The Georgian Parish Church: 'Monuments to Posterity': M.H. Port welcomes a fundamental contribution to the study of Georgian church architecture

Apollo, Oct, 2004 by M.H. Port

The tiny unadorned church of Binley, near Combe Abbey, Warwickshire, possesses a Classical simplicity. Designed probably by Lancelot 'Capability' Brown or Henry Couchman (or both together), it contains elements from Lord Burlington's 1730 publication of Palladio's drawings of antique Roman baths. Nicholas Revett's neo-classical purity at Ayot St Lawrence, the earliest British church with a Greek Doric temple front, however, is primarily that of Greece. At once church, family mortuary chapel and eye-catcher, St Lawrence displays unconventional handling of 'impeccable Grecian sources'. But the interior employs Roman features, also exhibited externally in the short transepts: 'a daring originality hardly ever seen elsewhere in Greek Revival church architecture'.

David Stephenson's All Saints, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1786-96), marks the prosperity of an expanding provincial capital. Probably based on Rome's Pantheon, Stephenson's original design was transformed by an 'imaginative rethinking' of Gibbs's 'round church' plan, embodying 'carefully worked out if Picturesque relationships between individual elements and their particular functions'.

In this impressive book, splendidly illustrated by photographs (many in colour, by the author) and contemporary engravings, Friedman displays his ability to uncover in these churches features of serious significance, passed by unwittingly by earlier writers, that make them of national interest. This is a fundamental contribution to the study of Anglican church architecture of the Georgian age.

For information about stockists, or to order a copy, contact Spire Books, 44 (0) 1189 471525, www.spirebooks.com

M.H. Port, emeritus professor of modern history, Queen Mary College, University of London, is author of Imperial London (1995), and has just completed a revision of his Six Hundred New Churches (1961), to be published early next year.