Catholic herald.

A GLIMPSE OF HEAVEN: CATHOLIC CHURCHES OF ENGLAND AND WALES 

By Christopher Martin, with photographs by Alex Ramsay, Swindon: English Heritage. 2006. [pounds sterling]25.00

English and Welsh Roman Catholic churches are undervalued, a truth partly explained by the fact that most are Victorian (an adjective still used pejoratively by many who ought to know better), yet they are often superb works of architecture, beautifully furnished: A. W. N. Pugin's glorious St Giles, Cheadle, Staffordshire (1840-46), is a well-known example, but there are others just as marvellous in their own ways, such as Bentley's Holy Rood, Watford, Hertfordshire (1889-1900); John Earle and J. J. Scoles's St Charles Borromeo, Hull (1828-29 and 1835, with subsequent [1894] embellishments by Smith, Brodrick [not Broderick as in the book], & Lowther), containing an over-the-top Baroque Last Judgement; and Ignatius Scoles & S. J. Nicholl's Italianate St Wilfrid, Preston, Lancashire (1878-80).

Many RC churches rise to the architectural occasion, not least Bellot's wonderful Expressionist-Moorish Quarr Abbey of Our Lady, Ryde, Isle of Wight (1908-12), but there are some little-known beauties, such as Sts Mary and Everilda, Eveningham, Yorkshire (1836-39), by Agostino Giorgioli (not Giorgoli) and John Harper, and St Bartholomew, Rainhill, Lancashire (1836-40) by Joshua Dawson, inspired by Italian, notably Roman, exemplars. However, despite the rich artistic and architectural legacy left by previous generations, an orgy of destructive 're-ordering' was embarked upon after the Second Vatican Council (1961-66) which amounted to aggressive iconoclasm arguably as damaging as that which had occurred during the Protestant Reformation. At the Greek Revival St Francis Xavier, Hereford (1838) by Charles Day, however, the Reverend Michael Evans, son of my former colleague at The Survey of London, the late F. A. Evans, saw through a sensitive restoration of the Classical interior in collaboration with English Heritage. It is a triumph, as is Terry's Cathedral of Sts Mary and Helen, Brentwood, Essex (1989-91), for which the late Cardinal-Archbishop of Westminster thanked God 'for what had been created': the book ends with this latter building.

Written (not always felicitously or accurately) by a television producer, this tome, illustrated with intelligently-composed colour photographs that delight and inspire, is welcome: let us hope it makes RC churches appreciated, not least by philistine clergy who have been among the most zealous destroyers.