No. 9 December 2001
The authoritative source
on
early churches in New Jersey
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Feature
of the month
Less is more: the
influence of St.
James the Less
Tracing
one's roots is no less fascinating in intellectual or artistic history
as in genealogy, although the records one examines are of a different
order. Where did this idea, be it a 
musical
tradition, philosophical orientation, scientific inquiry, or style of
architecture, first show up and how did it spread? What are its central
themes and variations? In an earlier issue we looked at the rise of Gothic
Revival in American religious architecture, and this month we'll revisit
that period, focusing on one of the most important churches in the country,
one just across the river in Philadelphia.
The
ultimate roots of one stream of Gothic Revival lie across the Atlantic,
in England, so let's begin in Cambridge in the early 1840s, when a group
of English churchmen decided to influence Anglican church building in
"the colonies," by making available measured drawings of specific
English parish churches, mostly built in the 14th century. They did so
largely in reaction to what they perceived as a growing secularism in
the Anglican church, exemplified by the widespread use of Greek Revival,
and to a lesser extent, the fanciful medievalism of some architecture
of the 1830s (see St. Michael's
church, Trenton), with its octagonal towers, crenellated parapets and
applied ornaments above pointed windows.
In 1843,
a leader in the Episcopal church in this country asked friends in the
Cambridge Camden Society to help him obtain plans for a simple church
in co
rrect
ecclesiological taste, which might be used as a pattern for small, impecunious
parishes that were springing up in the US. He was sent plans and drawings
of St. Michael's, in Long Stanton, Cambridgeshire, built about 1230, and
those designs were used in the construction of St. James the Less, located
near Laurel Hill cemetery in Philadelphia. Although American architect
William Notman is occasionally credited with the design, probably because
he had a hand in design of the cemetery, the actual drawings were probably
prepared by one G.G. Place and revised by William Butterfield, the official
designer for the Camden Society.
Notice
particularly the bell cote, the pronounced westfront with the strong vertical
buttresses and flared corner buttresses, the south entrance, and the steep
slope to the roof, features that we will see repeated in Episcopal churches,
and even in some Presbyterian and Catholic ones, during the next several
decades. The Anglican church was especially concerned that the chancel
be separate from the nave, and that it be well-proportioned, meaning deep.
St. James the Less "was a careful and expensive reproduction of a
medieval model, [and] it established the authority of the English parish
church styles which had been tentatively introduced by [New Jersey Bishop
George Washington] Doane."
While St.
James was going up, architect Richard Upjohn was building St. Mary's church
across the river in Burlington. Certainly he visited St. James several
times, for there is a remarkable change in his 
style
that dates to that period. "The parish churches that emerged from
Upjohn's office after 1847 provide ample evidence that he knew St James
the Less. The proportions and the relationships between the parts of a
building and the feeling for materials in his work change abruptly in
1847 and 1848." And it was Upjohn, who designed several churches
in this state, who was largely responsible for the popularity of Gothic
Revival for smaller churches.
Only
three years later we see one of Upjohn's smallestchurches in the state,
built to the basic design of St. James. Matawan's Trinity
Church was built in 1850; it "repeats, in brick and brownstone,
[St James'] bellcote, buttressed west front, and intimate scale."
Although it now serves as a restaurant, even the interior has been reasonably
well preserved.
Christ Church,
in Elizabeth (often cited as one of the finest Gothic Revival churches
in the country, but now torn down) was designed and built by Upjohn in
1853; its front bears unmistakable resemblance to
St. James. Woodbury's Christ Church,
erected in 1856 in Salem county, also bears a strong resemblance to St.
James, as does a German Lutheran church in Camden, built in 1857.
Trinity
Church, Woodbridge, organized c 1698, erected this building in 1860
after the second one burned. Tradition has it that Richard Upjohn designed
the church, although the architect on the site was Harrison Condit of
Newark. The interior bears few marks of Upjohn's style, but the plan and
exterior are certainly similar. Upjohn often made his plans available
for a modest fee, or none, which may then have been revised and carried
out by local architect/builders.
In 1867,
a Presbyterian congregation in Stockton
(Hunterdon)
erected this stone building that owes much to Upjohn, and more than a
decade later, two Catholic churches, one in Bound
Brook (Somerset) and another in Boonton
(Morris), erected churches that owe a 
similar
debt. There are dozens of churches across the county whose lineage can
be traced back through Upjohn to St. James and ultimately to St. Michael's,
including another I just learned about in Toronto that was built in 1858
by an important Canadian architect from plans supplied by the Cambridge
Camden Society.
The important aspect of St. James, according to knowledgeable critics, is not simply the general design, but the feeling for the materials and the articulation of ornament and scale. The careful and expensive reproduction of a medieval model represented by St. James established the authority of English parish church styles. Let us therefore be grateful for Less.
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© 2001 Frank L. Greenagel