Abney Park Chapel - Support and Controversy For The New Approach

Support and Controversy For The New Approach

Endorsement of Hosking's place in architectural history along with the all important guiding hand of his client George Collison, came once the final design was agreed. The foundation stone was laid by none other than Sir Chapman Marshall, Lord Mayor of the City of London in the presence of the Sheriffs of the City and County (although Marshall subsequently chose to be laid to rest in the Anglican catacombs at West Norwood Cemetery.)

Though the purpose of Hosking's masterly orientation and design received considerable praise, there remained some for whom the completed chapel, not being adherent to strict, or 'high' gothic principles, was deemed to be of 'poor design', whilst for others it was said to be 'pretentious' since it appeared to be the first use of the gothic revival style for an unconsecrated chapel in England at a time when the style was being associated with Anglican and Anglo-Catholic ideas. Hosking's critics emanated principally from groups such as the Cambridge 'Ecclesiologists' who were pursuing an Anglican revivalist agenda and favoured particular stylistic approaches and applications. The balanced design worked as planned however, the cemetery attracting Dissenters and Anglicans in roughly equal numbers initially, before it became especially popular with the former. In later years other architects, notably George Gilbert Scott followed Hoskings approach beyond merely copying the past, and began to produce designs in their own personal manner, creating buildings that sometimes mixed elements of the English Gothic style with features other countries and periods; indeed Scott believed a new genre would develop from such an approach. Nor was it many years before the use of the gothic style in its various 'high' and 'low' forms became commonplace in the design of unconsecrated chapels.

Even at the time of its completion, counterbalancing the critics were other 'arbiters of taste' who concluded that Hosking's cemetery design worked exceptionally well; notably John Loudon. Loudon had been critical of the catacombs at Kensal Green as 'bad taste', and had also found the 'pleasure-ground style' at Norwood cemetery objectionable; yet offered only praise for the new principles of cemetery layout, management and design at Abney Park.

Moreover, upon completion of the Abney Park Chapel, William Hosking was offered the post of professor of Art and Construction at King's College, than an avowedly the Anglican establishment. And John Britton, who had co-authored one of Pugin's books promoting gothic revival architecture, was soon to work in partnership with William Hosking to devise a restoration scheme in Bristol for an Anglican church. Thus Hosking could claim to have spanned the inter-denominational divide.