George Goldie

Paul Waddington looks at some of the churches designed by a most prolific Catholic Architect

George Goldie was born in 1828 in York, the son on the chief physician of the York County Hospital, also called George Goldie. However, the younger George was not to follow his father into the medical profession, but rather to become an architect, like his maternal grandfather. Goldie’s mother, Mary Anne, was the daughter of Giuseppe Bonomi who had emigrated from Italy to work for Robert Adam, the famous designer of English country houses.

Besides his work for Robert Adam, Giuseppe Bonomi was the architect of two Catholic churches in London. His Church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory in Warwick Street, replaced the chapel of the Bavarian Embassy, which was largely destroyed in the Gordon Riots of 1780. Bonomi’s other London Church, was the original St James’ in Spanish Place, which was replaced in the 1930s by the present and much larger St James’ designed by Bonomi’s great grandson Edward Goldie.

George Goldie, the subject of this article, was educated at Ushaw College, where it is possible that he met Augustus Welby Pugin, who was working on the chapel at the time. Aged 17, he began his architectural training in Sheffield with the firm of Weightman and Hadfield, where he later became a partner. Matthew Ellison Hadfield was something of a specialist in Catholic churches, now best known for his cathedrals at Salford and Sheffield. In 1858, Goldie moved to London, where he practised first on his own and later in partnership with Charles Edwin Child. In 1875, Goldie’s son Edward joined the partnership.

Goldie’s first commissions were secular buildings in Sheffield, and his first church was St Patrick’s in Bradford, opened in 1853 and still standing. He also built the presbytery, the adjacent convent, now occupied by the Franciscans of the Renewal, and a school. From then on commissions came thick and fast, with more than 50 Catholic churches, cathedrals and convents to his credit over the next forty years. We can only look at a few of his works.

Cathedral of Immaculate Conception, Sligo

St Ninian’s at Wooler, Northumberland, opened in 1856 and is worth noting. Built of stone, and located in a spacious churchyard, its bell tower, although not high, carries a steep, knife-edge roof topped with decorative ironwork, a feature that was to become almost Goldie’s trademark.

The church of St Mary and St Romuald in Yarm, was opened in 1860. Built of brick with stone dressings, it has the trademark ironwork over the chancel. Of particular note is the most unusual belfry which almost defies description.

St Ninian, Wooler

In 1866, Goldie added a tower to Hansom’s Church of St Edward the Confessor at Clifford in the West Riding. Hansom’s church is a fine edifice, but it is completely dominated by the tower that Goldie somewhat awkwardly attached to the west end. As we shall see, towers were an obsession with Goldie. They are a prominent feature of most of his churches, and if the funds would not run to a tower, he would provide a belfry sufficiently spectacular to make up for the omission.

St Pancras, Ipswich

The church of St Pancras in Ipswich, which dates from 1861, is an exception, no doubt a tower was planned, but it was never executed. Built of brick with rather heavy plate tracery windows in the south aisle, and at clerestory level, the exterior view is anything but elegant. On the other hand, the interior is more impressive. Although essentially neo- Gothic, the building’s alternating bands of coloured brickwork give the church an Italian feeling.

St Wilfrid’s in York is perhaps Goldie’s best known church. In the city of his upbringing, and within the shadow of York Minster, Goldie no doubt tried particularly hard with this church, squeezing a fine building into a very restricted site. Externally, it is dominated by a characteristically Goldie tower with pyramidal slate roof topped by the usual ironwork. Nearer street level, the twin doors are surrounded by extensive stone carvings.

Internally, the height of the nave allows large clerestory windows, which admit plenty of natural light. The sanctuary, which necessarily was smaller than Goldie would have liked, has cramped choir stalls (now reduced in number), a fine High Altar and, at high level, large oil paintings representing the life of Christ.

St Mary & St Augustine, Stamford

The church of St Mary & St Augustine in Stamford, Lincolnshire, along with the adjacent presbytery and school, was built between 1862 and 1865. It consists of a very low nave with a two bay north aisle, apsidal sanctuary, Lady Chapel and porch. To this, Goldie added a quite remarkable multi-tiered campanile, beneath a knife edge roof, and topped with his trademark ironwork. Internally, the church suffers from its lack of height, causing the arches to spring from unnaturally dwarf columns. The church is an unashamed mixture of Gothic and Romanesque, the windows being Gothic and the arches separating nave from side aisle being Romanesque.

Goldie also built churches in Scotland. His Church of St Mungo in Glasgow, built for the Passionists in 1869, was large, cruciform in shape, with a high nave and side aisles. Goldie intended a dominant tower, but only the lower part was built. The stump of the proposed tower now spoils what would have been a nicely composed western frontage, which includes a three arch open porch recessed into the building. The west window incorporates both a statue of St Mungo and a crucifix. Internally, the sanctuary has suffered from excessive reordering.

The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Sligo was one of several churches Goldie built in Ireland. Opened in 1874, and designed to seat 1,400, it is perhaps Goldie’s only church where he was not constrained by the site or the amount of money available. Built of limestone, it is cruciform in shape, with a high roof line, and a 230ft tower at the west end, somewhat similar to the one at St Wilfrid’s in York. Sligo Cathedral is Goldie’s only work predominantly executed in the Norman style, although it has many features that are reminiscent of his other nominally Gothic works.

He designed a marble high altar with brass baldachino, in a spacious sanctuary, containing a lofty bishop’s throne. The sanctuary has been reordered to suit post-Vatican II ideas, but it has to be said that this has been done sensitively, with most of Goldie’s features retained.

Among Goldie’s other works are the Church of Our Lady of Victories in Kensington, which served as the pro-cathedral for the Westminster Diocese before the building of Bentley’s Westminster Cathedral. Unfortunately, it was bombed during World War II, and nothing remains, although it is pleasing that the work of designing the replacement church was given to Goldie’s grandson, Joseph.

St Edward the Confessor, Clifford

George Goldie has not been treated kindly by his critics. Pevsner described St Augustine’s at Stamford as “most crudely detailed”, and Bryan Little, in his book on Catholic Churches, talks about the “forceful ugliness associated with the name George Goldie”. It is certainly true that Goldie favoured a sturdiness in his buildings that almost precluded elegance. On the other hand, he came up with some very imaginative schemes, especially when designing towers and belfries; and succeeded in blending Classical features into his primarily Gothic buildings - something that most architects of his day would not have dared to do.

George Goldie’s son, Edward, and grandson, Joseph, continued the tradition of designing churches into the 1930s. With an architect grandfather and uncle, George Goldie was at the centre of five generations of designers of Catholic Churches.