Gothic Sign, Protestant Realia: Templars, Ecclesiologists and the Round Churches at Cambridge and London

Abstract

The Gothic Revival moved forward in step with advances in medieval archaeology and history, the one feeding off the other and back again. As this process unfolded, historical understanding enabled the association of forms with ideas. For example, some Victorian architects favoured the Decorated style because a connection could be drawn between it and the power of the English state in its early maturity. Reasoning by analogy, this style could thus be seen as the model for a modern Gothic architecture appropriate to a new, dynamic age. However, the meaning of forms was rarely fixed. That this was the case is illustrated by the restoration at exactly the same time, the early 1840s, of two medieval churches, both typological copies of the same building, the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Though similar in their round plans, the intentions of those promoting each project were very different. The first, the Temple Church in London, was an essentially secular project; by contrast, the Round Church in Cambridge was restored for theological reasons. In different ways, these two projects also reflected contemporary ideas about Palestine and its archaeology.