Antiquaries in the Age of Romanticism: 1789-1851 - Queen Mary ...

Figure 18 Toddington Manor, Gloucestershire
Toddington was in architectural terms a mixed success but it occupies an
important position in the converging course of antiquarianism and architecture for Tracy
was not only an enthusiast for the Gothic, he was also an MP and in 1835 he became
Chairman of the Royal Commission to judge entries for the competition to rebuild the
Palace of Westminster after the fire of 1834 [fig: 19]. It had been decided that the style of
the new building should be Gothic or Elizabethan and that all the judges should be
connoisseurs rather than professional architects. The choice of the style and the eventual
selection of Charles Barry’s design, detailed by A C Pugin’s son, A W N Pugin (1812-
1852), marked the point where antiquarianism, architecture and polite culture all drew
level. Tracy and his fellow committee members looked at the competition entries and
admired the ones in which they saw, as in a mirror, their own taste, formed over decades
by Britton’s Beauties and Antiquities reflected back to them. 150 Barry, a subscriber to the
Examples had, like Tracy, looked to the late Gothic for his scheme, specifically at
Somerset church towers and the turrets of Henry VII’s chapel at Westminster Abbey.
With his victory in the competition the Gothic was carried to the heart of public
architecture. Its triumph went to show, according to Britton, that ‘more has been achieved
150
The best account of the competition is M.H. Port, ‘The Houses of Parliament Competition’, in The
Houses of Parliament, ed. by M H Port, (London and New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976), pp. 20-52.
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