Pugin's Churches

This article is intended as a companion to ‘Pugin's Small Houses' published here three years ago. It follows the same method, tracing the development of Pugin's ideas about a single building type over the course of his career by way of the most significant examples. It would be impractical to discuss every church, and in assessing significance I have considered how relevant a particular building may be to the overall direction of Pugin's thinking. Some major buildings, such as St Barnabas, Nottingham, are touched on only briefly because little or nothing followed directly from them. By the same token a relatively minor work, such as St Wilfred's Hulme, may in this context be revealing. At times it will be necessary to discuss Pugin's work in other building types.