Cruet, silver, glass, silver gilt, enamel, made by John Hardman and Co, possibly designed by E.W. Pugin, Birmingham hallmarks for 1856-1857

Cruets: Glass bodies, sixlobed, one with silver mounts, the other silver gilt. Circular domed foot, mounts of pierced fleurons and trefoil foliage with supporting strap from foot to neck. This bends back to form the handle over a pierced roundel. Cover domed with spiralling gadroons, rope twist moulding surrmounted by gilt lions bearing a cross crosslet fitchee.

Stand: Shaped as two circles interlocking with a third smaller circle, rope twist moulding, narrow band of flower heads on a matted background. Engraved central depression. In the centre a roundel enclosing and applied sheild of copper gilt enamelled in red with the Knill arms.

Lent by St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral

The Gothic Revival
In the Victorian period a dramatic and profound change took place in religious life. Centred on a renewed interest in the Middle Ages, it affected the appearance of churches and how services were conducted. The influential architect A.W.N. Pugin promoted the Gothic as the true Christian style. Although Pugin was Catholic, his theory appealed to Anglicans of the Oxford Movement - radicals who hoped to restore pre-Reformation services to the Church of England.

The Cambridge Camden Society, founded in 1839, studied the past to identify the medieval architecture and furnishings that would be appropriate for the revived services. The society became an arbiter of style, offering an Anglicised version of the Gothic. By the 1870s some of the equipment normally found in Catholic worship, such as the ciborium, was appearing in Anglican churches.

It was not universally welcomed. Some observers found the incense, the altar cross and the emphasis on ritual scandalously 'Popish' or 'high church'.

The Gothic Revival in Europe
The Gothic revival in Europe owed more to nationalism than religious zeal. The completion of Cologne's medieval cathedral was an affirmation of German culture. In the Habsburg empire, Czechs and Hungarians similarly expressed national pride through Gothic architecture.

Champions of the Gothic claimed by the 1850s that the style was triumphant in Europe. But classical architecture remained a serious rival, even in church building. Much of the most important Gothic work was in church restoration. In Germany and France, goldsmiths like Franz Xaver Hellner supplied Gothic church furnishings.

These small vessels were used in Roman Catholic worship. They held water and wine for the Eucharist and were used at weekday services. Edward Pugin was the son of A.W.N. Pugin, the influential architect who promoted the Gothic as the true Christian style, and related to the Knill family, who commissioned the furnishings for their chapel in St George’s Cathedral.

LOAN:SOUTHWARK CATHEDRAL.5:3-2005