H.L. North was an architect so little known in 1980 that the research aimed at first to establish the nature and quality of his work before proceeding to locate him historically. The historical picture which was constructed, and which is described here, was the main achievement of the work undertaken. North was thirty in 1901. His spheres of architectural achievement are in the movements of that time: the arts and crafts cottage house, the arts and crafts church, and the school of Anglo-Catholic church furnishing founded by Ninian Comper. As part of his personal idiom for the cottage house, Gothic tone and character set him apart. His churches (and private chapels) were built late, and renounce his early designs of a more detailed and familiar Gothic type for a forceful structural simplicity which aligns him with \aI.R. Lethaby and E.S. Prior. In church furnishing he made original use of the example of Comper throughout his life, and installed what was probably the first 3nglish altar in \-lalesas early as 1903. The output of North's country practice was modest, and almost all of it was imbued in some way with Gothic character. He was not a church architect who also built houses. He was a Gothic architect both in his own estimation and in almost all aspects of his work. This gives him a special position in the history of architecture in Britain in the early t\ofentieth century. In Wales, North was the leading figure in his day in the development of the taste for old Welsh building, as described in chapters twelve and thirteen, which are located so that this aspect of his achievements can be met with subsequent to the account of his architectural career. There was no arts and crafts movement in ,.,Tales.North's role in his house work there was to assimilate continuing vernacular methods of construction to the advanced idiom he had started to learn with Lutyens. His success gave him the false reputation with posterity of actually being the leader of the arts and crafts movement in \o/ales. His real significance is better seen at a less provincial level. It shows him conspicuous as a Goth with a particular feeling for what he called early Pointed, and with a corresponding economical style, at a time when the Gothic revival had been repudiated, and when classical and neo-Georgian were becoming increasingly the idioms of the day.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:250293 |
| Date | January 1988 |
| Creators | Allan, Ian B. |
| Publisher | University of Liverpool |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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