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

Willis’s history of Winchester cathedral was set out on the same plan as his
Canterbury, its intention:
To bring together all the recorded evidence that belongs to the building, excluding historical matter that
relates only to the see or district; to examine the building itself for the purpose of investigating the mode of
its construction, and the successive changes and additions that have been made to it; and lastly, to compare
the recorded evidence with the structural evidence as much as possible. A complete delineation and
description of the building must not be expected, any more than a complete history of the see. The first
have been most admirably supplied in the plates and text of Mr Britton’s well known volume, and the able
and copious work of Milner contains every particular that can be required for the second. 207
This acknowledgement of Milner and Britton and their methods was a backhanded
compliment. He did not wish to duplicate their work but neither did he try to develop it.
Much of Britton’s and all of Milner’s efforts were, to him, of little value. He went on to
explain that the cathedral could be ‘disentangled with advantage from the mass of local
information in which it is enveloped’. 208 Architectural history was to be extracted from
topography once and for all and purified of anecdotes. Willis’s account of Canterbury
appeared in 1845 as The Architectural History of Canterbury Cathedral, apparently the
first book to define itself as ‘architectural history’.
Willis’s focus on the structure combined with his skill as a lecturer and his novel
method of conducting a tour of the building he was discussing, ensured success on both
scholarly and popular fronts. His research was systematic; his frame of reference
effortlessly broad. Along with the tangle of local facts Willis shook off Georgian
antiquarianism. He understood the fabric of Winchester better than Milner, who had
thought some of it Saxon. Milner’s lack of comparative sources and his deep attachment
to the cathedral had allowed him to think that it was first truly Gothic structure, the much
sought-after primary site. By the 1840s he was known to be factually wrong and
increasingly such local affections seemed naïve. Willis’s approach was not universally
207
Willis The Architectural History of Winchester Cathedral, p.1.
208
Willis The Architectural History of Winchester Cathedral, p.1.
96