The Victorians built tens of thousands of churches in the hundred years
between 1800 and 1900. Wherever you might be in the English-speaking
world, you will be close to a Victorian built or remodelled
ecclesiastical building. Contemporary experience of church buildings is
almost entirely down to the zeal of Victorians such as John Henry
Newman, Henry Wilberforce and Augustus Pugin, and their ideas about the
role of architecture in our spiritual life and well-being.
In Unlocking the Church, William Whyte explores a forgotten revolution
in social and architectural history and in the history of the Church. He
details the architectural and theological debates of the day, explaining
how the Tractarians of Oxford and the Ecclesiologists of Cambridge were
embroiled in the aesthetics of architecture, and how the Victorians
profoundly changed the ways in which buildings were understood and
experienced. No longer mere receptacles for worship, churches became
active agents in their own rights, capable of conveying theological
ideas and designed to shape people's emotions.
These church buildings are now a challenge: their maintenance, repair or
repurposing are pressing problems for parishes in age of declining
attendance and dwindling funds. By understanding their past, unlocking
the secrets of their space, there might be answers in how to deal with
the legacy of the Victorians now and into the future.
