Architecture
The architecture of St Mary's is varied as the church has been renovated and rebuilt many times, but the basic layout is that of a cruciform, with north/south aisles and many chapels and extensions in various directions heading off the main church. The total length of the church is 53 m (174 ft), the total width is 17 m (57 ft), and the height is 27 m (90 ft). The outside of the church is clad in a distinctive flint and stone chequer, which makes the church stand out in the town.
The graveyard in the direct vicinity of the church is no longer used, but a cemetery that covers most of St Anne's hill, the Luton Church Cemetery, is about a mile from the church, heading up to Crawley Green.
Read more about this topic: St Mary's Church, Luton
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extrahuman architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish. At first glance, the rhythm may be confused with gaiety, but when you look more closely at the mechanism of social life and the painful slavery of both men and machines, you see that it is nothing but a kind of typical, empty anguish that makes even crime and gangs forgivable means of escape.”
—Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)