Romanesque Revival, Norman Revival or Neo-Norman styles of building in the United Kingdom were inspired by the Romanesque architecture of the 11th and 12th centuries AD.
In the United Kingdom it started to appear as an architectural style in the 18th. century but reached its greatest popularity in the mid to latter years of the 19th. century. The style can be viewed as a strand of Gothic Revival architecture and part of the Historicist or Historismus styles of architecture that became popular in both Europe and Britain during the 19th. century. Early examples of the style in Germany of the 1820s and 1830s are referred to as Rundbogenstil or round arched style. In Britain the style was introduced by architects and their patrons, who had been on tours in Europe and it appears that the German and British styles of Romanesque developed largely independently. Initially in Britain the style was used for church building, but as the 19th. century progressed it was adapted for public buildings, museums, schools and commercial buildings, but rarely for domestic buildings. By the start of the 20th. century it had gone out of fashion and only occasionally were examples of the style built.
Origins
The development of the Norman revival style or Neo-Norman took place over a long time in the British Isles starting with Inigo Jones‘s re-fenestration of the White Tower of the Tower of London in 1637–38 and work at Windsor Castle by Hugh May for Charles II, but this was little more than restoration work. More surprising is the west door of Kenilworth Church, inserted in the tower in 1570 probably at the time of a visit of Queen Elizabeth. This appears to have been historic arch, sourced possibly from an unknown monastic building, Another early example of Romanesque revival is the south porch of North Scarle Church in Lincolnshire. Pevsner suggests that it might be Elizabethan, but late 17th. century seems more likely as the oak door seems to be original and probably of that date.
In the 18th century the use of round arched windows was thought of as being Saxon rather than Norman and examples of buildings with round arched windows include Shirburn Castle in Oxfordshire, Wentworth in Yorkshire and Enmore Castle in Somerset. At Allerton Mauleverer in Yorkshire St Martin’s Church was re-built for Richard Arundell in 1745. The church has been described as a proto-Neo-Norman. While it gives the impression of a Romanesque revival church, with a massive crossing tower and round headed windows, yet it also has windows with gothic tracery and a hammerbeam nave roof. The architect is thought to have been John Vardy surveyor to the Office of Works.
A further example of church building in the Romanesque revival style took place in 1792 when Elisa Wingfield commissioned plans from Samuel Pepys Cockerell for the conservation and rebuilding of St Peter's Church, Tickencote in Rutland. The church which contained much notable Romanesque decoration and an elaborate chancel arch appears to have been close to collapse. Cockerell encased the chancel, keeping the arch in position but the outer walls were completely re-built and the exterior ornamentation of arcades and round headed windows were replaced in new stonework. A new tower over a porch was built on the south side, which gave added stability to the older structure. The nave was completely re-built using some new romanesque mot is and copying others, such as the engaged columns, from those on the exterior of the chancel. This style of Romanesque revival architecture is very similar to the style that emerges in the 1840s under architectects such as Thomas Penson and Benjamin Ferrey. Tickencote could be considered to mark the start of the Romanesque revival in church architecture. In Scotland the style started to emerge with the Duke of Argyll’s castle at Inverary, started in 1744, and castles by Robert Adam at Culzean (1771), Oxenfoord (1780–2), Dalquharran (1782–5), and Seton Palace (1792). In England James Wyatt used round arched windows at Sandleford Priory, Berkshire in 1780–79 and the Duke of Norfolk started to rebuild Arundel Castle, while Eastnor Castle in Herefordshire was built by Robert Smirke between 1812 and 1820.
At Eastnor Smirke combines a rugged Romanesque with more subtle Gothic window tracery. The elements of Eastnor are further developed about 1840 at Devizes Castle, where the Bath architect Henry Goodridge combines the Castellated gothic style of Eastnor with a Romanesque entrance arch and Romanesque windows.
Development of archaeologically correct Romanesque
Source: It was at this point that the Norman Revival became a recognisable architectural style. In 1817 Thomas Rickman published his An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of English Architecture from the Conquest to the Reformation. It was now realised that round-arch architecture was largely Romanesque in the British Isles and came to be described as Norman rather than Saxon. This distinction was finally recognised when Rickman’s article in Archaeologia (1832–33), was published by the Society of Antiquaries. The start of an archaeologically correct Norman Revival can be recognised in the architecture of Thomas Hopper. His first attempt at this style was at Gosford Castle in Armagh in Ireland, but far more successful was his Penrhyn Castle near Bangor in North Wales. This was built for the Pennant family, between 1820 and 1837.
An example of Romanesque revival architecture being used for follies in 1832 was by George Proctor at Benington Lordship in Hertfordshire. Proctor added a neo-Norman gatehouse, summerhouse and curtain wall to the site of a Motte-and-bailey castle. The arches and decorative features to the gatehouse and summerhouse were in Pulhamite, a form of Cast stone that was manufactured by James Pulham and Son. The Neo-Norman style did not catch on for domestic buildings, though many country houses and mock castles were built in the Castle Gothic or Castellated style during the Victorian period, which were mixed Gothic styles.
Church architecture and the Romanesque Revival
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