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

father who was ‘liberal in politics and strong in the advocacy of religious liberty’. 167 The
men of the Losh family, like their Midland contemporaries in the Lunar Society, were
part of an informal but extensive intellectual network embracing scientific study as well
as literary pursuits. Losh’s uncle James was a friend of Wordsworth, who visited the
family home at Woodside, a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and from 1813 one of
its Vice Presidents. His niece was educated ‘far beyond the reach of her own sex, and,
indeed of most men’, a classicist, a linguist and a mathematician. 168 Losh and her sister
Katherine made a long Continental tour in 1817 with another Uncle, William Losh. By
then the family’s wealth had been considerably augmented with the profits from an alkali
works established by the sisters’ father and uncles on Tyneside.
Losh never married and by her late twenties the deaths of her parents and her only
brother’s mental incapacity left her, after 1814, in an unusual situation for a woman. She
was intellectually, personally and financially independent and socially in the position of
the local squire. She used this role to pursue her interest in architecture, designing at least
eighteen buildings, of which the parish church was the most significant. 169 The case for
her as an architect is therefore self-evident. Her character as an antiquary can be
established from her own notes which show her proceeding by typical antiquarian
methods, analysing physical remains from internal evidence, taken in the context of
documentary sources where relevant, and going on to use her findings to reanimate the
past with fresh meaning for the present.
St Mary’s [figs: 20, 21 and 22], was consecrated in December 1842. It is a
remarkable building through which, as through Losh’s life, many currents of
contemporary thought and feeling flow. It has, however, been discussed largely in terms
of its style, which is, I would suggest, its least interesting aspect. Losh herself wrote that:
‘The unpolished mode of building adhered to in the new chapel, most approximates to
early Saxon or modified Lombard, which was preferred to a more improved style, as less
167
Londsdale, The Worthies of Cumbria, p.148. Lonsdale’s is the first and still the fullest biographical
source for Losh.
168
Londsdale, The Worthies of Cumbria, p.201.
169
Drew, ‘Sara Losh and the “chapel of ease”’, gives a list of known and attributed works.
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