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Title Pages
Buildings, Faith, and Worship

Nigel Yates
Print publication date: 1993

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270133
Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2011
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270133.001.0001
Title Pages
(p.i) Buildings, Faith, and Worship
(p.ii) (p.iii) Buildings, Faith, and Worship
(p.iv)
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Dedication

Nigel Yates

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270133
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270133.001.0001
Dedication
(p.v) For Bill and Paula in whose company I have visited churches for over
thirty years.
Page 1 of 1
Acknowledgements

Nigel Yates

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270133
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270133.001.0001
(p.vi) (p.vii) Acknowledgements

The origins of this book are the various researches carried out by myself and
others for consistory court cases in which specialist evidence on the liturgical
arrangement of Anglican churches was given on behalf of the Council for the
Care of Churches. My principal debt of gratitude is therefore to the officers of
the Council, especially the former Secretary, Peter Burman, the Deputy
Secretary (Casework), Donald Findlay, and the former Deputy Secretary and
Librarian, David Williams, who are largely responsible for the contents of this
book and whose encouragement has brought it to fruition.
My second debt of gratitude is to my colleagues in diocesan record offices and

specialist libraries whom I have relied on very greatly to bring to my attention
relevant source material. It would be impossible to name them all but several
have been particularly helpful: Dr Molly Barrett (Oxfordshire Record Office),
Nancy Briggs (Essex Record Office), Robin Gard and Pamela Clark
(Northumberland Record Office), Charlotte Hodgson (Bermuda Archives), Chris
Pickford (Bedfordshire Record Office), Raymond Refaussé (Church of Ireland
Library), Dr David Robinson and Shirley Corke (Surrey Record Office and
Guildford Muniment Room), Margaret Statham (Suffolk Record Office). In
addition Dr Geoffrey Bill and Melanie Barber (Lambeth Palace Library), John
Bowles (Redundant Churches Fund) and Dr Brenda Hough (Church House
Records Centre) have generously provided information sought from them.
Patrick Mussett brought to my attention the magnificent series of church seating
plans in Durham Cathedral Library and Dr Böde Janson provided me with much
useful information on the liturgical arrangement of Lutheran churches in
Sweden. I am most grateful to Mr H. W. Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, the Marquess
of Northampton, and Lord Sackville for permitting me to visit their private
chapels at Charborough, Compton Wynyates, and Knole respectively.
Page 1 of 3
Acknowledgements
I am especially grateful to the Revd Canon Dr William Jacob and Professor

Nicholas Orme, who have read and commented on parts of this book at an early
stage and contributed significantly to its improvement, and to Professor George
Yule with whom I have most fruitfully compared notes on the liturgical
arrangements of both English and Scottish churches. My colleagues Penny
Brook and Michael Carter have given most generously of their time to draw the
plans in this book. I am particularly grateful to the members of the former
Libraries, (p.viii) Museums, and Archives Subcommittee of Kent County
Council, who permitted me substantial leave of absence to begin the major work
on this book in the summer of 1986, and who continued to take an interest
thereafter; also to my colleagues in the Kent Archives Office for their support
over the years, and the staff of the Kent County Library for their professional
assistance in obtaining the books, articles in journals, and unpublished theses
which I needed to consult.
I am also grateful to those bodies that have permitted the reproduction of their
copyright material as illustrations in this volume: the Council for the Care of
Churches (Plates 2, 3, 9b, 12b, and 16a); the Redundant Churches Fund (Plates
4, 6a, 9a, 18, and 20); the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historical
Monuments in Wales (Plates 6b, 10a, 10b, and 12a); the Royal Commission on
Ancient and Historical Monuments in England (Plates 5, and 17b); the
Representative Church Body Library, Dublin, and St John’s Widows Trust, Cork
(Plate 7b); Portsmouth City Records Office (Plate 8); the President and Fellows of
Magdalen College, Oxford (Plate 13); the Egham Museum Trust (Plate 16b); the
Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral (Plate 17a); the National Trust (Plate
21) and Buckinghamshire Record Office (Plates 23 and 24). Plates 1 and 22 are
photographs of original documents in the Kent Archives Office in Maidstone. The
plans in the text are reproduced by kind permission of the Dean and Chapter of
Durham Cathedral (Plans 1–4, 6–8, and 11) and the county archives services of
Essex (Plan 5), Hertfordshire (Plan 9), Cumbria (Plans 10 and 14), Devon (Plan
12), and Oxfordshire (Plan 13).
My greatest debt of all, however, is to my wife, Paula, who, despite her many
other commitments, has found the time to drive me to many of the buildings
described, to read and criticize the whole book at various stages in its
development, to type the final text submitted for publication, and still to provide
the constant encouragement and support that every writer needs. I must also
acknowledge the courtesy, efficiency, and helpfulness of the Oxford University
Press, and especially Mrs Hilary Feldman, from whose advice I have benefited
considerably at every stage of the publishing process.
S EPTEMBER 1989
N.Y.
Page 2 of 3
Acknowledgements
Page 3 of 3
Acknowledgements to Revised Edition

Nigel Yates

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270133
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270133.001.0001
(p.ix) Acknowledgements to Revised Edition

I am grateful to Oxford University Press for reissuing this book and for
permitting the addition of a new preface, taking account of research over the
past decade, and a much enlarged guide to churches and chapels in the British
Isles which retain either pre-ecclesiological or early ecclesiological interiors. I
am particularly grateful to those who have advised me about buildings I might
otherwise have missed, especially Thomas Lloyd, John Newman, and Julian
Orbach, the authors of the forthcoming volumes on Dyfed and Gwent for The
Buildings of Wales; Dr Thomas Cocke and the late Donald Findlay at the Council
for the Care of Churches; John Hume at Historic Scotland; Tony Parkinson at the
Royal Commission on Ancient Monuments and Historic Buildings in Wales; the
Revd Professor George Yule and the Ven. Dr W. M. Jacob. I am also grateful to
those bodies that have generously made a subvention towards the cost of visiting
these buildings; in this respect I should particularly like to thank the Cambrian
Archaeological Society, the Cromarty Trust, and the Marc Fitch Fund. The
majority of the buildings briefly described in Appendices B and C have been
personally visited and thanks are due to those clergy or laity responsible for
their custody who have enabled me to visit buildings to which access is
restricted, or who have provided me with detailed photographic evidence of
interiors which I have not been able to visit personally. In this respect I should
particularly like to thank Lord Rotherwick for access to the chapel at Cornbury
Park and to Mr James Clark for access to the former Church of Scotland mission
church at Eriboll, both visited since the first edition of this book was published,
and the Rt. Revd J. R. W. Neil (then Bishop of Tuam, Killala, and Achonry, now
Bishop of Cashel and Ossory) for drawing my attention to the existence of the
unusual surviving liturgical arrangements at Christ Church, Dromard. Finally I
would like to thank my wife who has given up time from her own busy career to
drive me to these buildings and to prepare the manuscript for the publisher.
Page 1 of 2
Acknowledgements to Revised Edition
N.Y.
July 1999
Page 2 of 2
List of Plates

Nigel Yates

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270133
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270133.001.0001
(p.xii) List of Plates

(Between pages 62–3)
1. Plan of Acton (Ches.) 1635

2. Interior of Rycote (Oxon.)
3. Interior of Ingestre (Staffs.)
4. Interior of Warminghurst (W. Sussex)
5. Interior of Fylingdales (N. Yorks.)
6. (a) Interior of Old Dilton (Wilts.)
(b) Interior of Llanddoged (Gwynedd)
7. (a) Altar and pulpit arrangement at Timogue (Co. Laois)
(b) Interior of St John’s, Cork, before 1963
8. Plan and elevations of St George’s, Portsea (Hants.) 1753

9. (a) Interior of Didmarton (Glos.)
(b) Interior of Aldfield (N. Yorks.)
10. (a) Interior of Rhiw (Gwynedd)
(b) Interior of Ynyscynhaearn (Gwynedd)
11. Pulpit arrangement at Teigh (Leics.)
12. (a) Interior of Llandwrog (Gwynedd)
(b) Interior of Rushbrooke (Suff.)
13. Interior of Theale (Berks.) 1839
14. Interior of Wilton (Wilts.) 1849
15. Architect’s drawing of the interior of Mickleham (Surrey) 1824
16. (a) Pulpit and reading-desk at Leighton Bromswold (Cambs.)
(b) Interior of Egham (Surrey) 1828

17. (a) Interior of Winlaton (Tyne and Wear) 1828
Page 1 of 2
List of Plates
(b) Interior of Mildenhall (Wilts.)

18. Interior of St. George’s Portland (Dorset)
19. Interior of Castle Rising (Norf.) 1849
20. Interior of Yazor (Herefs. and Worcs.)
21. Interior of Clumber (Notts.)
22. Interior of Christ Church, Naples 1862
23. Interior of Willen (Bucks.) before restoration in 1861
24. Interior of Willen (Bucks.) after restoration in 1861
Page 2 of 2
List of Plans in the Text

Nigel Yates

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270133
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270133.001.0001
(p.xiii) List of Plans in the Text

1. Ebchester (Dur.) 1825 71
2. Greatham (Cleveland) 1825 72
3. Witton-le-Wear (Dur.) 1825 73
4. Middleton St George (Dur.) 1825 81
5. Epping (Essex) 1786 83
6. Wolsingham (Dur.) 1825 84
7. Holy Trinity, Sunderland (Tyne and Wear) 1825 88
8. Bishop Middleham (Dur.) 1825 92
9. Little Hadham (Herts.) 1692 95
10. Askham (Cumb.) 1834 99
11. Hamsterley (Dur.) 1825 102
12. Teigngrace (Devon) 1786 103
13. Wendlebury (Oxon.) 1761 111
14. Grayrigg (Cumb.) 1839 118
The following abbreviations have been used on the plans:
A
Altar
C
Clerk’s desk
F
Font
M
Musicians and Singers
P
Pulpit
R
Reading-desk
Page 1 of 2
List of Plans in the Text
S
Squire’s pew
V
Vestry
Page 2 of 2
List of Tables

Nigel Yates

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270133
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270133.001.0001
(p.xiv) List of Tables

1. Monthly Communion and Weekday Services in Anglican Churches,
1738–82
2. Liturgical Arrangement of Anglican Churches, 1660–1840
3. Radical Experiments in Anglican Churches, 1660–1840
4. Ritual Observances in Anglican Churches, 1882–1903
5. Liturgical Arrangement of Anglican Churches in Appendix B
Page 1 of 1
List of Abbreviations

Nigel Yates

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270133
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270133.001.0001
(p.xv) List of Abbreviations

AD
Archives Department
AE
G. W. O. Addleshaw and F. Etchells, The Architectural Setting of
Anglican Worship (London, 1948)
AO
Archives Office
BE
Buildings of England, ed. N. Pevsner (Harmondsworth, 1951–74)
BS
Buildings of Scotland, ed. C. McWilliam (Harmondsworth, 1978–)
BW
Buildings of Wales, ed. J. Newman (Harmondsworth, 1979–)
CADW
Welsh Historical Monuments
CBA
Council for British Archaeology
CCC
Council for the Care of Churches
CCT
Churches Conservation Trust
CL
Cathedral Library
EH
English Heritage
FFC
Friends of Friendless Churches
HCT
Page 1 of 2
List of Abbreviations
Historic Chapels Trust

NT
National Trust
PL
Public Library
RCHM
Royal Commission on Historical Monuments
RO
Record Office
SPAB
Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings
Page 2 of 2
Preface to the Revised Edition

Nigel Yates

Print ISBN-13: 9780198270133
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198270133.001.0001
(p.xvi) (p.xvii) Preface to the Revised

Edition
The decision to publish a revised edition of Buildings, Faith, and Worship has
provided the opportunity to update the original edition with a survey of research
published in the last decade and the replacement of the original Appendix B with
two new, and much enlarged, Appendices B and C, providing a substantially
extended guide to existing buildings, many of them visited since the original
edition of this book was published. All the research since 1990 on topics covered
by this book has served to reinforce the arguments of the first edition. The one
period in which some recent changes of emphasis might have an impact on
architectural and liturgical history is the late sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries, where a growing consensus is beginning to emerge about the
development of a specifically Anglican religious position rather earlier than had
been previously detected. Whereas Eamon Duffy has identified a prolonged
reluctance to abandon pre-Reformation religious practices in many parts of late
sixteenth-century England, he accepts that by the last quarter of the century a
loyalty to the reformed Church of England was beginning to replace it,1 and
there is certainly plenty of evidence that by the early years of the seventeenth
century the forms of worship laid down in the Book of Common Prayer were
being vigorously defended by parishioners against ministers who wanted to
abandon them.2 It is also clear that a major programme of refurnishing
churches, according to the requirements of the Book of Common Prayer and the
Canons of 1604 was being carried out in the first quarter of the seventeenth
century, and attention has been drawn to the large surviving quantity of pulpits,
screens, seating, painted texts, altar tables, and stalls for communicants erected
during this period.3 As a result, the changes pioneered by the high-church clergy
after 1620 in relation to the position of the altar (pp. 31–2 below) and other
matters are beginning to be seen in a more negative light, as a deliberately
confrontational destabilization of accepted Anglican practice, (p.xviii) which
Page 1 of 18
was not Puritan in outlook, rather than just an attack on Puritan practices, with
the result that they were judged to be ‘popish’ not just by Puritans but by many
moderate Anglicans as well.4
Recent works on Anglicanism between the late seventeenth and the early
nineteenth centuries has built on the pioneering studies of the 1960s and 1970s
to consolidate and reinforce the view that churches were well cared for and the
services in them generally well conducted. It is now recognized that the Civil
War and Interregnum did not result in the complete suppression of Anglican
worship and it is likely that there were many parishes in which it continued in
something like the form prescribed in the Book of Common Prayer; after the
restoration of Charles II there was a return to the liturgical practices of the
1630s, though this was only slowly achieved in many parishes, and there is
evidence of frustration on the part of the clergy that the laity was slow to
respond to the standards of piety they wished to inculcate in them.5 However, by
the end of the seven teen th century, significant progress had been made in
developing an Anglican standard of worship and personal piety, supported by
clergy and laity alike, which led to substantial investment in church buildings
and furnishings, in the formation of religious societies, and in the endowment of
charities, schools, and parochial libraries during the first half of the eighteenth
century, and was still the dominant force within Anglicanism a century later.6
The generally high standards of care for church buildings and the conduct of
church services has been demonstrated by detailed work on the dioceses of
Canterbury and its peculiars, Chichester, Llandaff, and Winchester. Thomas
Seeker, archbishop of Canterbury from 1758 until his death in 1768, was
assiduous in encouraging two full services on Sundays, weekday services, and
more frequent communion. When these were not provided the clergy almost
invariably put the blame on the laity, and indeed developed a complicated
pattern of alternating services, so that those who wished to do so could attend
services in a neighbouring church if they were not available in their own.7
Between 1716 and 1786, however, there was a modest increase in the number of
churches in the Canterbury diocese with two services on Sundays, some
weekday services, and monthly, as opposed to quarterly, (p.xix) communion; by
1806 62.7 per cent of parochial incumbents in the diocese served either only one
church or two neighbouring churches, a significant decline in the number of
pluralist incumbents from earlier years.8 In the diocese of Chichester in 1724,
and in that of Llandaff in 1763, monthly communion and weekday services were
wholly confined to urban, or the more populous rural, parishes. There was a
particularly low incidence of clerical absenteeism—only 37 out of 145
incumbents—in the diocese of Llandaff, and in five cases the incumbents
concerned stated that they were not resident in their benefices only because of
their inability to speak Welsh.9 A similarly healthy picture has been revealed for
the diocese of Winchester in the surviving replies to episcopal visitation queries
in 1725, 1765, and 1788.10 All this work has helped to rectify the poor press that
Page 2 of 18
eighteenth and early nineteenth century Anglicanism received from late

nineteenth- and early-twentieth century historians, though it is still the case, to
judge from many church guides and local histories produced in recent years,
that the older view has still not been effectively undermined, and it occasionally
makes a reappearance in more solid academic work. In attributing the revival of
Anglican fortunes in the diocese of St Davids partly to Bishop Connop Thirlwall
(1840–74), and even more to his successor Basil Jones (1874–97), Matthew
Cragoe states, without any satisfactory evidence to support the assertion, that
under Thirlwall’s predecessors ‘many of the churches were dilapidated, the
services conducted in them slovenly, and those officiating at them worldly and
corrupt’.11
A similar picture has been presented of Anglicanism in Ireland and, one

suspects, with as little justification. Partly this is because historians have been
primarily concerned with the relationship between the ecclesiastical and the
political establishments in Ireland,12 and partly because the sources for the
detailed study of dioceses and parishes are much poorer than they are for
England or (p.xx) Wales. In recent years, however, an important lead in
revisionism has been provided by historians of the Roman Catholic Church in
Ireland,13 and some reassessment of the effectiveness of the Church of Ireland is
at last beginning to emerge. Much of the earlier work on the Church of Ireland
was based on a misinterpretation of the statistics and the hostile comments of
English observers who failed to take account of the differences between England
and Ireland. Whilst the 800 Anglican clergy in Ireland in the early eighteenth
century may have been too few for a total population of 2.5 million, they were
more than sufficient for the 0.25 million people that actually attended Anglican
services, in a country where four-fifths of the population was Roman Catholic
and the total number of Presbyterians was almost equal to that of Anglicans.
Pluralism was inevitable since endowments were poor and justified by the fact
that in many parishes there were no Anglican parishioners and the churches
were in ruins. Even in places where eight or ten separate pre-Reformation
parishes had been combined to form a single united benefice the annual income
of the incumbent might still be less than £40. Archbishop King of Dublin (1703–
29) was generally impressed by the high overall standard of the clergy in the
dioceses he had visited.14 In the diocese of Cork and Ross the 108 ancient
parishes were served by a total of 35 churches in repair and 67 clergy in 1781.
In the city of Cork itself the cathedral and four parish churches had been built or
rebuilt between 1720 and 1735, and in both Cork and Dublin in the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries it was possible to receive Holy Communion every
Sunday by attending different churches.15
The low opinion, widely held, of the Church of Ireland on the eve of the Oxford
Movement has been much influenced by the acerbic, and frequently unjustified,
opinions of William Stuart, translated from the diocese of St Davids to that of
Armagh in 1800, at the insistence of George III and much against his own
Page 3 of 18
wishes, on his Irish episcopal colleagues: Lindsay of Kildare was described as

‘that troublesome gentleman’ and of Stopford of Cork and Ross he noted that his
incapacity ‘to attend to the duties of his diocese has long been (p.xxi)
apparent’.16 In fact the Irish episcopate contained a number of significant
reformers in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century: Stuart at Armagh
(1800–22), Brodrick at Cashel (1801–22), Agar at Dublin (1801–9), Jebb at
Limerick (1823–33), and O’Beirne at Meath (1798–1823). Agar’s surviving
papers, deposited in the Hampshire Record Office,17 reveal an active episcopate
in three dioceses: Cloyne 1768–79, Cashel 1779–1801, and Dublin 1801–9. He
was responsible for restoring the office of rural dean, which he had inherited at
Cloyne, throughout the Church of Ireland, for endeavouring to secure the better
preparation of candidates for ordination, and for completing the new cathedral
at Cashel and rebuilding the cathedral at Emly As archbishop of Cashel he built
11 new parish churches and 24 glebe houses. The return for the diocese of
Dublin in 1807 showed that 72 of the 87 parish churches were in good repair
and that 66 parishes had incumbents residing in them or sufficiently close to be
able to offer a satisfactory level of pastoral care. The work of Agar and his
episcopal colleagues warrants some detailed research which is likely to confirm
that Anglicanism in Ireland was, as it was in England and Wales, going through
an extensive renaissance in the period between 1780 and 1840. There is
probably less scope for a detailed study of Anglicanism in Scotland in the same
period since the surviving records of the Scottish Episcopal Church are
relatively thin; some attempt to reassess the condition of Scottish Anglicanism,
and in particular the support it received from English high churchmen, has been
undertaken, together with some limited work on the condition of the diocese of
Sodor and Man in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.18
The relationship between the Anglican high churchmanship of the eighteenth

and early nineteenth centuries, and its impact on architectural and liturgical
issues, has attracted major reassessment which has served to strengthen the
arguments in this book on the developments in church architecture and
liturgical arrangement, both in the years preceding the ecclesiological
movement of the 1840s and in the pace of change thereafter. Both
Tractarianism19 and later Anglican ritualism20 have been shown to be in many
ways (p.xxii) inconsistent with, or a radical development from, traditional
Anglican belief and practice, though the arguments over whether ritualism was
or was not a logical development from Tractarianism have been largely resolved
to the effect that it was.21 The evidence put forward in this book (pp. 108–23
below) that many ecclesiological ideas had been anticipated in the design of
some church buildings since the late eighteenth century has been greatly
strengthened by unpublished research for a doctoral thesis, which makes it clear
that there was a significant literature throughout the same period encouraging
such ideas in church building. The author argues that ecclesiology in the 1840s
became widely and quickly accepted precisely because it built on a long
Page 4 of 18
tradition of support for Gothic architecture from both architects and clergy
dating back to the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Ecclesiologists
condemned their predecessors, not because they had not been interested in
matters of detail, but because they were too willing to adapt ‘correct’ design to
practical need.22 The much extended evidence in Appendix B, however, also
reveals the significant number of surviving church buildings with pre-
ecclesiological liturgical arrangements which post-date the 1840s; among the
latest of these examples are Murton (20) of 1856, Clysthydon (27) of 1856,
Nately Scures (53) of 1865, Llandyfrydog (246) of 1862, Llangwyfan (262) of
1859 and Llanfyllin (284) of 1863–4. There are also late traditional
nonconformist interiors of 1859 at Cote (113) and 1858 at Pentrebach (286), and
even later traditional Scottish Presbyterian interiors of 1876 at Kinneff (214) and
of 1876–7 at Sleat (233).
The way in which Anglican churches were being built in both an ecclesiological
and a non-ecclesiological manner, and in some cases in a way which combined
the two, can be illustrated from a study of the surviving interiors of Dorset
churches built or refitted in the 1840s and 1850s.23 Of the thirty buildings that
retain complete or significant furnishings of this period, four—Holnest (1855),
Portland (1849–52), West Parley (1841), and Winterborne Clenston (1840)—were
wholly non-ecclesiological and seven—Catherston Leweston (1852–8), Caundle
Marsh (1857), Moreton (1848–50), Pentridge (1855–7), Powerstock (1854–9),
Rampisham (1845–59), and Spetisbury (1859)—were wholly ecclesiological
arrangements. The (p.xxiii) remaining nineteen churches combined
ecclesiological with non-ecclesiological elements in their liturgical
arrangements. Most had seating for the congregation provided by open benches
rather than box pews; some had stalled chancels but for children rather than
choristers; pulpits and reading-desks were normally placed one on either side of
the chancel arch, and at Askerswell (1858), Little Bredy (1850), and Melbury
Abbas (1851–2) the desk is arranged so that the officiating minister can face
either west or towards the pulpit. More local or regional surveys of surviving
liturgical arrangements of the 1840s and 1850s would help to determine a clear
national pattern, but would, one suspects, be likely to show a not dissimilar
pattern from that in Dorset. The most significant piece of research on the
architecture of religious buildings in recent years has been that by Christopher
Stell on English nonconformist chapels,24 which has helped to identify several of
the chapel interiors included in Appendix B. The areas on which more work most
urgently needs to be done are Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, where even the
volumes in The Buildings of Ireland, Scotland and Wales series are appearing at
a relatively slow rate.25 More work could also be done on comparing church
building programmes in different parts of Britain and across religious groupings,
similar to the brief analysis already undertaken of certain common features in
liturgical arrangement between Anglican churches in Wales and Presbyterian
ones in Scotland.26
Page 5 of 18
It is also important that further work is undertaken, if necessary through some

type of collaborative research project, to set the study of British architectural
and liturgical history in a wider European context. This book provided some
foundation for this (pp. 23–43 below) and a further piece of work has drawn
attention to some other comparisons between architectural and liturgical
developments in Britain and those in mainland Europe in respect of
arrangements for preaching, for reading the service, and for seating the
congregation.27 (p.xxiv) A recent study of German churches designed by F. A.
L. Hellner shows at least one example of a Lutheran church, at Gross Lobke built
in 1843, in which a tall pulpit was placed on one side of the chancel arch with a
low reading-desk on the other, as it was in many Anglican churches at the same
time.28 Box pews have been seen as primarily a Protestant innovation, widely
used in Anglican, Calvinist, and Lutheran churches but they were far from
unknown in Roman Catholic ones. Appendix B gives examples of two rare
surviving sets of early nineteenth-century box pews in the English Roman
Catholic churches at Crathorne (96) and Leyburn (102) and there are several
good examples of roughly contemporary furnishings in northern France. The
now disused church at Cheverny (Loir-et-Cher) is fitted up with numbered box
pews, incorporating hat-pegs, in the nave and south aisle, a canopied pulpit in
the middle of the north wall of the nave with a large family pew opposite on the
external wall of the south aisle, and a gallery with an organ and benches for
singers across the west end of the nave. At Souvigny-en-Sologne (Loir-et-Cher)
there are eighteenth-century stalls along the north and south walls of the nave
and box pews, some of which have had their doors removed but which retain
their original numbering, in the middle of the nave. In the large town church of
Richelieu (Indre-et-Loire), built in 1625–38 but refurnished in the early
nineteenth century, much of the seating in the nave and aisles is in the form of
box pews and there is a west gallery with a contemporary organ; at the east end
of the nave is a canopied pulpit on one side and, on the other, a pew for the
mayor and members of the corporation.
In the last section of the book (pp. 178–83 below) particular attention was drawn
to the potential threat to surviving unaltered churches and chapels from
reordering or redundancy, and the steps that have been taken to preserve such
buildings for future generations, one of the most important of these being the
establishment of the Redundant Churches Fund in 1969. In 1989 the
Department of the Environment appointed Richard Wilding to carry out a review
of the Fund’s operations. As a result of his report,29 the Fund was renamed the
Churches Conservation Trust and a separate body, the Historic Chapels Trust,
set up to take on responsibility for redundant religious buildings that had not
been part of the Anglican parochial system. No fewer than 40 of the 325
churches and chapels listed in Appendices B or C are vested in one of these two
bodies.
Page 6 of 18
(p.xxv) The existence of these bodies in England means that, in future,

redundancy is unlikely to be a serious threat to the preservation of important
buildings. This is, however, not the case in Ireland, Scotland, or Wales where no
such satisfactory arrangements exist. In Ireland it is hoped that the survey of
religious buildings being undertaken by the Heritage Council will help to identify
churches and chapels with substantially unaltered seventeenth-, eighteenth-,
and early nineteenth-century interiors to add to the relatively small number of
such buildings included in Appendix B. In Scotland a Redundant Churches Trust
has been set up, but with very limited funding, and it seems unlikely that without
a much securer financial base it will be able to make a significant contribution
towards saving buildings abandoned as a result of declining congregations. One
of the buildings that has, fortunately, been vested in the newly established trust
is the East Church at Cromarty (p. 182 below). In Wales discussions have been
taking place over several years about setting up a similar preservation trust for
religious buildings but so far nothing has materialized; a few such buildings have
been taken on by Cadw, by the Friends of Friendless Churches, or by local
trusts; there is, however, a widespread feeling within Wales that Cadw is doing
far too little by way of grant aid to support nonconformist chapels with small
congregations which retain substantially unaltered early nineteenth-century
interiors. Throughout England and Wales the numbers of such interiors are
relatively small. Many nonconformist chapels which originally had the pulpit in
the middle of the long wall have been ‘turned’ so that the pulpit is now on one of
the short walls; in some cases—such as Great Warford (Ches.), Grittleton
(Wilts.), and Stone-in-Oxney (Kent)—the original fittings have been reused but in
most they have been replaced. As Anglican, Roman Catholic, and even some
nonconformist buildings were succumbing to the ecclesiological revolution after
1850, so other nonconformist chapels were replacing their box pews with sloped
benches or their tall pulpits, precentor’s desks, and long communion tables with
the new style of platform combining a roomy pulpit with the communion table.
There are many examples of nonconformist chapels, especially in Wales, in
which box pews have been retained but the pulpits replaced; there are others,
such as the Providence Chapel at Cranbrook (Kent), where the original pulpit
and a few box pews adjacent to it have been retained but the rest of the seating
completely renewed; box pews are more likely to have survived in the less
frequently used galleries than in the main body of the chapel.
The losses of churches and chapels in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales in recent
years through redundancy, and in many cases (p.xxvi) physical abandonment,
has been considerable. They include the important pre-1850 interiors at Kilbixy
(p. no below), reduced in size and completely refitted after it had become
derelict,30 Yerbeston (p. 122 below), and Rosskeen, where an unaltered interior
of 1830–2 has been allowed to become derelict whilst an alternative use for the
building was being sought; a slightly less complete interior of 1821–2 at Loth
has also become derelict and the interior of Kildonan, which, though reordered
Page 7 of 18
in 1905, retains a canopied pulpit of 1768 and a loft of 1828, is also at risk since
the church is no longer in use.31 Whilst alternative use usually results in the
disposal of furnishings, as it has at Rode Hill (p. 113 below), there have been
some good examples of buildings in which it has been possible to retain church
or chapel interiors substantially intact whilst permitting them to be used for non-
ecclesiastical purposes. The former Baptist chapel at Tewkesbury (Glos.) and the
former Unitarian chapel at Ringwood (Hants) are both used as exhibition
venues, but retain the majority of their original fittings. The concerns expressed
about the proposals for a similar use of the church at Ullapool (p. 182 below)
have turned out to be unduly pessimistic; the conversion has been achieved in a
way which has preserved the pulpit and precentor’s desk, complete with their
original hangings, the gallery fronts, the long communion table, and substantial
sections of seating. An even more satisfactory conversion has been that of the
former Countess of Huntingdon’s chapel at Worcester, built in 1804, extended in
1815, and partly refurnished in 1840. Between 1977 and 1987 it was adapted to
serve as a concert hall and a stage was inserted; this involved the removal of a
few box pews and the covering over of most of the former communion enclosure,
but otherwise the original furnishings as described and photographed by
Christopher Stell,32 including the two eagle lecterns flanking the pulpit and the
panels at the back of the communion enclosure, on which are inscribed the Ten
Commandments, Creed, and Lord’s Prayer, remain intact.
Two of the most serious losses of recent years have been the interiors at
Brancepeth (Dur.) and St Mary-at-Hill (Lond.). The furnishings at Brancepeth
dated from 1638 and, though they had been somewhat reordered from the plan
of them drawn in 1825 (p. 190 below), they remained substantially complete.
They were completely destroyed by fire in September 1998, and there are no
(p.xxvii) plans to replicate them with modern copies. A slightly less disastrous
fire destroyed the roof of St Mary-at-Hill in May 1988, causing it to collapse and
damage some of the furnishings, last reordered in 1848–9 (p. 176 below). The
furnishings were then removed whilst the long term future of the building was
considered; the building itself has now been restored but the furnishings have
yet to be reinstated. Other interiors have been severely damaged as a result of
reordering to meet liturgical preferences. Complete furnishings of 1790 were
dismantled and removed at Great Gidding Baptist Chapel (Cambs.) and at St
Martin’s (Salop), refitted in 1810, a faculty was granted for the removal of the
box pews and the relocation of the three-decker pulpit to the west end of the
north aisle; the insensitivity of this action was compounded by reusing some of
the box pew panels, complete with their brass name plates, to provide panelling
in the reordered chancel and to repair allegedly damaged panels in the pulpit,
reading-, and clerk’s desks.
Changes to buildings, however, are not always a one-way process. To

compensate for some of the losses noted above a small number of buildings have
been returned to their original condition, and later accretions removed, or
Page 8 of 18
existing furnishings only marginally altered as part of sensitive reordering

schemes. There are good examples of such interiors at Stratfield Saye (Hants)
and Cottesbrooke (Northants). At Stratfield Saye the church had been built in
1754–8 but much altered during the late nineteenth century. In 1965 a
reasonably successful attempt was made to restore the church to its original
condition. There are box pews in both transepts, but open benches in the nave
and, arranged as stalls, in the chancel, with matching lecterns on opposite sides
of the entrance to the chancel and a pulpit on the south side. There is a family
pew in the north-transept gallery, and the west gallery of 1835 retains its
original barrel organ. At Cottesbrooke the chancel was given a neo-classical
altar screen, table, cross, and candlesticks, designed by Lord Mottistone, in
1959–60. Some of the plastered ceilings were removed to reveal the earlier roofs
they had been hiding, but the one in the nave, which had a painted frieze, was
retained as were the three-decker pulpit, most of the box pews, and the raised
family pew in the south transept. Some box pews on the south side of the nave
were reordered to form seats for the choir. Restorations of this type replicate
some earlier, late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century, restorations in which
pre-ecclesiological fittings were only slightly reordered. In addition to those
mentioned in the original text (pp. 177–8 below) attention should be drawn to
the remarkably conservative restorations at Lower Peover (Ches.) in 1852, Ham
(Wilts.) in (p.xxviii) 1871, Benthall (Salop) in 1884–93, Castle Bromwich (W.
Midlands) in 1891–3, Catcott (Som.) in 1928, and Sisland (Norf.) in 1936. In all
these cases pulpits, reading-desks, and box pews were retained despite some
modifications. At Stratford Tony (Wilts.) in 1881–2 the eighteenth-century pulpit,
reading-desk, and low chancel screen were retained but the box pews were only
permitted to survive to their original height against the external walls, and were
otherwise adapted to form open benches in the nave and stalls in the chancel. At
St Mary’s, Wanstead, an impressive interior of 1787–90, the reading-desk was
separated from the pulpit in 1890 and placed on the opposite side of the
entrance to the chancel, and some box pews at the east end of the nave were
adapted to serve as choir stalls; in all other respects the church was allowed to
remain in its original eighteenth-century condition. At Weston (N. Yorks.),
described in Appendix B (105), the preservation of an unaltered early
nineteenth-century interior was guaranteed by a bequest in 1917 which provided
the church with the annual income from an endowment provided the furnishings
were not altered. One of the most interesting surviving interiors is that at Tythby
(Notts.) which illustrates the conflict between reformers and conservatives in
the late nineteenth-century Church of England. The church served two parishes,
Tythby and Cropwell Butler, which had separate churchwardens, the northern
side belonging to the former and the southern side to the latter parish. When the
parishioners of Tythby agreed to restore the church along ecclesiological lines
those of Cropwell Butler did not follow suit. As a result the south side of the
nave and the south aisle retain their eighteenth-century pulpit, reading-desk,
and box pews, whereas the north side of the nave and north aisle have been
Page 9 of 18
fitted with open benches. The gallery across the west end of the nave remains
unaltered on the south side, but the north side has had its floor removed to
permit the installation of an organ below it.
The additional research undertaken for the compilation of the new Appendices B
and C has shown that two churches in which it had been assumed that
furnishings had been significantly altered are in fact substantially intact; these
are the churches at Clongish (p. 85 below) and More (p. 153 below) which are
included in the new Appendix B (125 and 296). The church at Boscombe (p. 96
below) has retained its three-decker pulpit and box pews in the nave but the T-
plan arrangement has been altered and the chancel refurnished. The church at
Upwell (p. 73 below) has also retained many of the fittings described, including
the pulpit with its domed tester, box pews with poppy-heads, and the north and
west galleries with their tiered seating; the pulpit has, however, had its reading-
desk removed (p.xxix) and the chancel has been refurnished. The new
appendices list a total of 325 churches and chapels in the British Isles with
wholly or substantially unaltered pre-ecclesiological or early ecclesiological
interiors. The criteria for inclusion have been extremely tight. All examples of
pre-ecclesiological Anglican interiors retain their pulpits, reading-desks, and
most of their seating intact; allowance has been made for the refurnishing of
chancels but for little else. In the case of non-Anglican interiors, for which there
are fewer surviving unaltered examples, the criteria for inclusion have been
slightly less strict, and those in which there have been only minor modifications,
such as the introduction of modern communion tables in nonconformist chapels
or Scottish Presbyterian churches, have generally been included. A number of
important examples of the rarer types of Anglican interiors, to which there was
no reference in the original text, have been included in the new Appendix B: the
T-plan arrangements at Weston (105), Leckpatrick (294), and Dromard (297); the
central pulpits at Littlecote (163) and Toxteth (189); and the exceptionally
conservative reordering of 1840–5 at Ashton-under-Lyne (203). In addition to
these attention should be drawn to examples of churches in which the pulpit and
reading-desk were originally placed, in a central position, directly in front of the
chancel arch or altar space: Gretton (Northants), Hartley Wintney (Hants), St
John’s at Lancaster, and St John’s, Downshire Hill. At Gretton the pulpit has
been moved to the side of the chancel arch and the reading-desk discarded, but
the former arrangement can be clearly reconstructed from the way in which the
box pews have been arranged at the east end of the nave. The former
arrangement is equally clear at Lancaster, where both pulpit and reading-desk
were removed and replaced with a new pulpit at the side of the chancel arch in
1875. The Old Church at Hartley Wintney was replaced by a new building in
1870 and is now vested in the Churches Conservation Trust. It is an
exceptionally interesting cruciform building in which a T-plan seating
arrangement was combined with a central pulpit and reading-desk in the middle
of the crossing. This arrangement dated from 1834 when transepts were added
Page 10 of 18
to the pre-Reformation nave and chancel. Although the pulpit and reading-desk
are no longer in situ, all the other furnishings survive; there are box pews at the
east end of the nave and in the transepts, with open benches at the west end of
the nave. The deep west gallery has tiered benches for children; the galleries in
the north and south transepts have tiered box pews. The chancel arch is fitted
with a tympanum painted with the Ten Commandments, Creed, and Lord’s
Prayer. The chancel is empty apart from the altar table and rails, and its walls
are painted with (p.xxx) sacramental texts. St John’s, Downshire Hill, is a rare
surviving proprietary chapel, never assigned its own parish, built in 1818 and
slightly altered in 1896 and again in 1968. The galleried interior retains most of
the original box pews, its reredos, and altar table, railed on three sides and with
seats built into the sides of the sanctuary for the officiating clergy; the pulpit
and reading-desk, which originally stood directly in front of the altar, have been
broken up so that they now stand on opposite sides of the entrance to the
chancel.
The churches at Orton-on-the-Hill (p. 80 below) and Tarleton (Lanes.) originally

had pulpits and reading-desks in the middle of the north wall of the nave; in both
churches this arrangement was disturbed, in 1920 and 1874 respectively, with
either the reading-desk or pulpit removed, and a new pulpit placed at the east
end of the nave, but without any significant rearrangement of the box pews. At
Samlesbury (Lancs.) the pulpit and reading-desk were originally in the middle of
the south side of the nave, but were moved to the east end of the north side
when some other alterations were made in the late nineteenth century, even
though all the box pews, ranging in date from the late seventeenth to the early
nineteenth centuries, survive in the nave and both aisles. At Overmonnow
(Gwent) the furnishings in the nave date from a refitting of the church by T. H.
Wyatt in 1830 and are extremely idiosyncratic. At the west end of the nave the
seating is in two blocks with a central passageway; in the eastern part of the
nave there are benches across the width of the nave with side passageways
separating them from stalls against the north and south walls. A deep gallery
across the west end of the nave is extended to form narrow galleries along the
north and south walls acting as canopies to the stalls underneath. At the west
end of the southern block of stalls is a neo-Norman font with a tall wooden cover.
The pulpit and reading-desk were removed and replaced when the chancel was
refurnished by John Pritchard in 1874–5. An even more unusual interior existed
in the church at Threap wood (Ches.), rebuilt in 1815. Here the furnishings have
largely survived but they have been extensively reordered. The pulpit and
reading-desk originally stood, in a central position, at the west end of the nave.
The remains of this arrangement are still visible through part of the former
pulpit canopy being incorporated in the gallery front. All the seating was
arranged so that the congregation faced the pulpit with their backs to the altar.
The pulpit and reading-desk have been reduced in size and relocated on opposite
sides of the entrance to the chancel. The seating is provided by a mix of box
Page 11 of 18
pews in the eastern part of the nave and benches in the western part, now
reordered to face east, but with the two sections still separated by wrought-iron
railings. The chancel (p.xxxi) retains its original reredos and altar table, railed
on three sides, and still fitted with a late nineteenth-century altar carpet of a
pre-ecclesi-ological type and contemporary cushions around the altar rails for
the communicants to kneel on. The altar space is flanked on each side by a large
square family pew. There is a shallow gallery, with a wrought-iron front, around
three sides of the interior, with benches for children and a seat for the
schoolmaster to supervise them behind the former pulpit canopy.
Among the churches included in Appendix B are several examples of buildings

with stone or marble altars erected either before these were condemned as
‘popish’ in the 1840s, or contemporaneously but clearly without any ‘popish’
intention. Altars of this type can be found at Wreay (22), Killerton (28), Ashridge
College (54), Petworth House (157), Tickton (179), Trinity House at Hull (185),
and Bramhope (187). The stone altar shelf at Oldridge (31) was part of an
arrangement for a Tractarian incumbent, which was by no means fully
ecclesiological; there are other, not fully ecclesiological arrangements for
Tractarian incumbents surviving at St Anthony-in-Roseland (17) and Sutton
Waldron (40), which further consolidates the evidence that has been presented
in this book for the slow progress of ecclesiological ideas before 1870.
The inclusion of some 34 examples of substantially unaltered Presbyterian

churches in Scotland in Appendix B goes some way towards updating the lists of
pre-1843 churches in Scotland published by George Hay more than forty years
ago.33 A new survey of post-Reformation church architecture and furnishing,
building on Hay’s work, is urgently needed. Some of the buildings he described
as ‘unaltered’ are so no longer, whilst there are other substantially unaltered
examples of traditional Scottish architecture, furnishing, and liturgical
arrangement, some post-dating 1843, which Hay overlooked. Of the churches
listed by Hay as unaltered which no longer fit this description, mention should
be made of the following: Newburn (Fife) of 1813–15, converted into a house in
1970, but with its canopied pulpit relocated in Largo parish church;34 Bracadale
(Highland) of 1831, acquired by the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and
refitted in 1970; Makerstoun (Scottish Borders) of 1808, where the canopied
pulpit and precentor’s desk have been retained but the box pews converted into
open benches; Plockton and Duirinish (Highland), of 1825–7 and 1832
respectively, where the (p.xxxii) seating has been completely replaced though
other furnishings—the pulpit, precentor’s desk, and gallery front at Plockton; the
pulpit, precentor’s desk, penitent’s platform, and the galleries with their tiered
seating at Duirinish—have not been altered. Significant alterations have also
taken place at Harris (Western Isles) and Lochbroom (Highland), not noted in
the most recent descriptions of these churches.35 Unlike English
nonconformists, Scottish Presbyterians were not influenced by the
ecclesiological movement until the last quarter of the nineteenth century; the
Page 12 of 18
church at Tynron (Dumfries and Galloway), designed by William Burn in 1835–7,

has an elaborately ecclesiological exterior with the gable ends supported by
carved beasts. Its interior, however, though somewhat altered, is a typical T-plan
arrangement with benches facing a central canopied pulpit.
The one area in which Scottish Presbyterian churches were in advance of all
other religious groupings in Britain was in their use of benches rather than box
pews for seating. Benches were extremely common in Scotland by the second
quarter of the nineteenth century, and there are many examples of buildings
which retain pulpits, though not usually precentor’s desks, and contemporary
open benches, sometimes with their backs sloped at a later date to make them
more comfortable. Churches of this type, such as those at Dairy (Dumfries and
Galloway) of 1830–2, Collessie (Fife) of 1838–9 and Snizort (Highland) of 1839,
have not been included among the churches listed in Appendix B, where the
criterion for inclusion has been the survival of the pulpit and either a precentor’s
desk or box pews, since churches of this type are much rarer. Scottish
Presbyterian churches were strongly influenced by the pulpit platform
arrangements which became increasingly popular in English and Welsh
nonconformist chapels from the 1850s. There are good examples at Canonbie
(Dumfries and Galloway) and Dunnet (Highland) of churches retaining complete
sets of box pews, of 1821–2 and 1836–7 respectively, but with later pulpits. At
Dunnet the box pews are raked towards the ends of all three projections in a T-
plan interior. The change in pulpit types in Scotland seems to have been
pioneered by the Free Church of Scotland, rather than the established Church of
Scotland, where pulpits of an early nineteenth-century type were still being
installed well into the 1870s. In the Free (p.xxxiii) Church at Halladale (230),
built in 1852, the pulpit is of the traditional type, whereas at Altnaharra, in the
neighbouring parish, a former Free Church of 1854–5 which retains its original
fittings has a large platform pulpit with a backboard and double staircase. It is
one of the earliest examples of a Scottish Presbyterian church being built on
contemporary English or Welsh nonconformist lines and breaking with earlier
Scottish tradition.
One of the most welcome developments in Scotland in recent years has been a
growing interest in church architecture and furnishing. Partly this has been
stimulated by the Scotland’s Churches Scheme, supported by all the major
religious groups in Scotland, which encourages churches to welcome visitors
outside the times of services and publishes annually a guide to those churches
that are open regularly.36 As in England there has been a move to rectify some of
the damage done to buildings by insensitive restorations. The pioneering
example of a sensitive restoration at Golspie (p. 183 below) has been emulated
at Daviot (Highland) where the church of 1826 had been aggressively recast in
1935. In 1991 the galleries that had been removed in 1935 were reinstated and
the seating arrangements restored to something like their original condition.
The success of this refurbishment has been widely praised and should encourage
Page 13 of 18
a more sympathetic attitude towards the reordering of traditional Presbyterian

interiors in the future.
Ireland has a large number of churches—Anglican, Presbyterian, and Roman

Catholic—built or rebuilt in the first half of the nineteenth century, but the vast
majority have been refitted at a later date. Ireland, however, is particularly
fortunate in retaining three examples of Anglican cathedrals refurnished in the
early nineteenth century which, despite some subsequent alteration, are now,
together with the choir of York Minster, the only surviving examples in the
British Isles of pre-ecclesiological liturgical arrangements in cathedrals. At
Downpatrick the cathedral was rebuilt between 1790 and 1818. The two western
bays of the cathedral form a narthex containing the baptistery, vestry, and
chapter rooms while the three eastern bays are entered through a screen
supporting the organ loft. The chapter stalls are placed on the east side of this
screen and there are box pews facing inwards along the north and south walls
with the bishop’s throne in the middle of the north side and a seat for the assize
judge on the south side. Originally the space between the two blocks of seating
was left empty and the pulpit and reading-desk were placed (p.xxxiv) directly
in front of the altar, but in 1844 this open space was filled with open benches
facing the altar and the pulpit and reading-desk were broken up and placed one
on each side of the altar. The central seating was in turn replaced by movable
chairs during a major restoration of the cathedral in 1985–7. At Kilfenora, where
only the nave of the cathedral remains in use, the furnishings date from c.1837
and comprise high-backed open benches, with the altar flanked on the south side
by the pulpit and reading-desk, and on the north side by the clerk’s desk; a new
bishop’s throne was donated and installed in 1981. At Killala the late
seventeenth-century cathedral was refitted in 1817, and the chapter stalls
placed under a west gallery in the nave, which also has a complete set of box
pews. Some alterations were made in 1962 when the bishop’s throne, previously
in the middle of the southern block of box pews, was moved to the north side of
the altar, and the pulpit and reading-desk, previously placed on opposite sides of
the space in front of the altar rails were moved further westwards; at the same
time the font was moved from its position in the eastern part of the nave to a
new one under the west gallery.37
Apart from the addition of this new preface, and the new Appendices B and C,
the text of this book remains that published in 1991 with the exception of the
correction of a number of typographical or small factual errors noticed after
publication. It is hoped that the reissue of this book, with its additional material,
will continue to keep the topic of Anglican liturgical arrangement between 1600
and 1900, and comparable developments in other churches in both the British
Isles and mainland Europe, in the minds of those responsible for the adaptation
of liturgical forms to the needs of the modern church and those responsible for
the custody of the few remaining buildings that faithfully reflect the liturgical
inheritance of past generations. With care and discretion there is no reason why
Page 14 of 18
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the individual who is translated and handed over to their care.
Nevertheless, the raw material counts for a good deal—as you
express it in one of your homely English proverbs: 'One cannot make
a silk purse out of a sow's ear'; and on the same analogy even our
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mortal. The nicest caution has therefore to be observed in the work
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the smallest suspicion in your mind, and now at length I have
grasped the favourable, the critical, the final moment in which I claim
you for this most exalted, and indeed most sacred office....
"You are thoroughly out of touch with your own age and with your
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rooted dissatisfaction causes in me on the contrary the most intense
satisfaction. You have grown disgusted with the decadence of your
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Progress and the mere amassing of wealth. The happiness of all is,
and always has been, the sole aim of our statesmen, and we firmly
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being injected into the corporate mass of humanity. One of the
leading saints of your Christian Church has wisely said that in every
house are to be found vessels alike formed to honour and to
dishonour, yet that, as they are all equally necessary, so viewed in
that reasonable light are they all equally honourable. Thus in our
government of Meleager do we recognise the clear necessity of the
various grades of society which form the total fabric of every healthy
and happy state; whilst we reject with scorn and loathing the
specious notions that, under the guise of an equality that has no real
existence, endeavour to weld all society into one drab dismal
detestable whole....
"Nowadays everything that is ordered or orderly you worldlings have
set out to destroy. Your barbarian hordes broke up the stable Roman
Empire; your fanatical reformers and greedy monarchs destroyed the
consolidating features of the Middle Ages, which though very far
from being perfect yet presented many illuminating features which
we deemed expedient to copy in Meleager. In recent years your
death-dealing guns and your proselytising emissaries have
destroyed wantonly the vast matured civilisations of China and
Japan and Burmah, which are now rapidly casting out all their
antique virtues and are fast absorbing all the vice and vulgarity of the
West. Every community, howsoever poor or insignificant, yet content
to work out its own salvation and be governed by its own ancient
laws and customs, and consequently happy and healthy according to
its own lights, you have disturbed and dismembered....
"Everywhere and every day the beautiful is retreating before the
utilitarian; smoke and noise pollute the greenest and loveliest valleys
of Europe and America; dirt and disease increase in spite of your
undoubted advances in medical science, whose services are given
over to the individual who will pay for them rather than to the
community at large. One sees the feeble and the cretinous of your
world breeding like flies, whilst those of a better condition and in
sound health are found too selfish and too tenacious of their ease to
undertake the trouble or expense connected with the rearing of a
family. Epidemics continue, and in the form of a gift of Western
civilisation are allowed to sweep away whole tribes and nations of
wholesome primitive peoples; your most loathsome and yet
preventable diseases of contagion still hold sway, either by reason of
your own indifference or from false ideals of a prudery that, I
confess, wholly passes my own comprehension. Over all your Earth
the universal craving for wealth at any cost of morals or self-respect
has settled like a blight. All pleasures of the intellect are rapidly
ceasing to attract, and the extravagance and debauchery of the
ostentatious rich are announced by your odious vassal Press as the
sole objects worthy of attainment or imitation to-day....
"You slaughter and exterminate your rare animals and your beautiful
birds in order that your women may adorn themselves with their pelts
and plumage, and even now in this cold weather I have watched
your fine ladies daily walking in your noisy, crowded streets of
London, half-naked yet wholly unashamed, with their limbs and
bosoms exposed equally to the bitter wind and the lascivious eye of
the stranger, whilst masses of costly furs, the spoils of innocent and
peaceful animals, are heaped upon their pampered bodies....
"Whither are you being driven in this mad stampede after so-called
progress and knowledge? In what morass will this mocking will-o'-
the-wisp ultimately entice and overwhelm you?... I see chicanery and
disbelief possess your churches and their priests; a clinging to
stipends and a craving for personal leadership seem to me to have
become the sole guides of such as are themselves supposed to
guide their flocks. Everywhere change, restlessness, cynicism,
vulgarity, extravagance, crime, hypocrisy, covetousness, greed,
cringing, selfishness in every form are rampant; what sensitive mind
would not instinctively recoil from contact with such a changing
world? Can a nature such as your own endure to be associated with
such a mass of passive squalor and of active evil? Are you not more
than ready to welcome some chance of escape from such an
uncongenial environment?...
"As you confess in your heart the utter collapse of your early aims
here on Earth—so must you recognise your unique chance to attain
to something higher than even you dreamed of in your youthful
moods of hope and ambition. You will be reincarnated as the Child of
the Sun, after you are once translated to Meleager. That is a part,
but a part only, of The Secret, which perhaps already you are
inclined to regard as The Fraud. And yet, if fraud it be, its ultimate
aim is a beneficent and unselfish one, for it has been practised in
order to keep a whole population happy and content...."
"And herewith I think I had now better give you some instructions, or
rather hints, as to your new position and as to your proper attitude
towards the governing caste of Meleager on your arrival there. As
King, the Child of the Sun is invested with a species of sovereignty
that has no exact counter-part on your Earth. Your high office in
Meleager partakes in some respects of the nature of a King of
England, of a Pope of Rome, of an old-time Sultan of Baghdad, of a
modern colonial governor; yet it is itself no one of these things. To
sustain your part you will be reincarnated after your long sleep, and
you will awake to find yourself endued with a fresh supply of youth
and energy, whilst all your acquired learning and ripe experience of a
lifetime already more than half consumed will abide in your brain.
There now remains for you the final stage of all on Earth, that of
putting yourself and your future unreservedly and confidently in my
hands...."
There followed an abrupt spell of silence in which d'Aragno
scrutinised me closely. I knew not why, but I had begun to
experience a sort of repulsion against his arrogance in thus
presuming obedience on my part before ever I had signified my
assent. I felt in some wise bound to protest against this assumption
of my readiness to obey, and accordingly I made a protest rather out
of personal vanity than from any depth of rebellious feeling.
"And suppose, sir, I decide not to accept your proposal? Suppose I
refuse absolutely and doggedly to accede to your demand, whatever
the consequence to myself? What then?"
D'Aragno rose from his chair, thrust both hands into the pockets of
his dress jacket, and took up a position on the hearth-rug before the
dying embers of the fire. A curious expression, which I quite failed to
analyse, spread over his features, as he regarded me sternly for
some moments in silence. At length he spoke:
"Your objection I do not regard as sincere. It is idle, and has been
prompted, I am convinced, by a vague sense of wounded dignity on
your part. Perhaps I have been not sufficiently considerate to your
proper pride. You are anxious to 'save your face,' as you express it in
your English idiom. I therefore refuse to take your question seriously.
You have, I know, in your heart the fullest intention of complying with
my arrangements." A pause ensued, and he added with indifference:
"In any case, do you suppose for an instant that I have thus spoken
to you openly of The Secret with the smallest possibility of my
sharing it with any living mortal on your Earth? In reality you have no
choice left you. Whether you follow or refuse to follow my lead, your
connection with your own world is already severed. Need I make the
case any clearer to an intelligence such as yours?"
Again a spell of silence, which was ended by the harsh five strokes
of the Westminster clock resounding through the heavy air. With the
final reverberation I bowed my head, and simply said: "I am ready."
It may have been only my fancy, but I thought I detected a shade of
relief pass over that now sinister face; at any rate, the pleasant
earnest look had returned when d'Aragno muttered quietly as though
to himself: "I never felt a moment's doubt!"
Again I essayed a question, this time, one that was really agitating
my mind: "As I am unalterably and inevitably destined to fill the
throne of your kingdom in Meleager, surely I may be permitted to ask
you for how long a period I am to enjoy the position that has been
thus allotted to me? How many years can I expect to rule in this
realm whence there is obviously no return? Is my reign to continue
till the end of my natural mortal life, or is it to be prolonged
indefinitely by mysterious measures, such as you have already
hinted at?"
D'Aragno stroked his chin meditatively for some minutes and then
replied in a placid voice: "That at least is a reasonable and proper
question, though I have not the knowledge to answer it as you could
wish or might reasonably expect. I was an infant when our late king
came to be crowned, and he has ceased to rule since my sojourn on
the Earth—that is to say, his tenure of office must have lasted some
forty years. Thus for three years or more our realm has been without
a monarch, so that the whole community in all its classes has begun
to clamour vigorously for a successor, and hence the task of
selection wherewith I have been entrusted, and which I am now
bringing to a close. Our late king was, I fear, unfortunate in his
relations with our priestly or governing class, and by his own folly
rendered his office a source of real danger to our whole system of
administration. I have every reason to believe no such catastrophe is
likely to occur in your case. Your native endowments of head and
heart, combined with the additional advantages of youth and wisdom
that you will obtain on your arrival in Meleager, will protect you
sufficiently from such an untimely ending. Yet I warn you, you will
require all your faculties, especially those of self-restraint and
discretion, if you are to win and retain the good will and co-operation
of that all-powerful hierarchy which is actually not only your master
but in a certain sense also your creator. It used to be said in ancient
Rome that two augurs could never pass in the public streets without
smiling—well, you must first of all learn to repress that classical
grimace, and be content to abide ever with a solemn countenance in
an atmosphere of make-believe. Moreover, the desirability of such
an attitude ought not to irritate a person who like yourself is filled with
a divine discontent. You will be the glorious and adored figure-head
of a community wherein the maximum of human happiness and
content has been already attained. But I shall not pursue this
dissertation further. With my warning voice ever whispering in your
ears, and with your natural tact and intelligence to guide you, I am
sure you will not fail. As to the length of your reign, I cannot tell you
what I myself do not know. But this much I can honestly say, and that
is, its duration will wholly depend on your own action, and on your
relations with the senators, who alone possess the sources of power
that are essential to your continued maintenance in office. For aught
I know to the contrary, our priests, by means of their marvellous
recipes and contrivances, may be able to prolong your life, and even
your youth, indefinitely for centuries. But I do not speak with
authority; I can only repeat that the extent of your reign depends very
largely on your own behaviour."
"On one other matter I should also like to be informed," interposed I,
"and I trust you will not condemn this question as superfluous. Tell
me, why out of all the inhabitants of the Earth have I, a bankrupt in
worldly glory and success, a person of mediocre attainments and the
owner of no special gifts of beauty or rank, thus been chosen to fill
so exalted a position? I ask from sheer curiosity, and from no subtle
desire to plead my unfitness as an excuse to decline your proffered,
and indeed accepted, honour."
My companion seemed to approve my question. A humorous look
flitted over his features as he dryly answered: "You are fully justified
in your inquiry; but you must recall that I have already mentioned
that, though your world is large, my own field of choice is very
limited. Our King, as I have already said, must be naturally a true
Child of the Sun; in other words, he must be tall, fair, blue-eyed. This
is essential, and such restrictions practically limit my search to your
northern races, and mainly to such as are of Teutonic stock.
Secondly, our King elect must be of middle age, for past experience
and a ripe intelligence are also necessary to our plans. Thirdly, he
must be either a bachelor or a widower, and preferably a misogynist
at heart. He must not quit the Earth homesick; he must not be a
natural prey to the influence of women, so far as it is possible to
guard against this danger, the mainspring of all our fears in
Meleager. For the sheer possibility of the founding of a royal race
springing from the union of the Child of the Sun with a maiden of
Meleager is a constant cause of alarm and watchfulness on the part
of our hierarchy. Not to mention the mischief resulting from any such
intrigue to our body politic, the possible birth of a Prince, a
connecting link between the Divine and the Human, might in a few
days, nay, in a few hours, shatter in pieces the whole edifice of the
present system of government that it has taken so many centuries of
unremitting wisdom and state craft to erect. Surely I need not dwell
on this all-important phase? Last of all, we must have a comely
personality and gentle birth combined with high intellectual gifts and
training. This combination of qualities is not so easy to discover as it
ought to be on your Earth. Your handsome nobles are either illiterate
or debauched, and are often both simultaneously; or else they are
slaves to family ties or to female influence in some form; whilst those
who are both noble by birth and breeding and also highly cultivated
are usually undesirable for our high purpose owing to their physical
defects. In spite of all this, there are doubtless many hundreds of
persons living who would be eligible and would answer to all our
requirements as well as or even better than yourself; nevertheless,
after much reflection I have good reason to suppose that the
hierarchy of Meleager, whose envoy and servant I am, will find no
cause of quarrel with my choice."
Six o'clock struck out on the foggy morning air, as d'Aragno finished
speaking thus, and I grew aware of the renewed vitality pulsing once
more in the surrounding London streets. "One more matter, however,
I must speak of," suddenly ejaculated my host, "before we can freely
discuss the final arrangements. I do not aspire to know what
difference, if any, your impending transit to another planet will entail
in regard to your chances of existence in the Hereafter. On your
Earth, I understand, men hold the most varied and contradictory
opinions and theories on this subject; and even in your Christian
section of humanity I gather there is no real unanimity on this point.
We in Meleager have our own ideals and beliefs in the Hereafter, but
these are purely speculative, for none has ever returned to us from
the domain beyond the grave to tell us the true details, and none
other can supply them; we accordingly let the great question rest
without laying down dogmas of necessary belief. But whether in the
Other Life you will be judged or treated as a denizen of the Earth or
of Meleager, I cannot imagine. I think it my duty however to remind
you of this anomaly in case it may have escaped your notice, for I
am well aware what strong hopes of endless happiness many
members of your Christian churches build on the shadowy world
yonder. From my own observations I know you yourself are fairly
punctual in your religious prayers and duties, and I have always
welcomed such an attitude as edifying on your part; but as to what
are your real views and beliefs on the question of the Other Life I
have naturally no clue. On this one matter therefore I admit you run a
certain problematical risk in your translation to our star; but at the
same time I cannot conceive that your future interest in an unseen,
unknown, undescribed and unsubstantial world could be of sufficient
import or strength to compel you to struggle against your natural
desire to rule as a king in another sphere, perhaps for a stretch of
time that would be out of all proportion to your earthly span of life."
He ceased suddenly, and kneeling at my feet said slowly in a suave
voice that was not wholly free from irony: "And now let me tender my
most respectful homage to the King elect of the planet of Meleager!"
D'Aragno then rose, and for the next hour discussed with me the
necessary steps to be taken before the consummation of his mission
on our Earth.
III
It was long after seven o'clock when I found myself walking home in
the grey drizzle of the early morning. As was my custom when in
town during the last few years I rented a bedroom at my club in St
James's, and the apparition of myself in evening dress at the club
doorway at that unusual hour of return evoked a momentary look of
surprise on the face of the well-trained porter who was then
sweeping the hall in his shirt-sleeves. Making my way up to my bed-
chamber, I proceeded to carry out the first portion of my late
instructions from d'Aragno. This consisted in swallowing a tumblerful
of cold water in which I had previously dissolved the contents of a
small packet he had given me before leaving the hotel. After that I
undressed and crept into bed. On arising again I felt light as air, with
the additional sensation of being several inches taller than my actual
stature. My mind too had become singularly clear and active, so that
I was enabled to carry out all my intended preparations with ease.
First of all I placed my valuables in my trunk, which I locked; then I
dressed myself in a tweed suit, and made my way downstairs to the
club smoking-room, where I quietly undertook the final details I
considered necessary before my departure from this world. I had no
parents living; my brothers and sisters were all married and had their
own homes; I had no debts, and my few outstanding bills could be
easily settled by my executors, for some few years before I had
signed a will that I deemed fair and adequate. There was nobody to
lose in any material sense by my sudden demise; on the contrary,
my brothers would obtain possession of my property, for I was the
owner of a small landed estate and of a meagre income that was the
source of secret but intense bitterness to me under this present
oppression of plutocracy. I had therefore no more arduous task
before me than to compose a letter to my favourite brother, so that
he could easily infer from its contents that I had decided to make
away with my life. This might have proved an unpleasant theme for
composition under different circumstances, but on this occasion I
experienced no difficulty in expressing myself to my own satisfaction.
This last matter accomplished, and one or two cheques to
tradesmen signed and posted, I put on my overcoat and hat, and
sallied out of the club towards noon. A feeling of lightness of body
combined with a sense of calm exaltation of mind assisted me, as I
walked slowly through the muddy streets towards the National
Gallery, one of my most frequent haunts in London. Here I spent
about an hour in sauntering through the huge rooms hung with the
glowing works of the Old Masters, stopping occasionally to admire
some special favourite, and even studying with interest a recent
addition to the collection that hung on a solitary screen. Quitting the
gallery, I crossed Trafalgar Square, the while sensing the gush of its
fountains and gazing at Landseer's stolid lions; thence I strolled
down the length of Whitehall as far as Westminster with its majestic
group of Gothic towers, and after filling my eyes with its bristling
outlines against the murky winter's sky, I entered the north portal of
the Abbey. Here again I wandered in an erratic but pleasurable
frame of mind that I vainly tried to analyse to myself, and after many
pacings to and fro in the ancient cloisters, that held so many
memories for me, I left the Abbey to proceed very slowly towards
Charing Cross by way of the Embankment. According to our
prearranged plan, I boarded a certain train that same afternoon for
Dover. The journey seemed to me interminable, and as I lay back on
the cushions at times I fitfully hoped for some collision that might
prove fatal to me; whilst at other moments I grew morbidly nervous
lest by some unforeseen accident I might be prevented from
reaching my destination in good time.
I alighted at Dover about five o'clock on a raw, cold, windy, showery
evening. From the station I passed into the street, and thence, in
pursuance of my instructions, I followed a road leading westward.
Ere long I had left behind me the suburbs of the town and was now
tramping a dreary exposed thoroughfare that ran between market
gardens. As I walked ahead slowly and deliberately, I suddenly saw
emerge from a mean inn beside the road a short, thick-set man in
seafaring dress and bearing a bundle on his shoulder. I knew him to
be d'Aragno, and I continued to follow in his track. He proceeded for
some distance along the high road, and then striking abruptly into a
by-path amongst the dismal vegetable plots led towards the sea. The
lights of Dover were now far behind me, and I realised sharply the
fact that I was saying farewell to the kindly and accustomed world of
men for ever and aye, and was advancing towards a doom whose
nature I only dimly understood. Like Rabelais, I was stepping into the
Great Perhaps; I was about to take a plunge into the ocean of the
Vast Unknown.
There was no human being in sight save the mariner, and he took no
notice of my presence. We began to descend the steep and slippery
path towards the beach in the teeth of a tearing gale from the west.
The rain was drenching me to the skin; the darkness had increased;
once or twice I stumbled heavily. Suddenly my guide turned round
and, noting my difficulties, halted to assist me but never spoke a
word. With a firm hand he led me down the slope, and shortly we
were walking on level ground beside the sea, whose angry waves I
could hear close at hand, and could even distinguish the white foam
on their crests as they broke on the shingle. After some minutes of
skirting the fore-shore my companion stopped, and, waiting for me to
approach, for a second time he seized my hand and thus helped me
to climb a small crag that jutted out into the raging surf. Together we
reached its summit, where we rested for a moment. Then d'Aragno
in a sonorous whisper bade me remove my clothes, and one by one
I stripped myself of every sodden garment in the midst of the pitiless
gale laden with rain and spray. When I was naked as ever I was
born, my companion signed to me to lie down on the flat surface of
the rock. I obeyed, and he next produced a small phial which he
gave me to drink. Strangely enough in this brief space as I lay
numbed and bruised on the sharp clammy bed, buffeted by the wind
and stung by the lashing of the rain-drops, two lines from an old
Moravian hymn kept buzzing in my brain;
"Oh, what is Death?—'Tis Life's last shore
Where vanities are vain no more."
But it could have been only for a minute or so, for d'Aragno was
already forcing the phial to my lips, and at the same time helping me
to raise my aching head, the better to obey his command. A burning-
hot sweetish liquid now raced down my throat; an indescribable
sense of warmth and repose began to trickle through every portion of
my body; wondrous waves of violet and vermilion were floating
before my eyes or in my brain; in a shorter space than it takes me to
write this single sentence I became insensible.
Hours, days, weeks, even months may have elapsed before I

happened on my next moment of consciousness. A dim sensation
first of floating, and then of being swayed or rocked, filled the vacant
interval between my lying on the spray-wetted rock at Dover and my
awaking amid unfamiliar surroundings. At the first quiver of sentient
life I could see practically nothing; I could only feel that I lay in semi-
darkness with my whole frame stretched out vigorously but without
pain on a couch which contained a system of pulleys at its head and
foot. I was faintly aware of the pressure of this innocuous species of
rack, and was trying to open my eyes wider, when an approaching
figure waved a censer before my face, and the thick narcotic smoke
issuing thence promptly forced my half-awakened mind back into
slumber. My next impression was more definite. The chamber
wherein I reposed gradually took shape, as it were in patches, such
as occurs in cases of recovery from the effects of chloroform after a
severe surgical operation. I was no longer extended by pulleys, but
rested supine on the couch, whilst three or four persons were busily
engaged in kneading and pinching every muscle in my body. My
mouth too felt very sore, and by exploring with my tongue I was
astonished to find that several new teeth, evidently drawn from
strange mouths, had been recently inserted with exquisite skill in my
own gums, for what with the blight of middle age and the inattention
of youth my back teeth were by no means numerous at the date of
my recent withdrawal from Earth. Whoever my dental surgeon might
have been, there could be no two opinions as to his skilful
performance on my jaws, for he had not only removed such molars
as were decayed or broken, but had planted and made grow freshly
plucked substitutes with their bleeding roots. The whole operation
was complete, and its completeness has led me to believe that a
considerable period must have intervened since my arrival in
Meleager, where presumably I was now lying. I noticed that the
figures around me were clothed in flowing white robes, and I was
beginning to satisfy my curiosity still further when again someone
approached with a censer, which he deftly swung so close to my
face that once more I was compelled to swallow that thick stupefying
incense whose fumes speedily plunged me in oblivion for a second
time.
On the third occasion of my awaking, the obscure chamber was still
occupied by white-robed figures, but the manipulation of my body
had evidently ceased. Among those present I noticed an old man
with a white beard, and some inches taller than his colleagues, who
paid him special deference. I rightly conjectured this venerable
person to be the Arch-priest, of whom d'Aragno had spoken, both
from his evident superiority of rank and his more elaborate garments.
I was still feeling very weak and languid, but after staring around me
for some minutes with an effort I managed to raise my arm. The
action was immediately noticed, whereupon the individual with the
censer once more prepared to advance, but was checked by an
imperious gesture from the Arch-priest. The latter now approached,
and after peering long and steadfastly into my face he made a sign
to the others present, and all but two left the room. He then signalled
to me to rise, but though I attempted to do so, my physical weakness
forbade me, and I sank back exhausted. The two junior priests
thereupon firmly raised me in their arms, and half-walking, half-
supported I was led out of the chamber to a further and a much
larger room, in the centre of which I perceived a wide circular hollow
space with steps descending, such as one sees in ancient Italian
baptisteries. From this hollow there issued a great sound of gurgling
and roaring, as well as a most horrible stench of chemicals, and as I
was dragged none too willingly towards the edge I saw below me a
pool of dark, sinister-looking, stinking water that was rising and
falling in a constant state of ebullition. I made a feeble attempt to
struggle, but the Arch-priest laid a firm grip upon my nerveless arm,
whilst the two attendant priests hastily proceeded to hook a couple of
chains to two stout rings inserted in the farther wall of the chamber.
To these chains was attached a pair of strong leathern slings, which
were now skilfully fastened beneath my arm-pits. Thus provided, I
was pushed rather than persuaded to descend to the lowest step of
the awesome basin, and was then unceremoniously thrust into its
bubbling and hissing depths. Down, down, down I went into the icy
surge, whose suction I could feel dragging me as violently as though
a pair of giant hands beneath the water had hold of both my ankles.
Then suddenly gasping and spluttering I was pulled up to the
surface, only in spite of my protests to be once again lowered into
that awful gelid fountain, whence again after a fearful interval of
choking and shivering my body was withdrawn. On the third
occasion, however, the two priests drew me towards the steps, and
their master signed to me to quit the pool. I exerted myself only too
eagerly, and with a nimbleness that amazed me I hastened up the
steps towards the Arch-priest, who had been watching the whole
gruesome rite with the most solemn air.
No doubt it was as the result of certain rare properties in this ice-cold
liquid that I now experienced a rapid transformation from a state of
mind and body that was the limit of feebleness to one of almost
superhuman strength and capability. Even before the two priests had
armed themselves with masses of warm soft towels to dry me I felt
myself glowing with health and youth. My brain seemed to clear and
expand in some unaccountable way; I could feel every artery and
muscle in my body thrill in joyous unison; to move my limbs was
sheer delight. I realised too that my normal height had been
increased by some inches, evidently due to the recent painless
racking that had caused me to awake prematurely. "This must be the
Fountain of Rejuvenation of which d'Aragno spoke," thought I. "I
wonder he has never tried a bathe himself in these waters!"
I found an exuberant joy even as I stood thus being rubbed and dried
by the priests in the new appearance of myself; I thought of the
justice of Vergil's comparison of the glittering young Neoptolemus at
the fall of Troy with a snake that has just sloughed his scurfy skin in
the warm spring sunshine. I positively quivered with my new-found
pride of life. I had cast aside all care and terror; and as to the
reflection of having lost the world of my birth, what fresh worlds of
adventure were there not ahead of me to conquer or to enjoy in
return for the mean, squalid, ungrateful Earth that I had deserted for
ever and ever! Had I now been on the Earth itself and not on the
planet of Meleager, I felt no doubt but that in a month or so I should
be competent to lead an army to victory, or to astonish the House of
Commons with a speech whose memory would outlive a generation,
or to write a poem or a novel that would last whilst the English
tongue endured, or to paint a picture or to mould a statue that would
cause Raphael and Michelangelo to turn in their graves with envy.
As Plato once held that the sum of all human knowledge is innate in
every man, so I knew at last that the old Greek's axiom was
fundamentally correct, but that I alone possessed the hidden key to
unlock that chamber of the human brain wherein this mental wealth
lies safely stored. I was the Semi-divine; I was the Super-man; I was
the new Napoleon alike of the arts of war and peace; I was the latter-
day Euphorion, child of beauty, strength and culture.
With this strange new sensation of power pulsing within me, I was
suddenly seized with a hot qualm of indignation against those white-
robed priests, who had so lately been subjecting my sacred person
to a series of manipulations and tortures, and had even more than
once dared to thrust my awakening dignity back to the dull chambers
of sleep. I quite forgot (though of a truth only for one brief instant)
that after all I in my newly acquired pride of strength and intellect
was but the creature of these flamens, a mere Frankenstein evoked
from a semi-defunct, middle-aged, useless inhabitant of the Earth,
who in his agony of failure had voluntarily committed an act of self-
effacement. Nevertheless, I turned almost fiercely on my
companions, and with an angry wave of my hand bade them turn
aside their prying eyes, whilst I completed the act of drying my skin.
They obeyed without protest, and a few minutes later one of the
priests, still keeping his face averted, handed me a curious garment
which it took me some little time to adjust to my person. It was a thin
white woollen article of undress, which completely covered my body,
inclusive of arms and legs, like the chiton of the ancient Greeks. Its
feet moreover were distinguished by a contrivance for keeping the
great toes free, in the event of wearing sandals, so I presumed.
When I had at length fitted my form into this enveloping garment,
whose texture felt deliciously light and warm, the priests once more
turned towards me and helped me to don the remaining portions of
my attire. These consisted of a pair of buskins of soft dark blue
leather that reached half-way to the knee, a tunic of blue cloth with a
golden belt, and a flowing cloak of the same rich shade of blue, lined
with pale blue silk, that was fastened over the breast with a golden
clasp set with a splendid sapphire. Finally I was invited to seat
myself in a low chair, whereupon one of the priests proceeded to
comb out my hair with a large golden comb. From a burnished metal
mirror that was held before me I now realised, to my astonishment,
that my hair was of such an inordinate length that some weeks must
have elapsed for its growth; it had moreover been bleached, for it
was of a pale yellow shade and had a strange silky texture. On the
other hand, I may state here that all the hair on the lower portion of
my face had been eradicated, nor have I yet had any occasion to
use a razor. As a finishing touch, a fillet of blue and gold was bound
round my luxuriant locks, much in the manner one sees depicted on
the royal heads of antiquity in coins and medals.
With this last addition my toilet was now complete, and I was bidden
to rise. The Arch-priest led the way, and I followed with the two junior
priests, one of whom upheld my flowing mantle, whilst the other bore
over my head an open state umbrella of blue silk, heavily fringed
with gold, and closely resembling the same emblem of state that is
used to shelter the Host in processions of the Roman Church. We
then traversed several broad gloomy corridors before entering a
chamber of considerable size that was lit by flambeaux as well as by
lamps of classical form. Here were assembled about a score of
young men whose dress closely resembled my own except that its
dominant colour was crimson instead of blue. On my appearance all
these persons threw themselves prostrate on the floor and remained
thus motionless. At this juncture the Arch-priest for the first time
addressed me, and his spoken words were in the ancient Latin
language. Now I had always possessed an affection and capacity for
this tongue, which I have all my life defended from the baseless
charge of its being a dead language that is constantly levelled at it by
ignorant or prejudiced critics. My proficiency in Latin both at school
and at college had been noteworthy, and now, thanks to the reviving
effects of my late immersion in those medicated waters, all my
former acquaintance with the Roman tongue was suddenly restored
to me. I was thus able to grasp the gist of the Arch-priest's remarks,
and my replies through the same medium were more than tolerable,
a circumstance that evidently afforded great satisfaction to the old
man. I gathered then that this group of youths kneeling before me
was composed of the flower of the nobility of Meleager, from whose
ranks I was bidden to choose a tutor and two equerries suited to my
needs. The Arch-priest further stated that he deemed it preferable for
myself to make my own selection in this important matter, for which
reason he had devised this plan.
I was quick to perceive that such a privilege must be carefully
exercised, so I reflected for a few moments before deciding. I have
often flattered myself on being a good judge of human character
from the face, and in our world I often fell to speculate on the internal
qualities of persons in every station of life that I chanced to meet.
Bearing my past observations in mind, I gave a sign for the band
before me to arise, and on a word from the Arch-priest the whole line
leaped up and stood to attention. Beckoning to one of the priests to
hand me a torch, I carefully scrutinised the row of candidates for my
favour. Now the youth who stood seventh from the first at once
challenged my attention; his countenance showed me that he
possessed, consciously or unconsciously, the special qualities I
demanded—fidelity and discretion. Thrice with calm deliberation did I
pace up and down that comely company, and on each occasion I felt
myself confirmed in my original judgment. I nodded to the Arch-
priest, who now handed me a golden rod with which I lightly touched
the shoulder of Number Seven. The young man immediately fell at
my feet, which he embraced, the while murmuring some words of
gratitude in the language of the Meleagrians which of course I did
not at that time comprehend. He then rose, and was about to take up
a position behind me, when his fellows at once advanced and loaded
him with their congratulations on the exceptional mark of honour he
had just received. Some of his more intimate friends threw their arms
around him, others shook him by the hands, and others again spoke
words of encouragement. So far as I could observe, the spirit of
jealousy seemed wholly absent. The Arch-priest, who appeared to
approve my choice, patted the young man's cheek in a friendly
manner, as he told me I had chosen well in Hiridia, for such was his
name. Nor have I ever had reason to repent of my selection, for
Hiridia has always proved a most faithful friend, and also a well-
meaning guide according to his Meleagrian lights, during the whole
period of my reign, as I shall relate in due course.
As to the two equerries, whose office would not entail such intimacy,
I did not deem it necessary to discriminate so closely amongst this
band of noble applicants, all of whom were doubtless adequate for
the purpose. So I simply touched the first and the last of the row
standing before me, and these fell out of the line and made me
obeisance. This matter concluded, the Arch-priest signified to the
remainder to retire, whilst the chosen three tarried behind.
By this time I was beginning to feel the pangs of hunger most
acutely, and recollections of my last meal partaken on Earth in the
London hotel rose greedily to my mind, as I began to guess how
many weeks must have passed since I had eaten. "Your King is
hungry and faint for need of food," I remarked in my best Ciceronian
Latin to the Arch-priest, who, so I had observed, was now treating
me with a degree of deference and even of obsequiousness that he
had not shown in the chamber of the fountain. The old man bowed
low and long, gave some instructions to Hiridia, whereupon he and I,
followed by the two equerries, proceeded to leave the room. Before
departing however, the Arch-priest hung a heavy chain of gold round
Hiridia's neck, and presented similar chains, but of silver, to his two
companions. One of these latter now bore the umbrella of state over
my head and the other upheld the cloak, as with Hiridia beside me I
prepared to quit the chamber, after I had returned with as much
dignity as I could muster the sweeping obeisances of the three
priests, who did not offer to accompany us. More corridors were
traversed thus, before we finally entered a lofty pillared hall, which I
at once rightly conjectured to be the banqueting chamber of the
palace. Here were gathered many men, both young and middle-
aged, all wearing clothes similar to those of my three companions,
as also a considerable crowd of individuals dressed in short blue
tunics and obviously of an inferior social caste. The first were, of
course, the members of my Court, all eagerly expecting their new
sovereign, whilst the latter were the servants of the household. On
my appearance there were deep bows and genuflexions from the
nobles assembled, and still lower bows from the menials, the latter
raising their left arms to cover their faces, as though the sight of
myself were almost too precious or sacred for humbler eyes such as
theirs to dwell upon.
I seated myself at a solitary table on a dais, slightly raised above the
pavement. The board before me was covered with a coarse linen
cloth heavily fringed with blue, whilst the viands were served in a
number of glazed white earthenware platters of elegant form, the
appointments in general reminding me of meals eaten years ago in
old-fashioned hostelries of the Romagna. Of the dinner itself I need
not say more than that the meats, though unfamiliar, were quite
palatable, as was also the rough red wine which was served
abundantly throughout the meal. To my relief I found that knives,
spoons and forks were in use, and that the drinking vessels and
some of the dishes were of glass. After a dessert of strange but
delicious fruits, and many species of nuts, a crystal goblet of the
most elaborate workmanship was set before me and filled with a
rather thick sweet red wine, apparently a kind of muscadel. I had sat
down ravenous, and in due course I rose from table satisfied, at
which movement on my part every person in the room likewise stood
erect and remained so standing till I had passed through the
doorway.
From the banqueting hall, guided by Hiridia, I proceeded to my
sleeping apartment, wherein I found a low square bed of some richly
carved dark-coloured wood. A long open gallery occupied one side
of this room, and thither I hastened to obtain a glimpse of the outer
world. It was a lovely warm starry night, but without moonlight, so
that I could only discern my surroundings very dimly. I was able,
however, to perceive that this gallery was situated at a considerable
height above the sea, whose expanse I could just distinguish in the
far distance, and that below me and around me there lay a large city
built on steep hillsides descending to the shore. Falling waters made
a pleasant murmur in my ears; a faint hum of human activity arose
from the city beneath; the shrill cries and chirrups of insects and
night birds were clearly audible at intervals. There was nothing
unearthly in these darkened surroundings, and yet I knew I stood
alone in a fresh world of mystery and wonder, and how vehemently I
longed, as I paced that colonnade, for the sun to rise so as to make
manifest the scene that was now all but hidden from my impatient
gaze! Hiridia stood beside me, and I think he tried to participate in
and sympathise with the thoughts that were agitating my mind, for he
often pointed into the gloom and made remarks which were of
course, as yet, unintelligible to me. Long did I continue thus to stare
and speculate, and indeed it was only out of consideration for poor
Hiridia's many yawns and signs of weariness, vainly suppressed,
that I finally turned with reluctance from the balcony and prepared for
a night's sleep.
IV
I slept soundly, and was only awakened on hearing, as one does
whilst wandering in the misty caverns of dreamland, a strange
prolonged noise of peculiar timbre, the last reverberation of which
had scarcely died away by the time I was fully conscious and had
raised myself in bed. The room was filled with the early light of dawn,
and from my pillow I could see beyond the open gallery the splendid
disk of the sun's majesty emerge from the distant watery horizon.
Hiridia was on his knees muttering prayers with arms extended and
face turned towards the sunrise, whilst a servant of the palace,
wearing the short blue tunic and blue trousers and blue scarf that

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Buildings, Faith, and Worship: The

Liturgical Arrangement of Anglican

Buildings, Faith, and Worship

Print publication date: 1993

(p.ii) (p.iii) Buildings, Faith, and Worship

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(p.vi) (p.vii) Acknowledgements

My second debt of gratitude is to my colleagues in diocesan record offices and

I am especially grateful to the Revd Canon Dr William Jacob and Professor

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(p.ix) Acknowledgements to Revised Edition

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(p.xii) List of Plates

1. Plan of Acton (Ches.) 1635

(Between pages 126–27)

(Between pages 190–1)

(b) Interior of Mildenhall (Wilts.)

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(p.xiii) List of Plans in the Text

The following abbreviations have been used on the plans:

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(p.xiv) List of Tables

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(p.xv) List of Abbreviations

Historic Chapels Trust

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(p.xvi) (p.xvii) Preface to the Revised

eighteenth and early nineteenth century Anglicanism received from late

A similar picture has been presented of Anglicanism in Ireland and, one

wishes, on his Irish episcopal colleagues: Lindsay of Kildare was described as

The relationship between the Anglican high churchmanship of the eighteenth

It is also important that further work is undertaken, if necessary through some

(p.xxv) The existence of these bodies in England means that, in future,

Changes to buildings, however, are not always a one-way process. To