Oh to be Gothic

Currently, most of my dog walks follow a rather erratic path. The two puppies, Paddy and Lola, shoot off at high speed in unexpected directions either to play tag or to argue over a variety of exciting new twigs. Zigzagging from side to side as we progress along various paths, I rather enjoy the oblique views of the castle I get as pinnacles and turrets hove into sight and then are lost from view as the puppies dart away again.   

A building such as Highclere embodies scale and proportion - the 3rd Earl of Carnarvon and his architect Sir Charles Barry might have created a home, but it is one of epic effect and a variety of symbolic details. It is architecture which transcends its relationship with its site, but which remains practical and in scale. What I find continually absorbing is that the history of this building is not the same as the history of its architecture. There are one or two points in its history where Highclere can be said to accurately reflect a coherent vision of its architect but overall, it is the creation of generations of architects and builders. 

The culture and inspiration of many English buildings, ecclesiastical and secular, devolved from the classical traditions of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Highclere is not a church even if its alter ego was called an “Abbey”, but it has the soaring height, light, intricate detail and leaded windows of one, even if there is no stained glass. The perpendicular style was much admired in many of the great cathedrals and can be seen in the clean lines and fan vaulting which heralds your entrance into the Front Hall at Highclere. Equally, I have no proof, but I am certain that is design rather than accident that brings the resulting play of light and shadow into the central saloon.

By the middle of the 19th century when the 3rd Earl began his great rebuild, Gothic Revival had become the pre-eminent architectural style in Western Europe. It had its roots in the revival of interest in medievalism which took place also at that time and it is probably no surprise that the 4th Earl, who completed his father’s building, was President of the Society of Antiquaries.  

Gothic architecture really began in the 12th century in France with a man called Abbott Sugar, a French statesman and trusted councillor to King Louis VI. Sugar was responsible for the Abbey of Saint-Denis, a significant site with a long tradition of royal burials dating back to the 6th century but which was, by then, rather decrepit. The new building was achieved in stages, but the resulting chancel was high and suffused with light, using the latest masonry features including pointed arches, ribbed vaults, ambulatory radiating chapels, clustered columns and flying buttresses which allowed very large windows to be included. 

Artists who worked in the Gothic style also paid close attention to natural forms and were able to reproduce them with remarkable accuracy. Leaf forms were especially popular in England, and churches were often decorated with a variety of recognisable species. You can see this detail being carried into the stonework at Highclere.

The creation of the Abbey of Saint-Denis became the prototype for the construction of a series of great Gothic cathedrals throughout northern France, famously at Notre Dame in Paris, as well as in Chartres, Reims and Amiens to name but a few. This new style was then rapidly taken up in England, where it was used in two highly important buildings: Canterbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey where royal coronations took place. Interestingly, however, the term Gothic was not used until four to five centuries later when it became a slightly derogatory term as a synonym of 'barbaric', attributed to the Gothic tribes who had destroyed the Roman Empire and its classical culture in the 5th century.

Fast forward to the 19th century and one of the reasons Barry won the Commission to rebuild the Houses of Parliament was his comprehension of the perpendicular Gothic style whilst his partner, Mr Pugin, was a medieval scholar. As with many other projects undertaken from the time of Abbot Sugar onwards, Barry was working on an old site where a number of existing buildings would remain in situ. Barry liked symmetry and so placed an octagonal lobby in the centre of the “Mother of all Parliaments” from the which the corridors radiated out to the Commons on one side and the Lords on the other. It is lit by the same gothic leaded windows as Highclere.