Whalley, Lancashire, 500 seats, 399 free, begun 29th March, 1850.

It thus appears that the average number accommodated in one church is 682. When we consider that, in the open air, and in many buildings, an ordinary voice can be readily understood by six times this number; it is natural to ask, why (in populous districts) should six buildings be required for what can, and often has been effected by one; or why should the Stoke Damerel people, for instance, have to build and endow three churches, before they can enjoy the blessing of 2,143 sittings?—a very moderate number for one of the cheap churches of the last century, and a very small one for a lecture-room.-The answer is, that a single church really available for this number could not have passed for a 14th century work. The buildings in which 4,000 may be addressed, are designed expressly for speaking and hearing; but mediæval churches (and consequently also mock-mediæval ones) were not designed for this purpose, but for masses and processions; and are therefore so little fitted for the use to which they are now put, that we doubt whether the largest even will often serve for more than 500 to hear intelligibly. Indeed, if the capacity of new churches were measured by the number of available sittings only, the above average would be considerably reduced; for small as these structures may generally be, most of them are still too large for every one to hear and understand.

Of the above 33 churches, one (Charlton) professes to be Romanesque "of the 11th century," all the rest Gothic; viz., two (Chard and Charlton) "of the 12th century;" eleven, of different periods in the 13th century; fourteen of the 14th; and two (Ashton-juxtaBirmingham and Stockport) of the 15th. Of the remaining three (Bury, Manchester, and Haverstock Hill) the period is not specified; but the latter seems chiefly to represent that of about 1300. The estimated expense averages 31657., varying from 925/. to 97501., that of the building last named, which was opened in October, 1850. This church is remarkable for a chancel, divided by pillars, like a cathedral Lady-chapel. The gallery, from the lowness of the aisles, is a deformity. Remove this, and the interior has considerable elegance.

The churches erected without the assistance of the Commissioners are so numerous, that we can only mention a few of the principal. One at Leeds is remarkable for being the first in this country, since the Reformation, constructed in the Gothic manner; all our other modern works, called Gothic, being merely decorated in that style, or rather dressed in representations of its structural features which, for them, are purely superfluous. The greater decorum and air of reality to be expected in such a work is obvious. Indeed there is no reason why it should not resemble the ancient churches, in having no sham features, or motiveless peculiarities-the buttresses being not mere ornaments, but built to abut the useful vaulting; the window grouping, or tracing, not merely adapted to look Gothic, but to fit and agree with the same vaulting, and with the general construction, &c. This building is in the form and style of the Temple Church choir.

Of the churches completed this year in London, the most important is that in Rochester-row, Westminster, already mentioned as a remarkable instance of individual liberality. It is certainly the most complete, and probably the most costly work of the kind erected since St. Luke's, Chelsea (one of the first attempts at modern Gothic), which it greatly excels in purity of style. It represents a church of the time of Edward II., with all its features (except the vaulting for which they were contrived), and all its appendages in the same style, with very few exceptions (which might be supposed added in the 15th century). The interior is large enough to contain many more than are within hearing of the pulpit, and has no galleries, not even at the west end, which, for want of some such addition, looks poor and thin. The windows have excellent tracery and glass painting, in which the rude quaintness of the early efforts is represented very faithfully. We subjoin a view of the tower, which contains a clock and belfry of the ancient completeness. and is externally one of the finest modern compositions of its kind. The spire is of stone; and being very slender, and considerably higher than the tower on which it stands, has an effect not graceful at a distance, but greatly improving in a near view, where the perspective tends to equalize the two heights, and to

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diminish the acuteness of the spire. It has ribs on the angles which, though seldom afforded to a modern spire, are most essential to every stone one, which otherwise has the apparent mass and heaviness of

an obelisk, and reminds one of that master-stroke of absurdity, St. Luke's, Old-street.

The wretched district of Westminster, to which Miss Coutts's church has been so acceptable a boon, has been fertile in other new buildings for pious and educational purposes; and at the foot of Vauxhall Bridge, another church is being erected by private liberality. It is cruciform, with a central tower, and the details are mostly from the purest period of English-Gothic architecture, that of Edward I. The modern peculiarity of disjointedness, however, is most thoroughly carried out by the roofs being clustered together at half a dozen different levels, no two alike in pitch, and the windows of every form, from the most lofty and slender, to the most broad and dumpy. The whole will pyramidize, and form a very picturesque group from some points of view.

At Heptonstall, Yorkshire, is a very fair imitation of the style of parish church used in the 15th century. The clerestory is high enough to admit windows of nearly the same proportion as the others, instead of the stunted dwarfs usually placed there, and is altogether plainly a clerestory for use, to light the centre of the interior, and not to ape an ancient peculiarity. To the sides near the west end are attached two porches; to the west end, a flattopped tower, with pierced battlements and pinnacles; and to the east, a large chancel, or rather Lady-chapel, and two side chapels. The ground falling in this direction, the chancel floor is raised higher than usual, and leaves room for a vestry beneath it.

Christchurch, at Penrith, is similar to this in style and arrangement, but without a tower. It may be observed, that though the "perpendicular" style, or that of England in the 15th century, is only a very debased adaptation of the Gothic to meaner modes of building, and lower mechanical art, still its choice now, in preference to earlier models, evinces judgment; for though a modern version of this “After-Gothic" may be called an imitation of an imitation, still, if we must appropriate a ready-made style, this is better fitted both for our purposes and for our resources than any previous style. Indeed the nearer anything approaches our own time, the nearer also does it come to our requirements, and our limited artistic abilities and scarcity of skilled labour; so that the latest forms of this or any system of art, will be those we can most nearly and successfully imitate.

Roman Catholic churches seem to be distinguished from those on the national faith, at present, only by the occupation of niches that, in the latter, would be left vacant. It is remarkable, however, that they all seem to affect the style of one period; viz. the first half of the 14th century, their designers apparently disdaining the representation of either an immature or a declining form of art; but fixing always on the fully-developed Gothic, just at the turningpoint of its career. A chapel in Farm-street, May Fair, is peculiar, its style having a continental character, especially in the tracery, which is varied in each window. The front, which looks south, is rich, and much resembles, in composition, that of Beauvais Cathedral. There are no aisles; and the interior has the old lofty pro

portion, with the windows placed high, and altogether much like St. Catherine's in the Regent's Park. There is a remarkable absence of shabbiness, and a free use of both glass-painting and opaque polychromy; but the roofs being of deeper hues than anything else, destroys the effect that might be expected. A larger church of equal pretensions, and with a tower and spire, is being erected at Greenwich. Another at Sheffield is chiefly noticeable for the extreme degree to which irregularity and picturesque patching is carried, and perhaps consistently, in what is really a cluster of chapels. On the whole, though it has been truly said, that a real Gothic church, even in ruins, "is nearer converting one to Popery, than all the regular pageantry of Roman domes;" no Protestant need fear any such effect from the resuscitative attempts yet made; for the very presence among us of the originals gives to these counterfeits, no less than to our own, an air of imbecility that must, in each case (to a spectator of the other persuasion) be more provocative of ridicule than any other feeling.

One of the most novel features of the present and two or three preceding years has been, the application of more than mere scenic display to the chapels of several sects of dissenters. The Wesleyans have now five or six edifices in London, clothed in the Gothic dress of various periods, and following the usual arrangement of a mediæval church, with the exception of having no tower, and no extensive chancel (resembling in this respect the churches erected between the Reformation and the late abandonment of church design). The average capacity of these buildings is for 1,300 persons. One, nearly facing St. John's, Clerkenwell, affects the complete Gothic above, and has a neat original front, but very thin. The tyranny of precedent seems not confined to the National Church, if we may judge by a Congregational Chapel near Haverstock Hill, which, for the sake of " orientation," is made to turn its back on the thoroughfare and chief approach; and that back, moreover, singularly back-like, for what is usually regarded as the most sacred part of the edifice. All the rest is somewhat ornate.

3. BUILDINGS FOR EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.

The North Surrey Industrial Schools, at Penge, of which we give a view, are intended for the pauper children of twenty-seven parishes, and may be hailed as the introduction of probably a greatly improved system. The buildings are, it will be seen, extensive and compact; and nearly as plain as possible, though every window has a stone architrave, which the smallness of scale would not allow us to show. The small detached building is both plainer and more pleasing in its proportions, bearing some resemblance of character to Wren's excellent but much neglected work, Chelsea Hospital, in which he produced more effect with less means than in any other of his buildings. With regard to the main building, though its treatment in general is good, we regret to see its angles disfigured by an addition of very questionable character.

The melancholy event that took place at the late Mr. Drouett's Pauper School, Lower Tooting, at the early part of last year, attracted the attention of the public and the government, to the manner in which those establishments were conducted, and in consequence an Act of parliament (7 & 8 Vict. c. 101) was passed to enable Poor Law Boards of Guardians to form district Unions for the erection of Schools away from Workhouses, for the education of pauper children.

The Guardians of the Wandsworth and Clapham, Croydon, Kingston, Richmond and Lewisham Unions, were the first to set a good example to the rest of the country, by the formation of the North Surrey School district under the said Act, to which was afterwards joined the parish of Chelsea, Middlesex; and for efficiently carrying out their object they purchased 50 acres of land adjoining the Anerly Station of the Croydon Railway, at the price of 3,300l. and they have had erected, under the directions of their architect, Mr. Charles Lee, of Golden Square, suitable buildings for the accommodation of 600 children, at a cost of 15,000l.

This establishment is strictly industrial, and no pauper officers or servants are allowed on the premises; this being important to prevent the contamination consequent on contact with adult paupers. There are also three distinct divisions, viz., for boys, for girls, and for infants.

The buildings comprise three large schools, and class-rooms, with apartments for two school-masters, two school-mistresses, and for infant school-master and mistress, also for trade-masters, steward, matron, other officers and domestics, with dining-room (capable of containing 600 children), chapel, chaplain's room for examining and instructing the children, board room, work and store rooms, two receiving wards for the retention of

children for 24 hours (or until examined by the Medical Officer), with bath and washing rooms, and rooms adjoining for the baking and deposit of the children's own clothes; also two kitchens, bakery,