Architecture
William Burges adopted a French Gothic style, similar to that popular in the 13th century, for his design for St Michael and All Angels. The exterior is of small, regular blocks of mostly undressed yellow sandstone quarried from the nearby St Leonard's Forest. Bath Stone is also used sparingly as a dressing material. The building has a tower at the southwest corner with a shingled timber spire, a narthex at the western end (with a large rose window in the west face), a vestry on the north side and a chancel and nave. Carved panels surround the rose window, representing the Four Ages of Man. The roofs of the main body of the church are quite steep, and internally are built of pine in an arch formation with tie-beams and supported by king posts. Paired columns mounted on corbels support the chancel arch. Burges was responsible for many of the sculptures and carvings inside the church, and there are some stained glass windows from the 19th and 20th centuries. The east wall has a pair of lancet windows and a small rose window.
Read more about this topic: St Michael And All Angels Church, Lowfield Heath
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“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 (18981936)
“Defaced ruins of architecture and statuary, like the wrinkles of decrepitude of a once beautiful woman, only make one regret that one did not see them when they were enchanting.”
—Horace Walpole (17171797)
“They can do without architecture who have no olives nor wines in the cellar.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)