'Gothick' Architecture: Ruined or Romantic?

By Mary Smythe, author of Rosings Park

"You have formed a very favourable idea of the abbey.”

“To be sure I have. Is it not a fine old place, just like what one reads about?”

-Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 20

Readers of the Regency period likely would have shared Catherine’s enthusiasm for medieval castles and crumbled ruins, thanks in no small part to the Romantic movement in art and literature which arose towards the end of the 18th century. Alongside a fevered whimsy for daffodils and garment-rending emotions, the Romantics revered antiquity and this, in turn, gave rise to the more Gothic aesthetic of gloomy grandeur popular in the 12th century. Think of Northanger Abbey itself—a former monastery repurposed into a manor home—and what it represents to Catherine. Sounds romantic in all senses of the word, does it not? But she’s disappointed to find that it’s more modern than she was expecting and that much of its dark ambience has been converted into something practical. She likely wouldn’t enjoy sleeping in a drafty cloister for long, but the idea of it is appealing to a naïve young girl.

The abbey isn’t the first disappointment Catherine suffers related to medieval buildings, however. Earlier in the novel, when John Thorpe ‘abducts’ her to visit Blaise Castle, she’s excited to see for herself ‘a castle, an old castle…like one reads of’. The thwarted excursion shows us that there was a tourist industry built around visiting architectural marvels of yesteryear. But how was one to impress their friends and acquaintances if they had no crumbling monasteries to show off?

Build a new one, naturally. Given that our dear Catherine admits readily to a dislike for reading historical tomes, one can assume that many visitors to places such as Blaise Castle were more interested in the ‘vibes’ rather than what they could learn from them. It’s perhaps little wonder, then, that so many false ruins cropped up on comparatively modern estates as decorative touches when authentic medieval structures were unavailable. In the 1720s, a short-lived architectural style known as the Gothick, prizing a picturesque medieval style with little to no concern for historical accuracy, arose to fulfil this nonsensical desire for false antiquity. It became ‘quite the thing’ to erect a derelict church or an arch which led to nowhere on one’s grounds, purely for the aesthetic principle of it. Blaise Castle, built until 1766, was part of this trend. Built to look like a ‘real’ castle, in actuality it is merely a folly—a decorative building without much function, hence the name—and more suited to tourism than defending the estate from invaders. Thus, when you’re reading Northanger Abbey and you see John Thorpe proclaim it ‘The oldest [castle] in the kingdom,’ feel free to laugh at him.

(This fad, for the record, is not to be confused with the later Gothic revival of the Victorians, who were, as in everything, devoted to a strict adherence to authenticity and correctness. Think of it as pleather vs leather—a cheap knockoff of the real thing.)

There were various types of ruins one might build, including towers, arches, or even entire buildings like castles, churches, or monasteries. Some of them were fairly simple without any practical purpose, but the more elaborate examples were fitted out as summer houses or secret escapes, fully furnished inside for the use of the owner; so long as it the exteriors looked decrepit, the plush interiors could be a fun secret. Most often they were constructed in a faux-medieval style, but there were also examples of Greco-Roman influences and others. It wasn’t even unheard of to build yourself a temple or pavilion, though those constructs weren’t always dilapidated.

Another option was to build a hermitage, which wasn’t a ruin, exactly, but a rough structure intended to give off an air of rusticity. These seemed to be more affordable for those without the blunt to erect a whole—or even a half-formed—castle on their grounds; even the Bennets can boast of a hermitage, as Mrs Bennet does when she suggests that Elizabeth, “…shew her ladyship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage.” If one was really lucky, one could convince an actual recluse to live in it for additional authenticity.

Building a tower, arch, or shabby chic castle on one’s grounds might provide an estate a spurious air of ancient lineage that it lacked, but it was expensive. The inherent irony of spending a great deal of money to create something that appears to be falling apart was not entirely lost upon the society of the day, as seen in the 1776 comedy The Clandestine Marriage, which opines: “It has cost me a hundred and fifty pounds to put my ruins in thorough repair.” So why build them at all? What is so fascinating about ramshackle old fortresses that people might attempt to fraudulently recreate them? Denis Diderot, an Enlightenment philosopher, theorized, “The ideas ruins evoke in me are grand. Everything comes to nothing, everything perishes, everything passes, only the world remains, only time endures.”

Although the Gothick fad faded quickly, it endures in the structures it left behind, so Diderot was likely onto something. The most extravagant example of Gothick architecture lives on in the whimsically monikered Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, England. Built between 1749 and 1776, it was the passion project of Horatio Walpole, the Fourth Earl of Orford; he is more commonly known to Gothic lit enthusiasts as Horace Walpole, author of what many consider the first Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764). Walpole’s novel inspired authors including Ann Radcliffe and our dear Jane Austen. Supposedly, his masterpiece was inspired by a nightmare he had while living at Strawberry Hill, one which featured a ‘giant hand of armor,’ imagery which can be found within the pages of Otranto. Strawberry Hill, with its elaborate gilded fan vaulting, winding staircases, ornate fireplaces, and enchanting library is certainly fertile ground for all sorts of eccentric ideas.

The only thing Strawberry Hill estate lacks is a proper ghost, though the Walpole family is not without rumors of restless spirits. The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall in Norfolk is said to be Horace Walpole’s aunt, Dorothy Townshend, who died (supposedly) of smallpox in 1726. Before that, she was reportedly the victim of a cruel husband who locked her away after discovering her infidelity—a classic Gothic theme. One has to wonder whether her nephew drew inspiration for his macabre tales, as well as his overall Gothic aesthetic, from his own family’s history. There are no reported sightings of her specter prior to 1835, but even so her tragic tale is the stuff of fevered nightmares. If nothing else, it’s appropriate that the author of the very first Gothic novel would have a ghost in his lineage. Whether or not Dorothy Townshend is the Brown Lady, there’s a famous image of this so-called ghost, taken in 1936, which is touted as supposed proof of the dead walking among us.

Even silly whimsical fads can change the landscape of society and the world in which we live. Perhaps not every stone fortress housed knights seated about a round table, but even the idea of it has power. Whether you prefer your castles authentic, faux, or haunted, I think we can all agree that they lend a certain something to one’s imagination.

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Sources and References

All images public domain

H.M. Brock

Wikimedia Commons

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice

Henrietta Spencer Churchill, Classic Georgian Style

Zachary Graves, Ghosts

Roger Luckhurst, Gothic: An Illustrated History 

Sarah Rutherford, Georgian Garden Buildings