City Beautiful Tours

The Gothic Revival began in England in the second half of the 18th century and lasted throughout the 19th century. It was a conscious movement to revive medieval Gothic architectural forms.

It’s called ‘Gothic Revival’ because it echoes Gothic architecture, that developed in France in the twelfth century. Gothic was a style used for churches and was meant to emphasize the divine. Inspired by medieval architecture, the 19th-century Gothic Revival transformed it into a decorative fanciful style.

Main characteristics:

• Elongated tall silhouette
• The flying buttress – projecting support built against a wall and forming an arch with that wall
• Pointed arches
• Vaulted ceiling
• Tracery – an architectural solution by which windows are divided into sections of various proportions by stone bars or ribs of molding
• Light, airy interior
• The gargoyles – a spout in the form of a grotesque human or animal figure projecting from a roof gutter to throw rainwater clear of a building
• An emphasis on decoration and the ornate