Friday, March 4, 2016

St. Augustine's Church, Wrangthorn

Architect James Barlow Fraser designed the church whose foundation stone was laid in 1869 using the Gothic revival style. It was completed in 1871.


Postcard from 1871


John Fraser commenced the alabaster reredos as a memorial to his wife, but upon his death, it was finished by his children. The center panel consists of a Venetian mosaic of The Last Supper by Salviati, Burke and Co. while figures feeding the poor and healing the sick flank each respective side. The reredos was completed in 1882.


Interior in 1927.



Sources:
"New Buildings and Restorations."  The Architect. December 18, 1869. 304.
"Miscellanea." Reredos, St. Augustine's Church, Wrangthorne, Leeds. The Builder. June 10, 1882. 723.
leodis. A Photographic Archive of Leeds.
Church of St. Augustine at Wrangthorn, Leeds. British Listed Buildings.
"Wrangthorn: St. Augustine of Hippo." A Church Near You.

Friday, February 26, 2016

Hove Town Hall

Built 1880-82 after plans by Alfred Waterhouse, the new Gothic style town hall in Hove was opened in mid-December 1882. It was a two story, red brick building with additional dormers under the steeply pitched roof.


The exterior focal point of the building was the 120 ft tall by 19 ft wide clock tower located in the center of the main front facing Church Road. Salviati and Burke made the mosaics for the tower's four clock faces, which measured seven feet in diameter each.


A fire destroyed much of the building in 1966, and it was subsequently replaced with a more modern town hall.


Sources:
"Hove Town Hall." Hove, Portslade and Brighton in the Past.
Drury, Jennifer. "Hove Town Hall." My Brighton and Hove.
Bell, John. "Morning after the 1966 fire." My Brighton and Hove.
"Tenders and Contracts." The Furniture Gazette. Jan 6, 1883. 13.
"Building Intelligence." The Building News and Engineering Journal. Dec 22, 1882. 794.
Trimingham, Adam. "An Historic Hall." The Argus. July 16, 2012.