Issue 41 Spring web - Flipbook - Page 68
As the Revd Dr Dee Dyas [Co-Director of the Centre for
the Study of Christianity and Culture in the University of
York] states, one really wants to emphasise the immaterial
issues around fostering pilgrimage & shrines alongside (or
even above) the material issues of design and conservation. Shrines evoke spirituality. Hence one wants to see a
shrine adding clarity and something of specificity in the
great church.
The cathedral thus presents a compendium of ecclesiastical architecture, visually spanning seven centuries,
though developed over just 127 years.
Above, Pugin’s Petre Chantry encapsulated by Craze in an Arcade
that leads to his shrine chapel to Our Lady of St George’s
built in 1963
Above, plan of Toulouse, St. Sermin: presentation by Khan
Academy
Considering medieval European churches which
developed with
• a Forum in the Nave, for the Town Corporation,
• an ecclesiastical Sanctuary in the Quire, for the
Religious,
• and a popular Shrine in the Retro-quire, for Pilgrims,
I have come to wonder, ‘what lessons can be drawn about
re-ordering our modern churches?’.
Above, Narthex to Sanctuary: view before 1941 with
Pugin’s slender pillars
In a medieval cathedral such as Toulouse10 there is an intersection of four religious rites happening independently
of each other throughout the day:
At the interface with the outside world, ‘Church’ meets
‘State’ at the various guilds’ altars;
Above, Narthex to Sanctuary: view after 1958 with Craze’s
broader pillars
At the heart of the plan is the Sanctuary: the religious at
their daily office;
Images of the nave looking towards the High Altar from before, during and after World War II show how what was an
open worship space without convenience for the four rites
of the mediaeval church has, through the broadening of the
nave pillars, become more adapted to separate ritual zones.
Beyond these, the side aisles and Retro-quire offer a route
of prayer for healing to pilgrims at the shrine.
Surrounding these three rites are chapels and confessionals, for private intentions and atonement.
History
At St George’s11, the rebuilding was designed to create an
illusion of architectural development over many ages: on
re-opening in 1958, the Lady chapel was east of the South
aisle, where Pugin first placed it. Then it was moved in
1963 to its current position to the south-east of the South
aisle beyond the Petre chantry. The Lady chapel’s chancel
is an elegant homage to 14th century Early English
Gothic, onto which Craze “appends” his Day chapel, a
Tudor-style congregational area constructed as if the nave
of some mediaeval chapel of ease had been re-developed Above, Archbishop Peter Smith & Dean Richard Hearn dedicating the
Holy Door for the Jubilee Year of Mercy inserted by Louth in 2015
later.12
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Conservation & Heritage Journal
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