MR. SHAW'S RECENT IMPROVEMENT IN THE INTERNAL ARCHITECTURE OF CHURCHES.

(WITH AN ENGRAVING.)

WE have felt the subject of the present engraving to be of such importance, as to warrant us in deviating from the course we had marked out for ourselves; which included only the external elevation of the best of the new churches now erecting. The proposition of Mr. Shaw, if generally acceded to, would, it appears to us, remove so great and almost universal a blemish, as to render it,-although nothing more, intrinsically, than a return to an ancient plan-almost tantamount to an invention of the very first importance.

The grand difficulty in the way of all architects of modern times, in Church-building on correct principles, has been, the demand for a great number of sittings.' This requirement, coupled with the necessity for a grinding economy, has rendered galleries almost indispensable and galleries, reconcileable with a good gothic interior, have hitherto been apparently unattainable. The consequence has been, that as the sittings were of necessity to be provided, the consistency of the design has been in most cases given up, and utility' has triumphed over

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taste.

To be properly understood, we will illustrate by a small engraving or two, the real question which we have thus attempted to describe. A correct gothic church interior, will, generally have been of this kind :

Now here we have the original idea, not violated or ruined by the introduction of the modern invention of galleries, which addition never entered the ancient architect's imagination. Next let us see the same kind of interior, ruined, as far as beauty or consistency is concerned, by the thrusting into it the modern invention for stowing away a large number of hearers.

Here we see at a glance,-that is if custom has not so inured us to the excrescence as to blind us to its deformity,-we see how the whole beauty of the design is sacrificed at one stroke, in this violent determination to gain a great number of sittings. To have a well-fitted and well-proportioned coat made by an experienced tailor, and then to sew on to it a large pocket or bag, or pannier, fastened all across the back, merely because such a bag might be an useful thing "to put things in," would not be a more unsightly excrescence. Or, to attempt a closer resemblance, what would be said of the man who raised a splendid Grecian portico to a public building, like that of the General Post Office, and then, on some ground of fancied "utility," fastened, just midway down the columns, a gallery running across the whole !

However, Mr. Shaw has had sufficient experience to know that to abolish the gallery is not to be hoped for. The only rational course therefore was, to discover or conceive a mode, by which such a contrivance for accommodating the public, might be worked into the general plan of the church, without being, as it too often has been of late, a mere excrescence, a palpable violation of the whole tenor of the original design. This he has accomplished in the following manner.

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Clearly, this plan is entirely successful. The object in view is fully attained the amount of accommodation is still preserved, and at the same time, the whole is achieved without any violence done to correct architectural taste.

The last feature in the whole improvement will not be thought, in these days of economy, the least essential. The object is gained; a frightful deformity is got rid of, and all, not only without an increase of the cost, but actually with a reduction of expense. Mr. Shaw estimates the cost of erecting one side of the nave of a church, with the gallery crossing the arches, as on the opposite page, at £314. 3s. 6d. and the cost of the above design, for the same area, at only £254. 1s. 2d.

The general effect of Mr. Shaw's design will be seen in the copperplate engraving; and we need only add, that we hope soon to see a very general adoption of this improvement.