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ways). Now, Hathways, according to an inquisition of the 4 Rich. II. lies both in St. Briavel's and Ruerdean; in another of 11 Edw. IV. in Ruerdean only. From these records I am inclined to think that the old castle of Dean was this of Ruerdean, but that after the erection of that of St. Briavel's, the services were transferred. It appears to have been a small square strong-hold, like a Norman keep, with a barbican. Several of the stones were removed for mending roads in memory of man; but I suspect that the chief dilapidation took place when the manor-house, not far off, was built, apparently, by the architecture, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. All that now remains of wall is a scrap about a yard or two in length, which belonged to the vault of a cellar; but it does not seem to have belonged to a round arch, and does not resemble the thick square Norman groins. I presume, therefore, that it was inhabited in the thirteenth century, for that is the date of the chief parts of the church. I also think, from earlier work in the latter, that both the castle and church underwent great alterations about that era.

As to the church, the figure of St. George engraved in the Magazine (p. 404) certainly belongs to a style of architecture older than any other part of the church, the pillars, arches, mouldings, and windows, bearing manifest tokens of the successive styles of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. As this figure of St. George forms an inner door-way, and is approached through an ancient porch with a pointed arch, above which is the bust of a female (called St. Cyr) it has been presumed that a later church was erected on the remains of an older one, to which the figure of St. George appertained. I have been of opinion, by the way, that these figures of St. George had an allusion to the crusades, and that the dragon may have typified the Mahometan religion. The old church had, according to presumption, no aisle, and one side of it forms the wall of the present aisle; the other wall being thrown down, and replaced by a row of pointed arch pillars, that the church might be enlarged by the addition of a new nave, communicating with a tower and spire. The

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latter fashion chiefly commenced in the reign of Henry the Third, and, according to Sir William Dugdale in his Warwickshire, spires were purposely annexed to churches in woody countries, that they might be landmarks, and such this spire remains to the present day. That arches were made anew in the wall of this old church of St. George, seems to be shown by a round thirteenth-century moulding, resting upon a corbel, placed in the wall sideways, as having been worked up. Under the whitewash are perceptible inscriptions in the stiff black-letter gothic of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; and I once saw the ostrich feathers of the Prince of Wales amidst the remains of old fresco paintings, so mutilated as to be undistinguishable.

The church is only a parochial chapelry of Walford, of which the festival-day is the first Sunday after New Michaelmas (of course St. Michael was the patron-saint), and that of Ruerdean the Sunday after Old Michaelmas. The rectory of both parishes belongs to the precentorate of Hereford; the vicarial tythes to myself, as incumbent. I heard from my predecessor that there are no ancient documents respecting either church in the registry of Hereford. It is possible that the endowment of Ruerdean was a gift of one of the family of Milo Earl of Hereford; but not Walford, which was parcel of the manor of Ross Foriegn, and belonged to the Bishops of that See.

We find that, in the wars of Charles the First, the republicans had a garrison at Ruerdean, to check the Welsh royalists from advancing to Gloucester by way of Monmouth.* Weston under Penyard had another castle, which in earlier times might have commanded the road to Gloucester. These adjacent castles of Penyard, Godrich, Wilton, Ruerdean, and another, as presumed, at Bicknor, seem to have had the same object, that of controling Welsh incursions.

The manor was vested, in the time of Henry the Third, in William de Alba Mara, who possibly made the alterations in the old castle and church before alluded to.

T. D. F.

**Corbet's Milit. Govern. of Gloucester.

1831.]

NEW CHURCHES.-No. XXXI.
ALL SAINTS, POPLAR.
Architect, Hollis.

THE first subject in the accompanying engraving (Plate I.) is a northwest view of the Church of the newlycreated parish of Poplar, the last of the numerous parishes to which the noted village of Stepney has given birth.

The plan is parallelogrammatic, the eastern angles cut off by quadrants of circles, and increased by the addition of a small chancel. It is divided into a tower and lobbies, a spacious area for the nave of the Church unbroken by pillars, and a chancel, which, although it is rectangular in its external lines, is internally rounded at the angles in the same manner as the main edifice. The Church is built of Portland stone, upon a plinth of granite. The western front is embellished with a hexastyle portico of the lonic order, crowned with its entablature and a pediment, within which is the principal entrance. The portico is approached by a flight of steps, which, with the landing and accompanying pedestals, are constructed of granite. The elevation is made into two stories by a string course, and crowned by an entablature, which is continued from the portico, and surmounted by a ballustrade. The steeple, situated on the roof at the rear of the portico, is a handsome composition in the style of Wren, and though inferior in the delicacy of its proportions, and the harmony of its parts, to the elegant steeple of the neighbouring Church of Shadwell (vide vol. XCIII. i. 201, is still a handsome and pleasing composition. Its constituent parts are a quadrilateral tower, forming the basement to a composition of great taste, consisting of an octagon basement, and circular temple in succession, crowned with an octangular obelisk. The first portion, the tower, consists of a rusticated stylobate pierced by semicircular windows, and crowned with a cornice. The superstructure is of the Corinthian order, and has an arched window in every face, between two engaged columns, with coupled antæ at each angle; the whole is crowned with an entablature and blocking course, and at the angles are cinerary urns ornamented with honeyGENT. MAG. June, 1831.

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suckles. The next portion to be described is an irregular octagon, every alternate face being rounded off, in the larger faces are circular dials surmounted by a pendant wreath of foliage; to this succeeds an elegant little temple of the composite order, which is manifestly copied from the campanile towers of St. Paul's Cathedral; it consists of a circular stylobate with projections corresponding with the angles of the substructure: this sustains a peristyle of eight columns, broken into couples by pairs of columns in advance before the peristyle, and having the projections in the stylobate for their basement; the cella is pierced with windows. A small temple with circular apertures succeeds, forming the pedestal to the octagonal obelisk, which is crowned with a vane. The whole composition being 160 feet in height.

The flanks are distinguished by a portico, composed of a pair of columns with corresponding antæ at the western extremity, a style of decoration first introduced at St. Martin's, and since copied into St. Pancras and the present structure. These columns are crowned with their entablature. At the eastern extremity are coupled antæ instead of a repetition of the portico, as at St. Martin's; the intermediate portion is made in height into two stories by a string course, the lower contains five rectangular windows, the upper the same number of arched openings bounded by architraves. This portion is finished with the frieze and cornice continued from the entablature, and is crowned with a balustrade. The eastern front is on three portions; the curved ends of the Church form wings to the chancel, and have windows as before; in the centre of the chancel is an arched window, above which, in a large panel, is the following inscription:

"This parish Church of All Saints Poplar, Middlesex, was consecrated on the third day of July, MDCCCXXIII. by the Right Reverend father in God, William Howley, D.D. (by Divine permission), Lord Bishop of London. The Reverend Samuel Hoole, A.M. Rector; James Mountague, Churchwarden and Treasurer; James Carey, Churchwarden; Charles Hollis, Architect; Thomas Morris, Builder; Tho mas Horne, Vestry Clerk."

The whole is finished as above; the

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THE INTERIOR.

At the west end is a spacious triple lobby. The central portion, formed within the tower, is groined with a circular opening for communication with the upper works; the lateral divisions contain the gallery stairs. The body of the Church is an unbroken area. The upright of the walls is relieved by pilasters on the piers between the windows, and is finished with a cornice, forming the impost to the ceiling, which is coved at the sides, and horizontal in the centre: the coved portion is ornamented in a singular and inelegant style by broad ribs rising from above the pilasters. The horizontal part of the ceiling is enriched with three circular groups of flowers. The recess containing the chancel is bounded by two piers, which are surmounted by a frieze and cornice, the former charged with perpendicular leaves. The fore part is occupied by a handsome screen composed of two columns and two antæ of scagliola, in imitation of Sienna marble, with statuary capitals and entablature: on the cornice is placed the Royal arms. The back of the recess is composed of a stylobate in imitation of porphyry, the rest of the walls being veined marble; in the centre is an arched window between two pairs of antæ of verd antique, crowned with entablature and pediment, on each side of which are the customary inscriptions. The altar is, contrary to usual custom, solid; it is raised on a platform of five stairs in two flights, and is composed of a pedestal of bronze with a panel in the centre, charged with the sacred monogram, accompanied with cartouches, and covered with a slab of marble. The whole arrangement of the altar is highly creditable to the architect, and displays an excellent specimen of the Italian school of design. In the window is a painting on glass of our Saviour, of which little can be said in praise; it is enclosed in a rich ornamented border, and below it, on the pedestal on which the figure stands, is the Lord's prayer.

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A gallery surrounds the remainder of the Church; it is sustained on iron columns, which retire behind the line of the fronts, the first range of pews being supported by means of canti.. livers; the galleries are sustained on iron trusses in the form of a low arch, with hollow spandrils. These trusses stretch from column to column, and from the columns to the side walls.

The pulpit and reading-desks are octangular. They are situated on opposite sides of the Church, and are of different altitudes; there is nothing remarkable in the design of either. The organ has a wainscot case, and occupies the centre of the western portion of the gallery; it is flanked by secondary galleries for the charity children, in addition to which, the upper part of the side galleries is raised and fronted with a balustrade, and appears like a second gallery; this is also appropriated to the children.

The font, situated below the western gallery, is a plain circular basin of marble, on a pillar of the same.

The Church is upon the whole very creditable to the architect. He has avoided the common place imitation of Grecian temples, which marks the works of his professional brethren, and has shown a considerable degree of judgment and taste in the construction of his steeple, and in the decorations of the altar, which particulars are perfectly orthodox, and are more pleasing decorations to a Church than the pepper-box towers of the pseudo Grecian school, and the plain miserable terminations to the altars of most of the new Churches.

The Church has been entirely built by the parishioners, the inhabitants of the ancient Hamlets of Poplar and Blackwall, formerly constituting one of the Tower Hamlets, and which were erected into a parish by an Act of Parliament of the 57th Geo. III. 1817. In the original contract the expense was estimated at 18,000l.; the cost of the whole edifice, with its appendages of parsonage-house, cemetery walls, &c. amounted to 33,0771. The expense of the Church was about 20,000l. The organ was built by Russell, and the steeple is furnished with a peal of ten bells.

The first stone was laid on the 29th of March, 1821, and the edifice consecrated on the 3d of July, 1823.