1842.] 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECT'S JOURNAL. 



33 



THE NATIONAL SCOTCH CHURCH, 

 CROWN COURT, BOW STREET. 



The tasle and feeling which a professor of architecture brings to 

 the practice of his art, may be evinced not alone by his style of erect- 

 iag new buildings, but in a scarcely inferior degree by a judicious 

 alteration of old ones, and though it is not our practice to notice these 

 latter, we think ourselves justified in departing from it, in the instance 

 of the Scotch National Church exhibited in the annexed wood engrav- 

 ing, which has lately been remodelled by Mr. Robert Wallace. 



This structure, being under every disadvantage of situation, is likely 

 to be seen by few ; having its " locus " in a retired spot called " Crown 

 Court," which forms a connecting link or thoroughfare between Bow 

 Street, Covent Garden, and Little Russell Street. 



Though far from being an erection of yesterday, the claims of the 

 original building do not reach to aniiquilij ; it would appear in fact, to 

 have been erected something like a century ago, when Presbyterian- 

 ism and plainness were held to be synonymous, and when the "Scots' 

 Kirk," notwithstanding its national character, and the legislative sanc- 

 tions under which it exists in the sister kingdom, ranked only in the 

 public mind m a variety of the Methodist or dissenting chapel. The 

 conventicle or sectarian character was, up to September last, broadly 

 impressed upon it. Its plain brick front, extending to GO feet, was 

 pierced in the upper part by a range of 7 semi-circular headed sash 

 windows, between which and the lower openings, consisting of 5 

 windows with outside shutters, and 2 wood door pieces, with fan- 

 lights; over, was a considerable space (10 ft.) of plain brick- 

 work, occasioned by the steep rise of the gallery within. The pro- 

 jection of the porches was about 34 feet, leaving an unoccupied space 

 or area intermediately, and at the ends, enclosed by au iron railing. 



With these elements for the architect to deal with, and with the de- 

 siderata impressed upon him, 1st, of imparting to the building an 

 ecclesiastical character, and 2nd, of obtaining an external access to 

 the galleries, without injury to the existing lights, he has produced 

 the fa9ade represented in our engraving, the round-headed windows 

 which prevailed throughout the upper story of the building, having 

 suggested the Norman style. It may help to explain the diagram to 

 observe, that the large open arch in the centre of the front gives 

 access to the new external stone stairs, which ascend to the right and 

 left (passing over the heads of the two ground Boor entrances) between 

 the pierced screen and the miin wall : that the two higher features 

 which break and give variety to the line of front, result from the ne- 

 cessity of forming a headway to the staircases, continued up in them, 

 and entering to the highest level of the gallery, below the sills of the 

 two extreme windows, which receive their light from the front and 

 lateral openings in the towers which mask them in the view. It may 

 further be observed that all the apertures m the new front are open or 

 unglazed (except the two lowest ones in the turrets) in order not to 

 impede the light to the old ones in the main fabric, all of which retain 

 their old forms and positions. 



The principal alteration in the interior, coasisting of a large semi- 

 circular arch behind the pulpit, emliracin|; in its infrados two smaller 

 ones glazed heraldically, is in correspondence with the exterior, while 

 the pulpit, gallery front, and fittings, it was thought justifiable to 

 render into the Tudor tasle. 



