Dan Cruickshank gives our eighth annual lecture
Historian and TV presenter Dan Cruickshank presented The Churches Conservation Trust's Annual Lecture - renamed the Candida Lycett Green Lecture this year in honour of our late Vice President Candida Lycett Green - on 15th October at King's College London Chapel, exploring the story of the greatest architectural dynasty of the 19th century; Sir George Gilbert Scott, his son George Junior and grandson Giles.
Drawing inspiration from Cruickshank's 2014 BBC documentary, ‘Dan Cruickshank and the Family That Built Gothic Britain’, the lecture explored the impact of the Gilbert Scott family on Victorian architecture. The Churches Conservation Trust cares for a number of churches which were influenced by the Gilbert Scotts, including All Souls' Haley Hill in Halifax, West Yorkshire, and Holy Trinity at Halstead in Essex.
This year's lecture was held in the Grade I listed chapel at King's College London, in collaboration with King's College London as part of their King's College London Arts & Humanities Festival 2015: Fabrication. The chapel was designed by George Gilbert Scott and completed in 1864. Scott was approached by the college in the 1850s to remodel Sir Robert Smirke’s original 1831 chapel, and developed a scheme seeking to mirror the form and character of an ancient basilica. Despite damage to the roof of the apse and stained glass during the Second World War, the original character of the chapel remains largely intact, and it was beautifully and faithfully restored in 2001.
Pictures © David Tett.