November 2008

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Architects’ reputations are fragile things. Gilbert Scott, for instance, knighted for his great works, became a figure of fun within 50 years of his death. And what will the future make of those much-lauded architectural peers of our own time, the egregious Lords Foster of Thames Bank and Rogers of Riverside? We can only speculate. But few reputations have oscillated so dramatically as that of Nicholas Hawksmoor. Beginning as the ‘clerk’ and trusted assistant to Sir Christopher Wren, his works were condemned for their ‘fancy’ by the pedantic Palladians, and by the 19th century, when some of his buildings were maltreated, he was almost forgotten. Today, however, he is considered by some to have been a far greater talent than his master, and his surviving London churches are being lovingly restored.

The most difficult and dangerous years for Hawksmoor’s creations came after World War ii. Bombs gutted St John, Horsleydown, behind London Bridge Station, in 1941, and its shell – and extraordinary steeple surmounted by an Ionic column – was demolished rather than restored. The magnificent gutted shell of St George-in-the-East, with its powerful tower, topped by Hawksmoor’s version of the Octagon at Ely, would have gone the same way if the parish had not fought against demolition. In the event, a clever modern church by Arthur Bailey was built within the ruins in 1960-64.

Christ Church, Spitalfields, survived the war unscathed, yet in 1960 the diocese of London seriously proposed its demolition. This great basilica, just east of the City of London, had long been neglected. In 1957, services were moved elsewhere and it might well have gone the way of St Luke, Old Street, which had its roof taken off in 1959. But the threat was averted. One consequence was the founding of the Hawksmoor Committee in 1961 by Elisabeth Young (now Lady Kennet) and others, to find money to secure the futures of both Christ Church and St Anne, Limehouse. The catalogue of a 1962 exhibition of drawings noted that ‘The name of Hawksmoor, long neglected if never quite forgotten, now commands the devotion of a large number of architects, scholars and enthusiasts from many fields.’

Scholars there certainly were, the principal one being Kerry Downes, whose first monograph on Hawksmoor was published in 1959. Today, there are younger scholars, such as Anthony Geraghty and Gordon Higgott, busily conducting research into what we can now call the English baroque, effectively demonstrating that Hawksmoor was almost certainly responsible for much of Wren’s late work, including the domes at Greenwich and the west towers of St Paul’s. And there were many enthusiasts prepared to explore what were then slightly intimidating and neglected parts of London to find and to wonder at Hawksmoor’s great East End fanes. Such explorations inspired Peter Ackroyd’s 1985 novel Hawksmoor. Although it presented the architect as a most sinister figure, this brilliantly evocative book nevertheless encouraged the growing cult of Hawksmoor and focused welcome attention on the disgraceful condition of several of his buildings.

That can no longer be said. St Alfege, Greenwich, damaged in the war, had been reasonably accurately restored by Sir Albert Richardson. Today, St Anne, Limehouse, that colossal prodigy in modern Docklands, is at last being properly looked after. The Friends of Christ Church Spitalfields were formed in 1976 and organised concerts in the stripped-out, sublime interior while the architect Red Mason investigated its original appearance. The restoration, which took decades, was completed four years ago.

And then there is St George, Bloomsbury (Fig. 3), which, although in a more familiar part of London, had also been long neglected. In apollo in June 2004 I described the problems involved in the restoration being promoted by the World Monuments Fund, and argued that ‘Any work by Hawksmoor surely deserves authentic reinstatement as far as is possible. In Bloomsbury, this surely means not only removing the later stained glass and recreating the stone-colour of the original interior but moving the altar back to where it belongs – and putting those gambolling lions and unicorns back on the steeple.’ I am very happy now to be able to report that all this has been achieved.

First, the lions and unicorns ‘fighting for the crown’ (as the old nursery rhyme has it): these animated creatures had often been satirised, not least by Hogarth, and were removed in 1871. Now they are back. Wonderfully lively stone creatures, modelled by Tim Crawley, have been incorporated at the base of the stepped spire. Perhaps they are just a little too big; no matter, a great London landmark and legend has been restored (Fig. 3). More problematic was the interior. St George has the most complicated and perplexing of all Hawksmoor’s church plans. Correct east-west orientation meant much to him, but the confined site was wider than it was long. Hawksmoor solved the problem by creating an axial, centralised galleried space under a square lantern, focused on the communion table in an eastern apse, with the rest of the site occupied by an additional north aisle to serve as a vestry. In 1781, pressure of population led to internal reorientation through 90 degrees. Hawksmoor’s magnificent mahogany reredos (Fig. 1) was moved to the additional north aisle and more galleries were added while some were removed.

Until a few years ago, the interior of St George was impressive yet puzzling. The elliptical arches on columns that Hawksmoor used to divide nave from aisles read as a series of transverse arches across the new axis from the entrance portico to the altar. This looked well, yet was not at all what Hawksmoor intended. So, in the course of the restoration, after much debate, the reredos was moved back into the eastern apse. However, the resulting interior space remained incoherent. What was needed was the recreation of the original north gallery, balancing the surviving (altered) south gallery to enclose a centralised symmetrical space focused on the reredos and dividing the worshipping area from that additional north aisle. This has now been done (Fig. 2). As with other aspects of the interior, research by Kevin Rogers established the original form of the gallery and its staircases and supporting timber piers (with internal cast-iron cores – a very early use of structural iron).

A magnificent restoration has been triumphantly completed. For the first time in over two centuries, the cleverness and coherence of Hawksmoor’s interior can be appreciated. All that remains to do to redeem the reputation of this most imaginative and fascinating of architects is to put the galleries back in his St Mary Woolnoth. Surely there is enough money sloshing around in the City of London to achieve that?

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