Augustus Welby Northbourne Pugin (1812-52) was received into the Church in Salisbury in 1835. The next year he published his Contrasts, in which he argued for the revival of Gothic architecture and also “a return to the faith and social structure of the Middle Ages”.
John Talbot, the 16th Earl of Shrewsbury, was born in 1791. The title derived from the exploits of an earlier John Talbot who was a major English military commander in the closing phases of the 100 Years War. He died at the Battle of Castillon in 1453. The Whig 12th Earl apostatised in 1679, and received a dukedom for his pains. He was succeeded in the earldom by Catholic cousins.
The 16th Earl succeeded his uncle in 1827 as premier earl of England and of Ireland. He was one the most prominent Catholics in the country. Pugin and Shrewsbury met for the first time in 1836, probably in the company of the convert Ambrose Phillipps de Lisle of Garendon Hall and Grace Dieu Manor in Leicestershire. In September 1837 Pugin paid his first visit to Alton Towers, Lord Shrewsbury’s house in Staffordshire. Shrewsbury was instrumental in getting Pugin appointed as architect of St Mary’s, Derby, St Alban’s, Macclesfield and St Chad’s, Birmingham, the future cathedral. He also appointed Pugin to build St Giles’s, Cheadle which the latter was to describe as “Perfect Cheadle … consolation in all my afflictions”.
In 1825 Fr Robert Willson (later Bishop of Hobart in Australia) took charge of the Nottingham mission, and three years later a Catholic church was opened. It rapidly became clear that a larger church would be required to accommodate the growing Catholic population. In 1841 Fr Willson acquired a site on the Derby Road to the west of the city. Shrewsbury agreed to contribute £7,000 and that eccentric Anglican convert (and re-convert) the Revd Waldo Sibthorpe £2,000.
At the end of July 1841 Pugin met his patron at Spa in Belgium. They talked of the new church at Nottingham and Shrewsbury, and agreed upon a long, low modest design. By the end of the year Pugin had formulated his ideas. He designed a cruciform building in severe Early English (rather than his preferred, more expensive Middle Pointed) style. The interior however was to be an unfolding vista of “intricate perspective views, pillar beyond pillar, screen beyond screen”, all to be densely decorated.
Shrewsbury was horrified by the potential cost. “At Spa we agreed to erect a Church complete for £10,000… Now Pugin sends me a design for a Church, 109 feet in the nave, 40 in the choir, with transepts, with 3 extra chapels & an extra corridor & a tower in the centre.”
Shrewsbury was eventually pacified about the cost and the foundation stone was laid in 1842 by Bishop Nicholas Wiseman. Pugin reported the work “was getting on Gloriously and rappidly [sic] rising out of the Ground.” He promised it would “be far the richest thing attempted since the old time… three times the solemnity of St Georges [Southwark] or Birmingham.”
The church was built in stone in Early English style with lancet windows. It was modelled in part on the Premonstatensian Abbey of Croxton, Staffordshire. It is cruciform, nearly symmetrical with crossing tower and octagonal broach spire. Pugin’s original decorative scheme was of great richness and colour. The church was built by Myers & Co of London, Pugin’s favourite builders. Pugin was responsible for the large hanging crucifix. Some of the stained glass was by Wailes.
The church was magnificently consecrated on August 27, 1844 by Bishop Wiseman with relics of St Barnabas brought from Rome. Sixteen bishops and 100 priests processed in Pugin’s vestments. A press report talked of “the plaintive and monotonous chaunting” of plainsong which recalled “the ancient glories of the papal worship”. At the time of its consecration St Barnabas’s was the largest Catholic church in the country. Wiseman wrote “The architectural taste of Mr Pugin has enkindled a light, the rays of which will cover the present era with a halo of brightness.”
Pugin, of course, rapidly became dissatisfied with the treatment of his building by the clergy. “It soon looked like a penny theatre, cotton velvet at 10s a yard hung up against the pillars… I have never seen anything so detestable.”
In 1850 with the Restoration of the Hierarchy, St Barnabas became the Cathedral of the Diocese of Nottingham covering the counties of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Rutland. In 1980 the Diocese lost the northern halves of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire to the rather unnecessary new Diocese of Hallam.
The third Bishop of Nottingham (Edward Bagshaw, 1874-1901) was a London Oratorian, and Italianised the Gothic character of Pugin’s cathedral; marble altar rails and side altars for instance were introduced. The fourth bishop (Robert Brindle, 1901-1915) introduced a new high altar which his successor (Thomas Dunn, 1916-1931) described as “enough to make the angels weep by its ugliness”. Dunn employed FA Walters to replace the high altar, restore the rood beam to its original place and remove the Italianate altars from the transepts.
He was succeeded by John Francis McNulty, the sixth bishop (1931-44). He continued the sympathetic work of his predecessor, including commissioning the recreation of a version of Pugin’s Blessed Sacrament Chapel by Alphege Pippet in 1933.
His successor, the seventh bishop, was Edward Ellis (1944-1974). He decided not to replace the Pugin/Wailes glass in the transepts and at the west end but insert new lighter glass designed by Joseph Nuttgens in 1948. In 1962 a horrendous major reordering was undertaken by Weightman & Bullen of Liverpool anticipating the Second Vatican Council. A new Portland stone high altar was installed on a white marble extension to the sanctuary under the tower. The rood beam and figures of St Mary and St John on either side of the suspended crucifix were removed. Timber screens were also removed. The interior was plainly redecorated.
Nikolaus Pevsner in his County Guide said: “The whole effect could hardly be further from the richness of decoration and atmosphere that Pugin intended.” Henry Thorold in the Shell Guide to Nottinghamshire lamented “Poor Pugin; poor Nottingham.”
A further reordering took place in 1993 under Bishop James McGuinness, the eighth bishop (1974-2000). This involved a new high altar, lectern, sanctuary seating and cathedra and the reinstatement of the rood figures of St Mary and St John. The works marked a move from the iconoclasm of the 1960s towards a renewed respect for Pugin’s original design.
In 1997 the body of the Venerable Mary Potter (1847-1913), founder of the Sisters of the Little Company of Mary, was translated to the northern ambulatory.
The Dean of the Cathedral since 2017 has been Canon Malachy Brett, who has enthusiastically grasped the concept of restoring Pugin’s three chapels at the east end and the ambulatory to their former glory. His efforts were rewarded at the end of 2022 with a National Lottery Heritage Fund development grant of £277,558. A potential delivery grant of £524,858 should ensure completion of the project. Both grants represent 60 per cent of total costs.
This article first appeared in the February 2024 issue of the Catholic Herald. To subscribe to our multiple-award-winning magazine and have it delivered to your door anywhere in the world, go here.
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