0:00:04 > 0:00:08He's a great Briton honoured on a first-class stamp,
0:00:08 > 0:00:10as designer of the Clock Tower
0:00:10 > 0:00:13and interiors of the Houses of Parliament.
0:00:13 > 0:00:17He inspired generations of church architects.
0:00:19 > 0:00:22Without him, there would be no fun at Alton Towers.
0:00:25 > 0:00:29But, sadly, his own short life was a roller coaster ride
0:00:29 > 0:00:32of illness, poverty and bereavements.
0:00:32 > 0:00:34Yet, at the heart of everything he did
0:00:34 > 0:00:36was his deep-rooted Christian faith,
0:00:36 > 0:00:40which is why Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin
0:00:40 > 0:00:42is known as God's architect.
0:00:45 > 0:00:47This is Pugin's 200th anniversary year.
0:00:47 > 0:00:49So tonight, from churches
0:00:49 > 0:00:53which inspired or were inspired by his architecture and design,
0:00:53 > 0:00:57congregations from all over the country sing out the faith
0:00:57 > 0:00:59that motivated his every thoughts.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14I've come to Kent to St Augustine's in Ramsgate,
0:01:14 > 0:01:15Pugin's last church,
0:01:15 > 0:01:17which he built for his own community,
0:01:17 > 0:01:19next door to his own house,
0:01:19 > 0:01:20and this is where he is buried.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24People really remember Pugin
0:01:24 > 0:01:25mostly as a church architect,
0:01:25 > 0:01:28though he was very, very innovative as a domestic architect
0:01:28 > 0:01:29and a secular architect as well.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32But for Pugin his faith was the framework
0:01:32 > 0:01:33within which everything else happened.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36So, for Pugin, everything is for the glory of God.
0:01:36 > 0:01:43When we speak of a church, we don't simply mean the physical building.
0:01:43 > 0:01:45Pugin's principal aim is to create
0:01:45 > 0:01:48living architecture, architecture with soul,
0:01:48 > 0:01:53architecture that is decorated according to its function.
0:01:53 > 0:01:57And its function is for the people of God, for the worship of God.
0:02:00 > 0:02:03Pugin influenced an entire generation of architects
0:02:03 > 0:02:06as well as being the father of an architectural dynasty.
0:02:06 > 0:02:09And our first hymn comes from a building that was designed,
0:02:09 > 0:02:11like this chapel, by his eldest son, Edward.
0:02:14 > 0:02:17Once at the heart of industrial Manchester,
0:02:17 > 0:02:21Gorton Monastery fell into disrepair in the 1990s.
0:02:21 > 0:02:25But it was saved from dereliction by the local community, who loved it.
0:04:53 > 0:04:55In 1812, when Augustus Pugin was born,
0:04:55 > 0:04:58the only child of a French artist father and English mother,
0:04:58 > 0:05:02the height of fashion in art and architecture was very different from this.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05It was the Georgian, neoclassical style.
0:05:07 > 0:05:10It wasn't British, it wasn't Christian.
0:05:10 > 0:05:13The Greeks and the Romans were not Christians.
0:05:13 > 0:05:17It was built for pagan gods, as he called them.
0:05:17 > 0:05:19And also, it must be said that when Pugin was growing up,
0:05:19 > 0:05:23the neoclassical architecture of the Regency was pretty flimsy,
0:05:23 > 0:05:26a lot of stucco, a lot of plaster,
0:05:26 > 0:05:29everything that he most disliked about the architecture and also the society,
0:05:29 > 0:05:32which he felt was rather upfront and hypocritical as well.
0:05:34 > 0:05:38Gothic architecture was the architecture of the Middle Ages in Europe
0:05:38 > 0:05:41and it was more or less characterised
0:05:41 > 0:05:44in the 19th century - people talked about Gothic or pointed architecture.
0:05:44 > 0:05:49So it's all those churches and cathedrals with pointy spires and crockets and pinnacles.
0:05:49 > 0:05:52- And Pugin was a big fan? - Pugin loved Gothic architecture.
0:05:52 > 0:05:55He thought that it was the right architecture for this country,
0:05:55 > 0:05:57because it was a native architecture.
0:05:57 > 0:06:00It was more practical, because, as he said,
0:06:00 > 0:06:02if you import classical architecture from Greece and Rome
0:06:02 > 0:06:05designed for a Mediterranean climate, whereas, as he said,
0:06:05 > 0:06:08the pinnacles in England keep off the rain.
0:06:11 > 0:06:14Contrasts was the first book you could call an architectural manifesto.
0:06:14 > 0:06:18What he was trying to say and indeed succeeded very well in saying
0:06:18 > 0:06:22was that English society had reached a crisis point.
0:06:23 > 0:06:27There were slums, factories, workhouses
0:06:27 > 0:06:30and Contrasts compares the modern state of society,
0:06:30 > 0:06:33especially the workhouses which were new,
0:06:33 > 0:06:35and were coming under the new Poor Law,
0:06:35 > 0:06:38with the way that things were organised in the Middle Ages,
0:06:38 > 0:06:41in which you had, Pugin believed, a much more integrated society
0:06:41 > 0:06:45in which the poor would be looked after in a humane manner.
0:06:45 > 0:06:47And that was his main point,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50to suggest that through architecture,
0:06:50 > 0:06:53you achieve a different kind of society.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59Pugin saw Gothic buildings as physical symbols
0:06:59 > 0:07:02of an idealised Christian community.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05Many of his contemporaries followed in his footsteps.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09One of these, George Gilbert Scott,
0:07:09 > 0:07:13claimed he was a new man after Pugin had awaken him
0:07:13 > 0:07:16to how architecture could give dignity to the human condition.
0:07:16 > 0:07:22Such as the mill-workers' houses Scott designed at Akroydon, near Halifax.
0:07:22 > 0:07:26Scott also restored and repaired what is now Halifax Minster,
0:07:26 > 0:07:29returning the ancient church of St John The Baptist,
0:07:29 > 0:07:31whose feast we celebrate today,
0:07:31 > 0:07:34to what was as near as possible to its former medieval splendour.
0:09:43 > 0:09:45He learned to draw from his father,
0:09:45 > 0:09:49who was an architect and an architectural draftsman,
0:09:49 > 0:09:51but he never learned architecture per se.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54I mean, he learned on the job, and he learned by trial and error.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56- And there were some quite big errors.- Really?
0:09:56 > 0:09:57Yes. Absolutely.
0:09:57 > 0:09:59At the Church of St Anne's in Keighley,
0:09:59 > 0:10:03there is a little note in his diary which says, "Belfry fell down."
0:10:03 > 0:10:04- Oops!- Oops!
0:10:07 > 0:10:09He practised architecture like a romantic artist.
0:10:09 > 0:10:14His own favourite church while he was building it was St Giles, Cheadle,
0:10:14 > 0:10:17which was paid for by his great patron, the Earl of Shrewsbury.
0:10:17 > 0:10:20The money wasn't too short there for once.
0:10:20 > 0:10:24It is a romantic work of art because every single surface,
0:10:24 > 0:10:30and every medium - the glass, the metalwork, the ceramics on the floor,
0:10:30 > 0:10:33the painted wall, carved stone, is all to his design.
0:10:36 > 0:10:41He influenced everybody in the 19th century whether they liked him or not,
0:10:41 > 0:10:43whether they knew it or not.
0:10:47 > 0:10:52All Saints Church in Cheltenham has Gothic, Pre-Raphaelite
0:10:52 > 0:10:55and also Arts And Crafts interiors -
0:10:55 > 0:11:00all revealing elements of how Pugin's principles influenced later designers.
0:11:03 > 0:11:07All Saints was begun by local architect John Middleton back in 1865,
0:11:07 > 0:11:12the very same year that Cardinal John Henry Newman wrote and published
0:11:12 > 0:11:14his poem, The Dream Of Gerontius,
0:11:14 > 0:11:16the origin of one of our best-loved hymns.
0:13:21 > 0:13:25People in Ramsgate and Thanet are very proud that the Gospel
0:13:25 > 0:13:27first landed here.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30Pugin moved to Ramsgate because, as he writes,
0:13:30 > 0:13:32"blessed Austen" had "landed nearby".
0:13:32 > 0:13:36This captivated his romantic imagination
0:13:36 > 0:13:39and he was fascinated by the figure of Augustine.
0:13:41 > 0:13:46In 596 AD, Pope Gregory the Great sent a mission to England.
0:13:48 > 0:13:5140 monks arrived and landed on the Isle of Thanet.
0:13:53 > 0:13:54Augustine was their leader.
0:13:56 > 0:13:57The meeting between St Augustine
0:13:57 > 0:13:59and King Ethelbert who was the leading king
0:13:59 > 0:14:03amongst the Anglo-Saxon peoples of the time is, in a sense,
0:14:03 > 0:14:05the birth of English Christianity,
0:14:05 > 0:14:08and, to some extent, the birth of the English nation.
0:14:08 > 0:14:14It began a whole history of civilisation, art, architecture, literature, law -
0:14:14 > 0:14:17all represented in that meeting.
0:14:18 > 0:14:21It seems fitting that there is another church
0:14:21 > 0:14:24dedicated to King Ethelbert in Ramsgate.
0:14:24 > 0:14:28It is also fitting that this was created by a Pugin,
0:14:28 > 0:14:30this time not Augustus Welby,
0:14:30 > 0:14:33but his youngest son Peter Paul Pugin
0:14:33 > 0:14:36who, in his own right, is a great architect.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40In 1538, the shrine of St Augustine in Canterbury,
0:14:40 > 0:14:46which drew pilgrims from all over the country and beyond was sadly destroyed.
0:14:46 > 0:14:48It got caught up in the political turmoil of the age,
0:14:48 > 0:14:52but now that has been rectified.
0:14:52 > 0:14:54This year, on 1st March,
0:14:54 > 0:14:59the Archbishop of Southwark declared the Church of St Augustine in Ramsgate, Pugin's church,
0:14:59 > 0:15:02dedicated to the saint as a new shrine
0:15:02 > 0:15:06to honour the beginnings of Christian England, the coming of the Gospel to our land.
0:15:07 > 0:15:13It's a great responsibility to be custodian of such church with such a legacy,
0:15:13 > 0:15:18and, in a sense, continuing Pugin's dream with honouring the English saints
0:15:18 > 0:15:20who captivated his own imagination.
0:15:22 > 0:15:23It's the worship of Jesus
0:15:23 > 0:15:28by saints of all nations which is the subject of her next hymn,
0:15:28 > 0:15:31from Edward Pugin's monastery at Gorton.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50My great-great-grandparents were Augustus Welby Pugin
0:17:50 > 0:17:53and his third wife Jane Knill.
0:17:53 > 0:17:55They had a daughter called Margaret, Matty.
0:17:55 > 0:17:59She, in turn, had my grandfather Charles.
0:17:59 > 0:18:03Charles was the last architect in the Pugin & Pugin business.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07He was a man who loved his family.
0:18:07 > 0:18:08He loved having the children around him
0:18:08 > 0:18:11and that was one of the reasons he designed the grange so well,
0:18:11 > 0:18:12so it was surrounding the family
0:18:12 > 0:18:16and became an example for future housing.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19He was married three times.
0:18:19 > 0:18:22Unfortunately, he lost his first two wives and was desolate by that.
0:18:22 > 0:18:27He needed company and Jean Knill became his third wife.
0:18:27 > 0:18:29He regarded her as the true Gothic woman.
0:18:31 > 0:18:34He was warm, he was ebullient.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37He wasn't particularly refined in his manners.
0:18:37 > 0:18:40He wasn't particularly deferential.
0:18:40 > 0:18:42He was a very driven man.
0:18:42 > 0:18:44He had a great attention to detail.
0:18:44 > 0:18:47Perhaps, sometimes people would say he was a perfectionist.
0:18:47 > 0:18:49During his very short life,
0:18:49 > 0:18:51he produced an incredible amount of work.
0:18:51 > 0:18:56He worked very fast. He had done three cathedrals by the time he was 30.
0:18:56 > 0:18:59It must be said that he relied very heavily indeed
0:18:59 > 0:19:01on a good builder, George Myers.
0:19:01 > 0:19:03He understood the structure of medieval buildings
0:19:03 > 0:19:05so he could put in the right kind of foundations
0:19:05 > 0:19:08so that things didn't fall down.
0:19:08 > 0:19:12For Pugin, there was no difference between professional relationships and personal relationships.
0:19:12 > 0:19:15Everyone was a friend as well as a colleague - he certainly was not a snob.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19Also, it is much more practical once you have got a team together -
0:19:19 > 0:19:22a builder, a metal-worker, a decorator,
0:19:22 > 0:19:25Minton up in Stoke doing the tiles.
0:19:25 > 0:19:27You all know each other very well.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33Our next hymn comes from a church
0:19:33 > 0:19:37built by another of his contemporaries, Joseph Hansom.
0:19:37 > 0:19:41Pugin often complained that Hansom stole his ideas,
0:19:41 > 0:19:44and the design of St Walburge's in Preston
0:19:44 > 0:19:46is certainly impressive,
0:19:46 > 0:19:48topped, as it is, by the tallest spire
0:19:48 > 0:19:50of any parish church in England.
0:21:55 > 0:21:58What you think his greatest legacy is?
0:21:58 > 0:22:00I think it is the idea
0:22:00 > 0:22:04that architecture is a social and moral force.
0:22:04 > 0:22:06It's not just about putting up a building.
0:22:06 > 0:22:08It's not just about function.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12It has a role to play in the way that we live our lives.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15And if we feel there's something wrong with our cities,
0:22:15 > 0:22:18there's probably something wrong with ourselves,
0:22:18 > 0:22:20and you can't separate these things out.
0:22:20 > 0:22:22'He believed in Christianity in an active way,'
0:22:22 > 0:22:24affecting the whole community,
0:22:24 > 0:22:25enhancing the whole community,
0:22:25 > 0:22:27blessing the whole community.
0:22:29 > 0:22:32'I think we all feel very privileged for the life that we've had.
0:22:32 > 0:22:34'And I think that, in return for that,
0:22:34 > 0:22:38'it's fundamental that people are able to offer something'
0:22:38 > 0:22:40to enable others to reach their potential.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44I think Pugin had the same through the buildings that he built,
0:22:44 > 0:22:48insofar as, if people could belong in these churches,
0:22:48 > 0:22:51if they felt safe and secure, the likelihood is
0:22:51 > 0:22:53that they would then be able to contribute
0:22:53 > 0:22:58and in the end, through their prayer, through the combined use
0:22:58 > 0:23:03of the community within the church, to thrive.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06That Christians should follow Jesus's example
0:23:06 > 0:23:08in actively supporting justice and peace
0:23:08 > 0:23:10is at the heart of our next hymn.
0:23:10 > 0:23:12The words are by Catholic convert,
0:23:12 > 0:23:15writer, and social commentator, GK Chesterton,
0:23:15 > 0:23:17and are sung to an old English folk tune,
0:23:17 > 0:23:19adapted by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
0:23:19 > 0:23:24The hymn was first published in English Hymnal,
0:23:24 > 0:23:26founded at the Gothic Revival Anglican church
0:23:26 > 0:23:30of St Mary the Virgin, in London's Primrose Hill.
0:25:58 > 0:26:03He'd always loved the sea. He was a keen and very skilled sailor.
0:26:03 > 0:26:08He also had a lugger, a boat that took tourists out in the summer,
0:26:08 > 0:26:12and went out salvaging for wrecks in the winter.
0:26:12 > 0:26:17And he had a very affectionate and enduring admiration for sailors.
0:26:17 > 0:26:21There were frequent shipwrecks here on Goodwin Sands.
0:26:21 > 0:26:24Occasionally he would bring sailors, if they had drowned,
0:26:24 > 0:26:27he would arrange for them to have a Catholic funeral here.
0:26:30 > 0:26:32Pugin himself left this storm-tossed life
0:26:32 > 0:26:38for his eternal rest on September 14th, 1852.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41His doctor said that he'd done the work of 100 years in just 40.
0:26:43 > 0:26:47Among Catholics and Protestants, Pugin's legacy helped
0:26:47 > 0:26:51to revive a renewed respect for our shared Christian heritage
0:26:51 > 0:26:56and holy sites like Wolsingham, once a place of English pilgrimage,
0:26:56 > 0:26:59second in importance only to Canterbury,
0:26:59 > 0:27:04and now home to both Anglican and Catholic shrines to the Virgin Mary.
0:29:44 > 0:29:48The Gothic architecture popularised by Augustus Pugin
0:29:48 > 0:29:52captured the imagination of Christians of all denominations,
0:29:52 > 0:29:55and although stone, bricks and mortar may decay,
0:29:55 > 0:30:00Pugin's legacy and the faith that inspired him lives on.
0:30:01 > 0:30:06Deep down, what inspires me most is that this will be a shrine,
0:30:06 > 0:30:09a place of pilgrimage, a monument to Christianity,
0:30:09 > 0:30:14and it's wonderful to be able to welcome people from all over the country and beyond
0:30:14 > 0:30:17and to be able to tell our story, our English story,
0:30:17 > 0:30:19about Christianity and about Pugin.
0:30:22 > 0:30:26I think sometimes it's very difficult to verbalise your own faith,
0:30:26 > 0:30:28but I believe that God is our creator,
0:30:28 > 0:30:32that, hopefully, he's our teacher and our friend,
0:30:32 > 0:30:34but, ultimately, he's our saviour,
0:30:34 > 0:30:36and that the work we do, we need to strive
0:30:36 > 0:30:39to be able to use the talents effectively that we have.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45Our final hymn comes from Arundel Cathedral,
0:30:45 > 0:30:49built by Pugin's contemporary and rival, Joseph Hansom.
0:30:49 > 0:30:51Whatever their professional differences,
0:30:51 > 0:30:56their shared mission was to bring Christian architecture to the world.
0:33:25 > 0:33:30Next week, Sally Magnusson is in Dunblane in central Scotland,
0:33:30 > 0:33:32home of the UK's only boarding school
0:33:32 > 0:33:34for the children of the military.
0:33:37 > 0:33:41And Dunblane's cathedral is the wonderful setting for our hymns.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd