an unparalleled chronological account of the lives and deaths of Barton’s inhabitants entitled ‘Buried Lives‘.

Details of opening-times at St Peter’s Church, Barton-on-Humber, can be found at http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/st-peters-church-barton-upon-humber.

In addition to their updated Town Guide (2009), price £3.00, the Barton Civic Society offers a series of free downloadable walks at http://www.bartoncivicsociety.co.uk.

The 80-page, A4 handbook for the 2016 ‘Humber Heritage’ tour, with text, photographs, maps and a reading list, is available for purchase, price £10.00 including postage and packing.  To order a copy, please click here or, if you prefer, send a cheque, payable to Mike Higginbottom, to 63 Vivian Road, Sheffield, S5 6WJ.

Exporting pointed architecture

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St Paul's Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia

St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne, Australia

If asked to make a list of what the British Empire exported to the colonies – tangible and intangible items – it’s unlikely that most people would, unprompted, include churches with pointed arches, towers and spires.

Wander around any city in a former British colony and it’s more than likely you’ll encounter a Gothic cathedral.  On my travels I’ve found examples in Hong Kong, Singapore and every Australian city I visited.  In fact, each of the major Australian cities – Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Hobart – has not one but two cathedrals, one each for Anglicans and Roman Catholics.

Stepping inside these churches, even in tropical heat, immediately evokes Englishness, whether the denomination is Anglican or Roman Catholic.  The moment you set foot in the particularly splendid Anglican St Paul’s Cathedral, Melbourne [http://www.stpaulscathedral.org.au], its stripey polychrome stonework is immediately recognisable as the work of William Butterfield, an English architect who never actually saw the place.

I’m intrigued by the way English ideas of architecture and worship were exported virtually intact to the other side of the world.  Several major Victorian architects had a hand in Australian cathedrals:  William Butterfield provided plans for the Anglican cathedrals in Adelaide and Melbourne, and fell out with the sponsors of both;  George Frederick Bodley designed St David’s Cathedral, Hobart;  at the end of his life, John Loughborough Pearson, builder of Truro Cathedral, designed the Anglican cathedral in Brisbane, though actual construction was overseen by his son, Frank.

Most other Australian cathedrals were designed by English immigrants:  Edmund Blacket (St Andrew’s Cathedral, Perth) was born in Southwark;  Benjamin Backhouse (who built St Stephen’s, Brisbane alongside a chapel by A W N Pugin) was born in Ipswich.  William Wardell, designer of two magnificent Roman Catholic cathedrals (Melbourne and Sydney) was British, a friend of A W N Pugin.

I want to know more about the men and women who envisioned, conceived, constructed and paid for these resolutely European places of worship in places that had hardly seen masonry until their lifetimes.

Mike Higginbottom’s lecture Gothic Down Under:  English architecture in the Antipodes explores the influence of British architects, and British-trained architects, on the design of churches and other buildings in the emerging communities of Australia and New Zealand.  For details, please click here.