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Communion Table.

is the effect of the architects' and ladies' established modern altar-cloth, a shape which no genuine tablecloth in the world ever had. Some tables are actually made as boxes, as you may see on week-days when their garments are tucked up, obviously in order that they may be as unlike tables as they can within the letter of the law. By way of unconscious rebuke to this absurdity one sometimes sees over them a copy of some famous picture, or a carving, of the original institution of the Lord's Supper at an ordinary table covered with a common table-cloth, with the corners hanging down naturally, which looks much better.

The most convenient height for the Table is 3 feet, and it need never be more than that width, and in small churches may be less. The length may be anything from 5 to 10 feet, according to the width of the chancel. We may say it should be nearer to a third than anything else, except in chancels of unusual width, for which that would be too much. Nothing requires more care in making than an oak table top. If you mean it to stand without cracking, it must on no account have ends mitred in, and must be screwed to the frame so that it can expand and contract with the inevitable variations of damp and dryness. I believe 99 out of 100 of them are cracked at the joints of the boards.

Metal work. Some architects have a passion for introducing as much brass work into churches as people will allow or cannot help. Coal-smoke is utterly fatal to brass, especially where it is so little attended to and cleaned as it is sure to be in churches. have reason to know this both from clock-making and church-building. I have seen the thin brass work of a clock in a London tower completely rotted in ten

I

Decay of Brass.

289

years, so that it fell to pieces when dropped on a table, and thin tubes fell from their own weight; and every town now is only a greater or less approximation to London in smokiness. Neither is modern brass or copper at all the same thing as the old metals, as I know from other tests. All the brass screens, rails, 'gaseliers,' gates, pulpit desks, and other things which our architects have been making people pay great sums for in the last 20 years will have perished superficially at least in 20 more. The gas standards of brass in Doncaster church are utterly spoilt already, though they are not yet 20 years old, and the Doncaster atmosphere is pure compared with many others, though far from what it was before the railways came. Iron is infinitely better whenever metal must be used; because it visibly cries out for paint, becoming too ugly to be tolerated when rusty; and moreover it only rusts externally, and much more slowly (inside a building) than brass, which decays right through. I have found brass wire laid by for some years even in non-smoky places become quite brittle, though not visibly decayed; and that is not the case with iron even when rusty.

A great deal of modern ornamental metal work is miserably flimsy and weak, under pretence of being particularly strong and 'real' and superior to cast metal. If the old builders and artists had possessed the scientific knowledge that we do we may be sure they would have produced artistic and beautiful results with cast metal, instead of talking nonsense about its being impossible; and at any rate their wrought metal work was sound and stiff, and not liable to be pulled to pieces or twisted out of shape even by cleaning.

Seats or pews (for I know of no constructional difference between them) are generally made a few

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290

conviction.

Shape of Church seats.

inches too low in the back. They should certainly not be less than 34 in. and are more comfortable 36. It is at last generally conceded that sloping backs give more room, but it took a long time to produce that And architects will not learn yet, nor many clergymen, that closing up the space under the seat completely makes the pews practically 3 or 4 inches narrower than if they are open for a few inches above the floor. If the board is put forward, as it is sometimes, it prevents kneeling and also leaves no room for hats, which must go somewhere. If they are entirely open, hassocks become feræ naturæ or common property, instead of the proper number of them remaining in each pew. The best plan is to have a strong rail about 4 × 2 in. running all along the back of the 'standards' under the seats, just enough above the floor to let people's toes go under it. Seats are now generally made to slope a little upwards towards the front edge, which really is a valuable modern improvement, or rather revival of some of the old stalls, which were comfortable enough both in this respect and in their sloping backs, though sometimes spoilt by a stupid projection which catches your neck, just as many modern chairs assume that people are convex at the back, instead of flat, as they at any rate ought to be.

The best height for the front edge of seats is 17 inches from the floor. It is a great mistake to cover them with thick cushions; persons who want some covering had better have those woollen mats which are made for this purpose, and for altar steps, by French of Bolton, and I dare say other makers of church furniture and surplices, &c. : but so far as I have seen, his are generally the best. Kneeling boards of any kind are very inferior to hassocks. I have said

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Finishing of Wood work.

291

before with regard to oak in general, but it applies specially to church work, that the common practice of rubbing it with wax is fatal to its proper effect for many years, i.e. until it has all worn off or got destroyed by the air. Varnishing is worse, and is generally given up on oak, though still too often used on deal. Oiling spoils it altogether, but there is no harm in slight staining of deal. The chisel marks of any kind of carving or ornamentation should be left. Patience is the only finishing that oak fittings want, or stone either, as I said before; but the usual idea is to smarten up everything for the consecration and the newspapers, and to care nothing for what may happen afterwards. See also what is said at p. 94, about the bevels or chamfers of seat ends.

Somebody invented an absurd plan of prolonging the seats backwards into the next pew to form a ledge for books nominally, but really to knock your shins against, instead of putting a book board in the proper place near the top; and it found great favour with the high church clergy and their architects, and was published as the only right plan of seat making. They fancied that persons kneeling in such pews, without a book board for their arms to rest on, would drive those in front of them to kneel also; but in time they found out that the effect is just the contrary, and that an obstinate sitter has much the best of it and prevents any one from kneeling behind him in a pew of that

construction.

Church Restoration is an architectural business peculiar to this age. In old times churches were restored' by pulling them down and building up others, almost always quite different, because in the fixed style of the rebuilding age. That cannot be done

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Church Restoration.

now, for the simple reason that there is no style of the age, and nobody avows the intention of restoring in his own style. But it would be amusing if it were not lamentable, to contrast the architects' disavowals of that intention with their frequent practice. Here is such a declaration from an architect of almost the largest practice, in a printed letter respecting a particular church: I wish to say in a few words what I mean by the word Restoration in connexion with such a building. I wish to confine the work, which I should do in it in the most vigorous manner (remember what I said of that phrase at p. 97), to preserving the old work and exhibiting it with as little alteration or addition as possible of any features which are at all conjectural. I do not at all agree with church restorers who allow their work to be seen all over the face of an old building.'

Nothing can be more admirable than all this, except the 'vigorous' nonsense; but I am sorry to be obliged to add that I have seen not one restoration by the propounder of these admirable principles in which he has not allowed his own work to be most conspicuous all over the face of the building,' not certainly in adding any features which were at all conjectural, in the sense that anybody could conjecture that they were ever designed by a genuine Gothic builder of any style or period. And the same may be said of most of the architects of that school especially. Fortunately most of our cathedrals and great churches have fallen into other hands. I have indeed heard and seen in newspapers unnecessary destructiveness attributed to our greatest church-restorer; and for what I know, in some cases it may have been justly. hand I do know that some of such

But on the other charges have been