The Bishop's House in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

was designed by

Augustus Pugin Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin ( ; 1 March 181214 September 1852) was an English architect, designer, artist and critic with French and, ultimately, Swiss origins. He is principally remembered for his pioneering role in the Gothic Revival st ...

as the residence of Thomas Walsh, the first

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

Bishop of Birmingham A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

. It was situated opposite St Chad's Cathedral, on the corner of Bath Street and Weaman Street in

Birmingham City Centre Birmingham City Centre, also known as Central Birmingham and often known locally as town, is the central business district of Birmingham, England. Following the removal of the Inner Ring Road, the city centre is now defined as being the area wi ...

. A building of exceptional originality and adventurousness, it was Pugin's first attempt to adapt his

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

architectural style to form an urban architectural language, and it would become the most influential of all his architectural works. Its influence would be important in the development of the Ruskinian

High Victorian Gothic High Victorian Gothic was an eclectic architectural style and movement during the mid-late 19th century. It is seen by architectural historians as either a sub-style of the broader Gothic Revival style, or a separate style in its own right. Prom ...

pioneered by

William Butterfield William Butterfield (7 September 1814 – 23 February 1900) was a Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement (or Tractarian Movement). He is noted for his use of polychromy. Biography William Butterfield was born in Lon ...

All Saints, Margaret Street All Saints, Margaret Street, is a Grade I listed Anglo-Catholic church in London. The church was designed by the architect William Butterfield and built between 1850 and 1859. It has been hailed as Butterfield's masterpiece and a pioneering buil ...

; its simple use of traditional materials saw the first emergence of the design philosophy that would later lead to

Philip Webb Philip Speakman Webb (12 January 1831 – 17 April 1915) was a British architect and designer sometimes called the Father of Arts and Crafts Architecture. His use of vernacular architecture demonstrated his commitment to "the art of common ...

's Red House and the origins of the Arts and Crafts Movement; and its functionalism marked the birth of the tradition of rational construction in architecture that was to dominate the

modernist architecture Modern architecture, or modernist architecture, was an architectural movement or architectural style based upon new and innovative technologies of construction, particularly the use of glass, steel, and reinforced concrete; the idea that form ...

of the 20th century. The house was designed in late 1840, with its overall arrangement being based on the courtyard houses of northern France, but with a strikingly original internal layout, taking a spiral route from the building's front door, all the way round all four sides of the building to the great hall, which was immediately above the main entrance to the right. Its elevations were "sheer, austere and disciplined" with little decoration apart from stone dressings and small areas of patterned

brickwork Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called '' courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by s ...

. Pugin emphasised the buildings functionalism, noting "that convenience has dictated the design, and that the elevation has been left in that natural irregularity produced by the internal requirements to which we owe the picturesque effect of the ancient buildings." The quality of its brickwork was unprecedented in England at the time. The house's furniture was also designed by Pugin and was based on surviving mediaeval originals from the Bishop's Palace in Wells. The house was demolished in 1959, after Birmingham City Engineer

Herbert Manzoni Sir Herbert John Baptista Manzoni CBE MICE (21 March 1899 – 18 November 1972) was a British civil engineer known for holding the position of City Engineer and Surveyor of Birmingham from 1935 until 1963. This position put him in charge of al ...

demanded that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Birmingham pay for any alterations to the city's inner ring road scheme that would be required to avoid the building's demolition. The chimneypiece and two chairs from the Bishop's House are now held in the collection of the

Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.27 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and nam ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Coord, 52.48503, -1.89820, type:landmark_region:GB-BIR, display=title Augustus Pugin buildings Houses in Birmingham, West Midlands Demolished buildings and structures in the West Midlands (county) Buildings and structures demolished in 1959