The never-before-seen, 70-year-old photographs of Pugin's Bishop's House that Parliament destroyed to make room for a ring road
Melanie Bryan tells the tale of a Gothic Revival bishop's residence in Birmingham that lives on only in the Country Life Archive.
If you ever find yourself stuck in a jam on Queensway — Birmingham’s inner ring road — spare a thought for a) the most influential designer of the Gothic Revival movement, b) pop star Cher, and c) a long-lost architectural gem.
The story starts in 1838: Queen Victoria had been on the throne just a year when Bishop Thomas Walsh decided to commission a brand new Catholic Cathedral — the first structure of its kind to be built in Britain since Henry VIII’s Reformation. The man charged with bringing this vision to life was Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin.
Pugin was a lover of all things medieval. His devotion and promotion of the Gothic Revival movement saw him design hundreds of buildings and their interiors, many of which inspire awe to this very day. The most iconic are the interiors of the Houses of Commons and Lords, and Elizabeth Tower, known more affectionally as Big Ben. All of which had the central missive of being beautiful, but always useful. Frippery, in Pugin’s book, was not to be indulged.
The Bishop’s House and the corner of St Chad’s Cathedral.
Progress in Birmingham was swift. The cornerstone of St Chad’s Cathedral was laid in November 1839. By June 1841, the building had been consecrated. Over the road, Pugin concentrated his talents into his first attempt at marrying his beloved, Gothic style and domestic ecclesiastical architecture. The result was the magnificent Bishop’s House.
The architect firmly believed the property should project the same magnificence as the church, but should absolutely not copy the 'violent… drawing-room of an Anglo-Protestant prebendary, with its piano, nick-nacks, mirrors and ottomans!'
The main house was entered through a a small cloister on Bath Street. Inside, there were, among other rooms, private chambers for the bishop and each of his priests, a private chapel, a grand hall or dining room capable of seating 60, and eight 'cells' for visiting guests.
The magnificent dining hall, complete with its decorated ceiling and numerous Pugin-designed ‘Glastonbury’ chairs.
Pugin’s stone fireplace in the Bishop’s House's hall. The arch is divided by three quatrefoils featuring the arms of St. Chad, Bishop Walsh, and Bishop Wiseman, surmounted by gilt mitres. This fireplace now belongs to the V&S, albeit in five pieces.
Pugin papered the inside with handmade wallpaper and elaborate encaustic tiles hand made at Mintons, and decorated with heraldic shields, beasts and fleur-de-lys. He designed light fittings, chairs and even a fire surround shaped like a bishop’s mitre.
Somehow, the house and cathedral made it through the First and Second World Wars, largely unscathed, despite the a bomb falling through the roof of the latter. The explosive bounced across the floor and hit a central heating pipe which, in turn, flooded the floor and extinguished any flames.
However, the bishop's house's luck ran out shortly afterwards. In 1941, Birmingham's city engineer and surveyor, Herbert Manzoni, who believed that the city's buildings held 'little of real worth in our architecture', was busy reimagining things. His plans required the wholesale destruction of vast swathes of Georgian and Victorian buildings and the construction of tower blocks and motorways, including three new-fangled ring roads.
Pugin placed a statue of Saint Chad standing on an angel corbel in a corner niche of the house.
In 1946, lawmakers passed an Act of Parliament approving Manzoni’s ambitious plans and objections fell on deaf ears. The Catholic church was told that if they foot the bill for rerouting the ring road in whose line the Bishop's House now stood, it would be spared. Unfortunately, they were unable to take on the mammoth expense and the house was sold to the council for £44,000.
Country Life was invited to record the exterior and some of the interiors before the bulldozers were called in — though the majority of photographs remain unpublished, until now.
On April 29, 1960, the magazine published an article about the discovery of a first edition of the Old Testament, printed at the English College in Douai, during the demolition. It was taken, along with the house's library to the St Chad’s crypt for safekeeping.
Other items saved from the wrecking ball include two Glastonbury chairs produced to Pugin’s designs by George Myers and a fireplace, which both now reside at V&A Storehouse in East London. A Gothic Revival brass hexafoil corona light also survived the wrecking ball and somehow turned up in Malibu in California, where it dangled from the ceiling of Cher's beachside mansion. In 2009, it sold at auction with Bonham's.
And as for St Chad’s Cathedral? It is marooned on an 'island' in the middle of Queensway, but instead of Bishop's House, it now looks onto nine lanes of traffic, an unremarkable hotel and an NCP car park.
Pugin once said that 'in pure architecture the smallest detail should have a meaning or serve a purpose.' While the road might have some purpose, it arguably has little meaning. If he could speak now, he'd surely borrow Cher's words: 'If I Could Turn Back Time'.
The Country Life Image Archive contains more than 150,000 images documenting British culture and heritage, from 1897 to the present day. To search and purchase images directly from the Image Archive, please register here.
