SPAB Annual Report 1882

Title page

Introduction

THE Committee has had a very busy year since it presented the last Annual Report to the Members. It must be acknowledged that it has had to protest against several schemes for the mere unnecessary or wanton destruction of ancient buildinging, but it is not to be supposed that the fact of these being more in number than usual has any significance, as showing backsliding in public opinion; on the contrary, there are hopeful signs of the impression which the Society has made in this matter, which will be mentioned in the Report. On the other hand, the Committee feels itself compelled to repeat the warning it gave last year to those who care about our ancient monuments, and to beg Members, and the public in general, to note that this matter of the preservation of ancient buildings is one of those cases in which there is no time to spare. Every year in which the ultimate aim of the Society – namely, the complete conversion of the public to its views – is still unfulfilled, is replete with the greatest dangers to our ancient buildings. Every year which leaves the guardians of these buildings ignorant or careless of their duties, adds to the list of those irreparable losses to art and history which cultivated people are now beginning to perceive and deplore, but which they are too often quite powerless to prevent. The Committee therefore urges on Members, and all those who agree with its principles in the main, to further those principles actively and busily, since with all that has been destroyed or falsified there are still left, even in this country, many genuine works of ancient architecture, not one of which, it must be repeated, is safe until our principles are generally acknowledged and acted upon, even in remote country places in England, The following cases, typical of their kind, or of special importance otherwise, are extracted from the long list which the Committee has been busy upon during the current year.

Deopham

Deopham Church, Norfolk.

Hearing that this church was about to be restored by Mr. Ewen [sic] Christian, the Committee sent two of their members to examine it. They made a full and careful survey¹, reporting that the church was a fine and interesting one of the characteristic Norfolk type.

The chancel was “restored” some years ago by Mr. Christian, who rebuilt and practically renewed the whole, leaving scarcely a vestige of its old beauties.²

They addressed letters of remonstrance to him with regard to the proposed removal of the fine old Perpendicular roof of the nave, and the substitution of a modern copy; the excuse being given that the old roof was too much decayed to be preserved.

The Committee pointed out to Mr. Christian the means by which it would be undoubtedly possible to save the old work, however bad the decay might be, namely, the supporting the old decayed timber by a careful arrangement of bolts, straps, and other ironwork, applied in an honest, straightforward manner, without any attempt at concealment. A very unsatisfactory answer was received from Mr. Christian, who objected to the use of the iron suggested by the Committee, on the ground that this employment of iron was not mediæval.

This church is a striking instance of what it is the main object of the Society to fight against. Many years of utter carelessness, and neglect to spend the small sums necessary to keep the wet out, have reduced the roofs to such a state that, as most modern architects would say, nothing short of complete renewal is possible. A large sum is then collected, under the pretence of saving an old building, the grand old roof is to be cleared away, and an expensive and worthless modern copy put in its place. The stupidity of such a course is apparent, as a fraction of the sum wasted on the new roof would have kept the priceless old woodwork safe and strong for many generations to come.

Chairman’s address – objectives of SPAB

(The audience reactions in parentheses are as printed in the Annual Report.)

The CHAIRMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, My duty now is to move the adoption of this Report, which has been read by Mr. Morris³, and in doing so to say a few, though only a few, words to you upon the moral which is contained in it, and to make such reflections as the position of the Society at present suggests. It seems to me that the great difficulty which we have at our recurring anniversaries in this Society, and in similar societies formed for similar public objects, is that we are all too much agreed already. (Hear, hear.) We come here who are already converted to the faith-we who have already got the proper sense of the value of the objects which the Society labours for, and who are completely in unison with its spirit. Unfortunately we do not succeed in getting our enemies to come; therefore we have the difficulty, not only that we cannot say anything novel, but that our words do not reach those for whom they are intended. I have often thought if we could get, instead of the cultivated and instructed audiences which we always find willing to gather on these occasions, if we could get some of the so-called “practical” churchwardens, whose idea of restoration is to pull down the old building and use up the materials to build up the new one, or some of those practical architects, whose idea is to create such a restoration as to show that they had looked into a treatise on the architecture of the eleventh or twelfth century-if we could get people of this kind, we should be far more likely to create an impression and to propagate our ideas. These people have the prudence, however, from their own point of view, not to come near us, and we can only endeavour to reach them through the press and the action of individual opinion, which diffuses itself by degrees over the whole mass of the community. We know our enemies are active, because of the amount of misrepresentation with regard to the intentions and objects with which we have to contend. Some think that misrepresentation is a pure evil; on the contrary, it is much better that we should be talked about even for evil, than not be talked about at all. (Hear, hear) We are subject to two opposite sets of misrepresentations. One is that we desire to keep up all the ugly old things simply because they are old; the other is that we desire to let ancient buildings fall into ruin rather than restore them, if the restoration would involve the least possible change. The best refutation of that is to be found in our practice. Such instances as those read in the Report show the principle on which the Society goes to work. We have no desire to preserve anything which is not worthy of preservation.

“Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.” If a thing is merely useless and ugly we are not such fanatics as to wish to keep it. Suppose you have a church in which there is a clumsy wooden gallery which obscures some of the windows of the church, and could not be said to be an architectural feature in any way, no one in the Society would object to pulling it down. (Hear, hear.) I may explain what we object to by putting a very common case. Suppose we find that a church, originally of the eleventh century, has had its early Romanesque windows replaced in some parts (let us say in the nave), has had them replaced by fifteenth-century windows, so that the condition of the church is such that although you might conjecture that the nave had originally windows of the same structure as those in the chancel, you find them now different, what we do object to is that the restorer should, by placing in the nave eleventh-century windows, destroy not only the beauty which comes of variety, but the faithful historical narrative which has been written in the church. That has been done by those who have taken away the later windows and have put in the others, which were meant to imitate the original ones. We protest against that, not only in the name of art, but in the name of common morality, because it is putting a lie into the mouth of the building. If we take away the fifteenth-century windows and put in, I will not say nineteenth-century ones – for one can hardly speak of such a thing in this imitative age – but what are meant for eleventh-century ones, then that is a falsehood, and destroys whatever truth the building possesses. We might go so far as to say that the object of this Society is to stop reproduction. I need hardly say we desire to heartily encourage all repairs, and, where repairs make necessary some amount of re-building, as in the case of Studland Church, of course we approve of the necessary amount of repair. (Hear, hear.) But we object to the attempt to create a thing which is not true- an attempt to put into a building what was not put there by anyone who had a hand in it from the time of its erection to our own days. We know reproduction, however careful, can hardly be right, and therefore we object to it. Out of the many aspects of this question, there is one which commends itself particularly to those who have no special architectural knowledge, but are interested in the past of our country. It is that which regards, not so much mere architectural beauty, or the value of the architectural result, as the historical value of the building. We live in a time when the past is vanishing with unexampled rapidity. What ever part of Europe one goes to – because it is true of almost every part of Europe – except indeed one blessed and happy part of Europe where Vandal restorers have not yet laid their hands, that is the Turkish Empire – (cheers and laughter) every part of Europe now is the theatre of a process of pulling down the old and erecting the new in its place. The rapid development of the means of communication, the enormous increase of wealth, the higher sense of and desire for comfort, and the mere ambition of persons to signalise themselves by great works, makes this the greatest building age the world has ever seen, greater perhaps than even the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. The result of this process is to extinguish everywhere the traces of the past. We seem, as we drift down the stream of time, to go with an ever accelerating movement, and to see the ancient features of the landscape amongst which our ancestors lived receding faster and faster from us. We seem to be carried, even as respects the material surroundings among which our lives are passed, as well as in our political literature and ideas and social habits, further and further, faster and faster, into a new order of things. If this be so and it is most so in England, because the growth of wealth and material prosperity has been greater in England than anywhere else is it not a reason for clinging with the utmost tenacity and earnestness to whatever in the external world can help us to realise the past and our historical continuity with it? The sense of this historical continuity is essential to the greatness of a nation as well as to the mental elevation of the individual. It enlarges our horizon, it purifies our minds, and it gives us a livelier sense of our debt to the past and our responsibility to the future. It even ennobles the details of our political and social life when we feel they do not stand alone by themselves; that they are the outcome of the past, and are full of meaning and significance for the future. (Cheers.) I do not think one ever feels this value of the past, and its influence upon the character through the imagination, so vividly as one does in returning from a visit to the United States. The United States of America are unlike the Old world in having nothing that dates back more than two or three centuries. Their people, seeking like ourselves for something which shall ennoble and elevate their lives, since they cannot turn to the past, turn to the future, and reach a sense of national greatness by looking forward to the future, in which everything which exists now shall exist on an infinitely greater scale. But even while feeding on glories to come, they feel with the utmost keenness the want of something to carry them back to the past, and nothing is more touching than to find that the first thing an American does in coming to England is to go to an ancient town, such as Chester, which, being near Liverpool, is very accessible to Americans, and there to plunge himself into the associations of the English past. (Cheers.) It should make us realise how fortunate we are in possessing monuments of antiquity, when we see our American fellow-citizens endeavouring to appropriate and enjoy whatever reminds them of that ancient England whence they too are sprung. And in an effort of this kind external things are of the utmost possible service. There is nothing in the external world which can help us so much in this way as our ancient buildings, and when we see one year after another alterations made destroying ancient things, the loss of pieces of work carrying us back to the very earliest ages of our race, like that piece of Roman wall which was taken down on Ludgate hill recently, it makes us anxious that no more time should be lost in checking the destroyer’s hand. I heard only on Tuesday last of a tower of the twelfth century attached to an old manor-house in Northumberland, which had lately been taken down by its ignorant proprietor. When one thinks of these things, one realises the fact that this society has not come into existence a minute too soon. (Cheers.)

With regard to the practical suggestions which the Report makes to us, I need not attempt to show that the Society is energetically doing a modest, but at the same time, a very useful work. There are some very hopeful signs of the effect of our work. In the first place, there is the continual abuse which the Society meets with; that is an excellent sign, for it shows we are producing an effect. There is also the sympathy which our efforts are beginning to meet with abroad. We may reasonably have some pride in feeling that England is the first country which has formed a society of the kind, to arouse the national feeling of responsibility. I believe that a society is already being formed in Italy, at any rate the Italian artists are thinking of forming such an organisation. If our Society had lived for no other purpose than to start a movement of the kind in a part of the world which contains such a number of priceless monuments as Italy, we should not have lived and worked in vain. (Hear, hear.) I think we may also see signs of sympathy in this country, even among classes which are not credited with having artistic feeling. There is a remarkable change of opinion in the House of Commons – a body which is generally supposed to be insensible to what are called poetical and sentimental feelings. (Hear, hear, and a laugh.) But the desire has grown so strong for the preservation of ancient monuments that the Government have been obliged to take the subject up, and I believe on Tuesday next the Chief Commissioner of Works, who is a member of this Society, and is thoroughly imbued with and interested in its principles, is going to bring in a Bill on the subject. I believe that Bill will deal primarily only with those objects to which Sir J. Lubbock’s resolution was directed, viz., to the so-called prehistoric monuments. But the principle, after all, is the great thing, and the principle is conceded. (Hear, hear.) The principle for which we contend as regards ancient buildings and all other historic monuments, is that the rights of private property, however much we respect them, must be exercised with a due regard to the paramount rights of the whole nation. (Hear, hear.) No individual man has a right to say that that which the distant past made is in the same position as that which he has made himself, where it has a meaning, a scope, and value which renders it an object of interest to the whole nation. We do contend with the confidence that we are right, and that our views will prevail, that the nation has a right to step in and say that precious monuments, whether their worth be artistic or historical, shall not be destroyed by private owners – (cheers) that the principle so long ago adopted in France shall be adopted here. In France there is a Commission for Historical Monuments, which has under its care an immense number of buildings of historical interest. All the cathedrals, and a great many churches, the whole of the old Cité of Carcasson – one set of whose walls is of the time of the Visigoths, and the other of St. Louis – have been made historical monuments, and no changes can take place in them without the authorisation of the Commission. That is the kind of principle we should like to see adopted in this country, and we hope that this Bill of Mr. Lefevre’s will be the first step towards obtaining some regulations of this kind for the protection and defence of the priceless relics of the past. Of course the case is much stronger as regards national buildings than it is as regards private edifices, but we say there may be edifices and monuments which even private proprietors ought not to be suffered to destroy. (Cheers.)

As regards the work of this Society, we do very much desire and require the aid of local organisations. The Report makes a reference to the desirability of having local correspondents; but in some districts might we not have branch societies? I am not sure that the archæological societies which exist in most counties in England might not be asked to form committees for the preservation of ancient buildings. I believe among their members we should find persons who would be willing to establish such branches. There is more to be done than can well be done by the central Society here, and I think that we must feel that even the central Society could not do half it does if it were not for the extraordinary devotion of a few who serve on the committee. (Cheers.) I may refer particularly to our friend Mr. Morris. (Cheers.) Mr. Morris, who leads a busy life, has undertaken, in addition to his work as a poet and as a manufacturer, a work like that which came upon St. Paul, namely, “the care of all the churches” (cheers and laughter) – and we hope that younger men will come forward and help him to discharge his truly apostolic mission. (Hear, hear.) We have much encouragement in the growth of the reverential feelings of the working classes towards ancient buildings. No one did more to form and elevate their sentiments in this respect than the late Dean of Westminster. (Cheers.) It is impossible to over-estimate what he did to promote such a feeling among all classes, not merely by his writings and discourses, but also by the practice he introduced of throwing the Abbey open to working men and himself taking them round it. We may welcome that as a sign of the greatest possible good, social and moral as well as artistic. (Hear, hear.) We believe that one of the truest and best sources of national and individual happiness is to be found in sentiments of this kind, sentiments which expand and refine men’s minds, and rescue them from that worldliness which comes of mere material prosperity and growth of wealth. Man does not live by bread alone, but lives by all the beauty which is provided by nature and art, and by all those subtle yet potent ties which bind the present to the past.

Footnotes

The full report of this survey is available here. ↩︎
It appears that the Committee did not visit until after the chancel restoration was complete so would not have been able to assess the beauty or otherwise of the old chancel roof. ↩︎
i.e. William Morris – famous for his textile designs. ↩︎

Date	Change
31/01/24	Published