Issue 41 Spring web - Flipbook - Page 67
Sprituality & place
As guardians of church buildings, we create and conserve
diverse interpretations of spirituality for these faithful.
If we first frame the equilibrium between conservation
AND spirituality into an opposition, Conservation OR
Spirituality, an initial question immediately poses itself.
Where in a busy, tourist-dependent context is the balance to
be found between visual stimulus for touristic visitors, an
encompassing space for public worship, and a calm backdrop
for private devotion?
In order to understand its specific response to the
mediaeval requisites for worship and pilgrimage, we must
look briefly at its history: with/without rood screen,
before/after fire bombing.
Writing in Religious Architecture5, Richard Irvine’s essay,
Stability, Continuity, Place, propounds ‘the idea that monastic architecture might productively be treated as “counterfactual architecture” – that is, architecture that raises
‘what if?’ questions about history and social life.’6
Jesus says,7 “You believe in God, so believe also in me.”
In his remarkable book, My Tsunami Journey, Mark Dowd8
tells of his visit to the Buddhist monastery at Samarkee
in Thailand. Dowd cites local villagers in the aftermath
of the tsunami of 2004 saying, “When all this [destruction
of our village, our boats, our livelihood] happened, we
thought this temple would be a good place to come to.
The monks here are a source of stability.”
Given the world’s 21st Century diversity, my hypothesis
is that
spirituality underlies belief,
belief enables confidence,
confidence fosters stability,
and stability warrants conservation.
Above, built by Higgs & Hills, Craze’s Nave Chancel arch raised
the roof above Pugin’s original Chancel and gable
In his poem The Dry Salvages, T S Eliot writes
“to apprehend
The point of intersection of the timeless
With time is an occupation for the saint” 9
Eliot engenders a second question.
‘Is it possible, through conservation of our churches, to make
legible some “intersection” of
the material with the immaterial,
the visible with the invisible,
the temporal with the spiritual?’
Pilgrimage
Normally, when one starts placing new objects into
historic churches, a confusion arises between two further
related questions:
‘is this place a heritage visitor experience, or
is it a living, sacramental building?’.
The layouts of great churches show how successive
generations respond to physical disaster and religious
advancement by adding new ‘places’. Thus, new shrines
follow established, evolutionary patterns. One often
encounters places of devotion set on some wall with a
commemorative or explanatory plaque. Of course, objects
readily take up space on walls yet they then become
‘exhibits’ or ‘displays’ and indeed, in a huge church, just
inconspicuous and innocuous.
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Above, Pugin’s original Rood or Jubé screen incorporating chantries
was removed to the Narthex as an organ gallery soon after opening
After fire bombing in 1941, the ruins of the 19th Century
church, designated a Grade II Listed Building, were
significantly re-ordered by Romilly Bernard Craze in the
1950s and ’60s, incorporating 5 side chapels, 2 chantries
and a baptistery.
The new dedications - SS Peter with the English Martyrs,
SS Patrick and Joseph - reflected the prevalent community of English and Irish Catholics living throughout
London’s southern hinterland. Since 1963, many further
pilgrims have come into London so St George’s has had
to grow, change and adapt: the task of greeting them
spiritually is both liturgical and architectural.
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Conservation & Heritage Journal
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