James Brooks

James Brooks (1825–1901) was an influential English Gothic Revival architect and designer. Brooks established his reputation through a series of landmark churches built in the East End of London in the 1860 and 1870s, and was awarded the Royal Institute of British Architects' Royal Gold Medal in 1895.

Early life Brooks was born in Hatford, near Wantage, Berkshire, in 1825. He was educated at John Roysse's Free School in Abingdon-on-Thames (now Abingdon School) which he attended from about 1835 until 1840. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1853 and 1899; from 1894 as "James Brooks and Sons". Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo was his pupil. He was architect to the Diocesan Society of Canterbury, and a consulting architect to the Incorporated Society for Building Churches. It was at this residence that he died on 7 October 1901 aged 76.

The last two churches were built as part of the Haggerston Church Scheme, which had been set up in 1860 on the initiative of the vicar of St Mary, Haggerston, the parish church of the district. St Mary's, built in 1827, had been designed by John Nash in the Gothic style of his time. The first initiative of the scheme was to create a chancel and sanctuary of the kind held to be suitable for modern high church ideas of religious ritual. Brooks was brought in to do the work and, according to T. Francis Bumpus, "the boldness with which he grappled with such a monster as Nash's structure won him much praise. It was one of his earliest works, and its cleverness and originality brought him into public notice."

Money was then raised for new churches, and four new parishes were created in Haggerston, and provided with temporary buildings, three of which were soon superseded by permanent buildings, dedicated to three British missionary saints – Augustine, Chad and Columba – and completed by the summer of 1869. Brooks designed the last two. The Church Builder said of them They are spacious in plan, affording ample accommodation for the estimated congregations, and an almost lavish supply of room besides in unseated aisles and transepts. They are all also of unusual height. Their effect is obtained partly by this spaciousness and height, partly by the fine proportions of all the parts, partly by a bold, severe dignity in the style of design.

They were characterised by their broad naves with narrow aisles; transepts which projected hardly, if at all, beyond the aisle walls, and brick vaulted chancels with north and south aisles. The exteriors were plain and unbuttressed, in red brick with stone sparingly used for window dressings and plate tracery, and for occasional bands of relief. Another East London church, St Andrew, Plaistow, was similar in conception, but faced in stone. at St Chad's, he designed the reredos, carved by Thomas Earp, and the pulpit.

Secular architecture Once he had established his reputation as an ecclesiastical architect he built few secular works. An exception was the South Eastern Hotel at Deal in Kent (1894), an asymmetric Renaissance Dutch-style building, in red brick with stone dressings. He showed drawings for the hotel at the Royal Academy in 1893. Framland, Challow Road, Wantage. A house for Judge J. Mackonockie (1862). The Grange, Stoke Newington (1862). Brooks' own house, now numbered 42, Clissold Crescent. St Saviour, Hoxton (1864–66). St Columba, Haggerston (1867–69), St Chad, Haggerston (1867–69), with a vicarage of 1870 St Andrew, Barking Road, Plaistow (opened 1870). Church of the Annunciation, Chislehurst (1868–70). St Saviour, Mortomley, Yorkshire (1869–72). Rectory, Maiseyhampton, Gloucestershire (c.1872). St John the Baptist, Holland Road, Kensington (foundation stone laid 1872, completed after many changes of plan, by J. D. Adkins in 1911). Edgware Abbey 1873-90. Extensions to Humewood Castle, Kiltegan, County Wicklow (1873–77), for William Wentworth Fitzwilliam Hume Dick. Humewood Castle is a Gothic Revival mansion built in 1867 to a design by William White; Brooks added an extra storey on the north wing, and a circular tower at end of stable block. South aisle of the church at Kiltegan, County Wicklow, and the adjoining Hume Mausoleum (1875). St James, Marston Meysey, Wiltshire (1874–76). St Modoc's Episcopal Church, George Street, Doune, Scotland (1877). Church of the Transfiguration (later St Barnabus), Algernon Road, Lewisham (1881). Stables and coach house for the Marquis of Londonderry, Brick Street, Westminster. St Michael, Coppenhall (chancel 1883, the nave by J. Brooks, Son and Adkins, 1907–10). St Peter, St Leonards-on Sea, Sussex (1885). St Andrew, Willesden (1885–92), All Saints, Prittlewell, Southend (1886–91). St Chad, Wybunbury, Cheshire (1891–93). All Hallows, Savernake Road, Gospel Oak. Originally the Church of the Good Shepherd (1892–1914). St Peter, Hornsey (1896–98).

Publications Brooks, James. Report on the design for Liverpool Cathedral (1885).