St Peter Gorleston is, the words of Andrew Anderson writing in 1960 for the
Eastern Daily Press, 'a simple
church' with 'plain red brick walls and gables, steep curly tiled roofs with
the neatest flashings, sturdy well-made buttresses, leaden downpipes and large
wooden box gutters with sparrows chirping about.' The tower is 'capped by
slanting gables, cross on top and with a steeply pointed three part window in
each face of the tower.'
Bill Howell, long-time church member and author of the church guide,
explained to me that that is precisely how its designer Eric Gill planned it
should be; 'a plain building done by bricklayers and carpenters' without
recourse to 'mechanical town methods.' All very much in line with Gill's lifelong
belief that workers should be the owners of their own production and not slaves
to the profits of others.
Gill's minimalism extended inside his design as well with his intent being
'no ornaments except perhaps a figure of St Peter on the outside and a large
crucifix hanging over the altar';. 'the choir and the organ, the vestments and
the stained glass windows, the paintings and the statues, all are so much
frippery compared with the altar and the service of the altar' ('Mass for the Masses'). Accordingly, his design began with a centrally located altar and
worked outwards from there using a cruciform plan. In his essay 'Plain
Architecture' he stated that 'a church is there first and chiefly as a canopy
over an altar.' Here the altar was 'placed centrally beneath the tower, which
was supported on crossing arches; arches are used throughout the church, with
little or no lintels spanning doors or windows.' 'Arcades and porch too are arches
springing directly from the sub-floor, not supported on piers as is usual in
churches' (Church Guide).
What arches they are too! 'Striding about the place,' as Anderson
evocatively puts it, intersecting centrally in pleasing geometric interlacings
to create the 'roomy space' needed for the altar and to bear on their shoulder
the light well that is the tower. Rightly all in white, they remind the viewer
of Antoni Gaudi's use of parabolic and catenary arches, particularly at the
School of the Teresianas. Gill, despite his own architectural training in the
office of W.D. Caröe from 1899 - 1903 and the support of High Wycombe architect
Edmund Farrell, must have had concerns regarding the viability of these arches.
During one visit he asked the builders to leave the wooden arch supports in
place for longer to ensure they had set. When Gill left, the supports were immediately
removed without any ill effect.
Gill was asked to undertake the design by his friend Fr. Thomas Walker, who
he had got to know in High Wycombe. Gill had moved to Piggotts, near High
Wycombe, in 1928: ‘Here he aimed to create a ‘cell of good living’ – a
community centred on home and chapel, workshops, farm and a little school on
the top of a Chiltern hill. Here he attracted followers: his apprentices,
included David Kindersley, sculptor and engraver (and father of Peter Kindersley, co-founder of Dorling-Kindersley, the publishers); the Cribbs and
Anthony Foster. Visiting friends included G.K. Chesterton, Stanley Spencer, David Jones and Peter Kapista. Amongst the best known work Gill produced at Piggotts
are the figures of Prospero and Ariel on the front façade of the BBC in London
(1932); the vast ‘Creation of Adam’ sculpture at the League of Nations building
in Geneva (1938); and the large-scale East Wind sculpture that hovers over St
James's Underground station’.
Walker had become parish priest to a congregation at Gorleston which had
outgrown their original building, a converted malthouse. For Gill this was an
opportunity to put his practical and theological ideas about church, which were
ahead of their time, into bricks and mortar. Prior to Vatican II, St Peter's
was only the second Roman Catholic Church in the country to have a central
altar. We can imagine Gill’s excitement at the opportunity as he wrote to his
friend George Carey, 'no sooner was the essay ('Mass for the Masses') published
then I got a real job, to build a real church with a central altar and all.'
The radical minimalism and focus of Gill's design has been too much for the
parish as a whole and some subsequent priests to manage. As he showed me around
Bill sadly recounted a litany of changes made over the years to Gill's original
design (some thankfully rectified) including the turning of the altar, raising
of the crucifix, over painting of the tower mural, introduction of stained
glass, hanging of a baldachin, and more. Some of the changes have been done
sensitively and by using colleagues of Gill such as Denis Tegetmeier and Joseph Edward Nuttgens, while others were, as Howells makes scathingly clear in the
Church Guide, simply crass. The church is now Grade II listed and, while Bill
complains about the levels of bureaucracy this involves, the building is
protected against the vagaries of individuals exercising their own personal and
subjective 'good' taste.
Gill designed the rood, piscina, font, altars and holy water stoups. These
were all made in his workshop. The foundation stone and altar inscription are
good examples of Gill's lettering. Gill also designed the Entry into Jerusalem
mural for the spandrel of the east arch and the low relief carving of St Peter
casting his net for the porch. His son in law Tegetmeier painted the mural,
while Anthony Foster carved St Peter. Tegetmeier also contributed a set of excellent
and original 'Stations of the Cross' in 1962. The stained glass window designed
by Nuttgens and representing Christ the King was installed in 1963. While a
strong piece of work in its own right, its placement in this building goes
counter to Gill's plain design with the window literally obscured by the focus
on the central altar and its low slung crucifix.
Malcolm Yorke writes in 'Man of Flesh and Spirit' that today this church
seems less remarkable then it once did but that, he concludes, 'is probably a
tribute to Gill whose ideas on liturgy and plain architecture have come into
their own.' Bill Howells notes several statements to do with more contemporary
churches of which Gill would probably have approved. Cardinal Heenan writing
about the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King in Liverpool suggested that
the 'attention of all who enter should be arrested and held by the altar.' That
was because Sir Frederick Gibberd, the architect, realised the brief he was
given, 'not to draw attention to the cathedral's own beauty; it was there to
shelter the High Altar, which was to be the main focus.'
Gill, sadly, did not
live to see these ideas take hold; he died of cancer two after the completion
of St Peter's. He would have been rather less enamoured of the difficulties
that the parish currently face in maintaining this splendid and significant
sacred space.
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Moby - Hymn.
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