Surveying the ecclesiastical work of the Bonomis and the Goldies carried out between the 18th and 20th centuries.
Giuseppe (Joseph) Bonomi the Elder (1739-1808) was born in Rome. He was educated at the Collegio Romano and then studied architecture with Girolamo Teodoli. In 1768, he moved to London at the suggestion of Robert and James Adam who employed him as a draughtsman; he became a great friend of Angelica Kauffmann and married her cousin Rosa Florini. His earliest known independent work dates from 1784. He became thereafter chiefly known as a designer of country houses. In 1789, he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy on the casting vote of Sir Joshua Reynolds.
His chief surviving Catholic ecclesiastical work is the Royal Bavarian Chapel in Warwick Street (now the Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory). The chapel had been damaged in the 1780 Gordon Riots and was rebuilt in an unassertive domestic style to avoid anti-Catholic feeling. This 18th-century Catholic church uniquely survives in Soho, central London, and is in the care of the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.
Bonomi died in London in 1809 and was buried in the Marylebone Cemetery. One son, Ignatius Bonomi (1787-1860), was an architect who practised mainly in north-east England. He built a number of Catholic churches, including St Oswald, Bellingham (1839) in Early English style. This was the parish church of Fra’ Matthew Festing, late Grand Master of the Order of Malta, when in England. Joseph Bonomi the Younger (1797-1878) was primarily known as a sculptor.
Their sister Mary Anne married a Catholic medical doctor called George Goldie. They had nine children, the oldest of whom was the architect George Goldie (1828-1887). Born in York, he studied at St Cuthbert’s College, Ushaw, where he became a friend of AWN Pugin. From 1845 to 1850, Goldie trained with John Grey Weightman and Matthew Ellison in Sheffield, thereafter working in partnership with them. Weightman left the partnership in 1858, which for the next two years functioned as Hadfield & Goldie. From 1861 to 1867, Goldie was sole practitioner in London. Thereafter he worked with Charles Edwin Child as Goldie & Child. George Goldie built a large number of Catholic ecclesiastical buildings in England and Ireland (including the neo-Romanesque Cathedral in Sligo).
Among his more notable English Catholic churches are the following:
St Ninian, Wooler, Northumberland (1856). It was described at the time in the Tablet as “a severely simple building in harmony with the wild scenery about it”.
St Peter, Scarborough, Yorkshire (1858-74). This is an excellent Gothic Revival town church with a windowless sanctuary and much internal decoration.
St John and St Elizabeth Hospital Chapel (1862). Originally in Great Ormond Street, it was commissioned by Sir George Bowyer, Bt, and was moved in 1899 to its present site in St John’s Wood. With a classical interior of considerable beauty, it remains the conventual chapel of the Order of Malta.
St Wilfrid, York now known as York Oratory (1862-4). This church was built in High Victorian French Gothic style just across from York Minster and is a building of great conviction. Opened in 1864 by Cardinal Wiseman, it was the pro-cathedral of the Diocese of Beverley from then until 1879. Since 2013, it has been in the sympathetic hands of the Oratorians.
St Mary and St Augustine, Stamford
(1863-5). This is an idiosyncratic stone Gothic building with a small campanile described by Pevsner as “unbelievable”. The church was horribly reordered in the 20th century.
Our Lady and St Edmund, Abingdon. (1865). Also built at the expense of Sir George Bowyer, Bt, the church was begun by William Wardell but the nave and other parts were completed by Goldie after the former’s emigration to Australia. The style is Decorated Gothic with a bellcote. In 1974, the interior was very bleakly reordered by Austin Winkley. It must have been a very charming building before this.
George Goldie married Marie Madeleine Rose Simeon Stylite Sioc’han, the eldest daughter of the Vicomte Sioc’han de Kersabiec in 1855. They had a number of children. Goldie eventually died at Saint-Servan in Brittany and was buried nearby.
Among his children was Edward Goldie (1856-1921), who followed his father to Ushaw and then into the family architectural practice, which became Goldie, Child & Goldie in 1880. He too built a number of distinguished Catholic churches including:
St James, Spanish Place (1887-90). Goldie won the competition to replace the Spanish Embassy Chapel built by his great grandfather, Joseph Bonomi the Elder. He built the church in an Early English style in Kentish ragstone. Rich furnishings were installed by Bentley and Garner. The church was spared horrific reordering in the 20th century. From 2008 to 2022, it was in the solicitous care of Fr Christopher Colven, a former Anglican.
Our Most Holy Redeemer and St Thomas More, Chelsea (1894-5) was built, unusually for Goldie, in an Italian Renaissance rather than a Gothic style. The church is naveless and dominated by giant Ionic pilasters. Canon Alfonso de Zulueta, Count of Torre Diaz, was responsible for the two reorderings in 1962 and 1970-2. Most of Goldie’s side chapels were removed and much of the interior of the church painted in a tasteful drawing-room green.
St Thomas à Becket, Wandsworth (completed 1895). A powerful Decorated Gothic design in red brick and Bath stone facings, the spacious nave and aisles have the character of a hall church. The high sanctuary is groin-vaulted. It was reordered in 1961 by FG Broadbent, and more sympathetically so
by Thomas Ford & Partners in 2006.
St Alban, Larkhill, Blackburn (1898-1901). This is an ambitious large Decorated church in a free Gothic style. The admirably rich high altar has survived reordering, as have the marble altar rails and metal gates.
Our Lady of England, Storrington, West Sussex (1902-9). The Premonstratensians (Norbertines) commissioned this fairly modest brick Gothic church on land given by the 15th Duke of Norfolk. The Norbertines departed at the start of the last decade.
St Cecilia’s Abbey, Ryde (completed 1907). The nuns of Sainte-Cécile de Solesmes had to leave France in 1901 under the anti-clerical laws and took refuge on the Isle of Wight. Goldie was commissioned to build church and convent. This traditional Benedictine order continues to thrive with some 34 nuns.
After the death of Edward Goldie, the practice was taken over by his son, Joseph Goldie (1882-1953). He was responsible for various Catholic churches including:
Our Lady and St Peter, Leatherhead (1923-24). Built through the generosity of the newspaper mogul Sir Edward Hulton, the church is a fine Gothic building of Bargate stone with good fittings. The Stations of the Cross are by Eric Gill.
St Thomas More, Dulwich (1927-8). The large Middle Pointed Style church is of good quality. Goldie supervised the installation of the fine EW Pugin altar from Hales Place near Canterbury.
The Assumption of Our Lady, Englefield Green (1930-31) is built in the form of a Romanesque basilica with a polygonal sanctuary and campanile.
The practice became less successful in the years running up to the death of Joseph Goldie in 1953, ending almost two centuries of architectural involvement by the Bonomi and Goldie families.
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