Richard Fawcett

Exploring canons & cathedrals with Open Virtual Worlds: The recreation of St Andrews Cathedral, St Andrews day, 1318

St Andrews Cathedral is located on the East Coast of Scotland. Construction started in 1160 and spanned Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles. It was consecrated in 1318, four years after the battle of Bannockburn in the presence of King Robert I. For several hundred years, the Cathedral was one of the most important religious buildings in Europe and the centre of religious life in Scotland. During the Reformation, John Knox himself lead reformers in divesting the Cathedral of all its finery. Thereafter it fell into disuse and decline. Today the remains hint at its former glory. Here the use of Open Virtual Worlds (OVW) to support new modes of engagement with cultural heritage is presented through the example of St Andrews Cathedral. Open Virtual Worlds offer an extensible collaborative environment for developing historical scenes against which background material and intangible aspects of cultural heritage associated with a site may be explored. They offer the potential to reconstruct within a 3D computer environment both the physical structures of the past and important aspects of the lighting, sounds and lifestyles that once existed within those structures. Bringing together architecture, sculpture, illumination, stained-glass, music, procession and lighting into a scene, which can be explored from multiple spatial perspectives enables holistic appreciations to be developed.

SCOTTISH MEDIEVAL PARISH CHURCHES: THE EVIDENCE FROM THE DIOCESES OF DUNBLANE AND DUNKELD

Abstract The great majority of Scottish parish churches owe their present appearance to reconstructions carried out from the later eighteenth or nineteenth centuries. It was the view of the authors of this paper, however, that in many cases those reconstructions had been relatively superficial, and that medieval work might have survived under what could, in some cases, be little more than a modern veneer. To test this view, a survey was carried out of all medieval parish sites within the dioceses of Dunblane and Dunkeld. The findings from that survey are summarized in this paper. Résumé La grande majorité des églises paroissiales écossaises doivent leur aspect actuel à des reconstructions effectuées à partir de la fin du dix-huitième siècle ou au dix-neuvième siècle. Les auteurs de cette communication estiment néanmoins que, dans de nombreux cas, ces reconstructions auraient été relativement superficielles, et que l’œuvre médiévale aurait pu survivre sous ce qui n’était peut-être guère, dans certains cas, qu’un vernis moderne. Afin de mettre cette opinion à l’épreuve, fut entreprise une enquête sur tous les sites paroissiaux médiévaux dans les diocèses de Dunblane et de Dunkeld. Le résumé des résultats de cette enquête se trouve dans cette communication. Zusammenfassung Die meisten schottischen Pfarrkirchen verdanken ihr Aussehen den Renovierungsarbeiten, die ab dem späten achtzehnten oder neunzehnten Jahrhundert durchgeführt wurden. Der Autor dieser Abhandlung ist allerdings der Meinung, daß diese Restaurationen in vielen Fällen relativ oberflächlich ausgeführt wurden und mittelalterliche Arbeiten under den modernen Fassaden erhalten sind. Um diese These zu testen, wurde eine Bestandsaufnahme aller mittelalterlichen Pfarrkirchen in den Bistümern von Dunblane und Dunkeld durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse dieser Bestandsaufnahme sind in dieser Abhandlung zusammengefasst.

St. Mary at Wiveton in Norfolk, and a Group of Churches Attributed to its Mason

A number of ecclesiastical buildings in Norfolk and northern Suffolk show a common repertoire of distinctively elaborated mouldings, which in several cases involves such precise repetition of formations that the same templates must have been used repeatedly. On the evidence of the mouldings, and of other detailed similarities between the buildings, it is argued that they may all be seen as the work of the same designing mason, and the documentation suggests that his active career was centred on the second quarter of the fifteenth century. The range of his personal manner of design in parochial churches is best seen at Wiveton, near the north coast, but he was also able to work on a more expanded scale, as in the Erpingham Gate into Norwich Cathedral close; the connecting link between the two scales of his work is to be found in the parochial west tower of Wymondham abbey.

The Border Towers of Scotland 2: their evolution and architecture. By Alastair M T Maxwell-Irving. 300mm. Pp x+484, 1,650+b&w and col ills. Published by the author, Blairlogie, 2014.isbn 9781907931376. £55+p&p (hbk).

affair that befitted the prince-bishops of this episcopate. Built between 1362 and 1381, the throne was erected on a platform that stands over the tomb of Bishop Hatfield. This arrangement perhaps encouraged a later bishop of Durham, Richard Fox, to build his chantry chapel above his tomb in a like manner at Winchester where he was translated fromDurham in 1501. A particular feature of the book is the presence of many excellent drawings by Peter Ferguson, who for so long has collaborated with Hugh Harrison, the renowned timber conservationist. Their examination of both the Exeter and St Davids thrones will, for many, be key chapters in this book. It may be noted that several of Ferguson’s drawings have been provided as tip-ins, printed on double-width pages, thus allowing the provision of larger scale drawings and enabling the reader to gain a true measure of the spectacular level of the work involved in the making of these pieces of furniture. The Exeter throne was presumably arranged en suite with the choir stalls, although these have long since been lost, but, miraculously, the misericords have survived, having been reused again and again. In an addendum to the description of theHereford throne, Tracy opines that ‘at Exeter Bishop Stapeldon’s relatively modest stalls were designed and built by a different team of craftsmen up to a decade earlier than the far more ambitious throne’ (p 86). The accounts tell us that during the Christmas term of 1309–10 Master John de Glaston worked for fourteen weeks removing the stalls, at a rate of 3s 9d per week. Audrey Erskine reckoned that this recorded the movement of pre-existing stalls into the new choir. Stapeldon was installed as bishop in 1308, which further suggests the stalls were much older, with the surviving misericords suggesting a thirteenth-century date. Tracy provides all the relevant passages from Erskine’s transcripts, both for the throne and for works concerning the high altar, in two appendices. Whilst welcome, and thereby providing a fully rounded volume, precise references to Erskine’s two volumes would have been helpful. This, however, is a small quibble, for the volume is a major step forward in our understanding and appreciation of medieval craftsmanship, and many will want to add this excellent volume to their collection.

Westminster Abbey: The Lady Chapel of Henry VII . Edited by Tim Tatton-Brown and Richard Mortimer. 250mm. Pp xiv + 366, 45 b&w figs, 54 b&w pls, 8 col pls. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003. ISBN 184383037X. £50 (hdbk).

drawings in brown ink on parchment were probably executed in 1483-4 for Richards daughter, Anne Beauchamp, countess of Warwick. The last facsimile edition was edited by Viscount Dillon and W H St John Hope in 1914. Copies of this are rare and expensive, so this new facsimile is welcome. Dr Sinclairs introduction contains a useful insight into the probable reasons for the production of the Pageant, including the origin of the still unknown artist. She analyses the reasons for the possible commissioning of the Pageant, and offers a new biography of Richard Beauchamp. The illustrations, however, are of course the reason why anyone might wish to acquire a copy, and Dr Sinclair has offered a commentary on each one. This is the first facsimile of the Pageant in colour, but some images appear faint, and some fine detail seems lost. Indeed by comparison one finds that some images are clearer in the 1914 edition.

Robert Reid and the Early Involvement of the State in the Care of Scottish Ecclesiastical Buildings and Sites

As a result of the Act of Annexation of 1587, and the removal of bishops from the Scottish church in 1689, the Crown in Scotland incidentally acquired ownership of a large number of monastic and cathedral churches. By the late eighteenth century, as interest in medieval architecture grew, occasional grants were made towards their maintenance; but between 1827 and 1839, when a Scottish Office of Works was established under the architect Robert Reid, major efforts began to be made to stabilise considerable numbers of those buildings. The approaches to this work are of interest for what they tell us about emerging attitudes to architectural conservation.