Augustus Pugin (1812 – 1852)

A plaque was erected in June 2007 to one of England’s most influential architects, who effectively created our image of Victorian Gothic architecture. Pugin moved to Salisbury with his second wife in 1834, and built an asymmetrical Gothic revival style house in Alderbury. In 1834 he got his very first architectural commission when he was asked to restore the hall of John Halle’s house in New Canal: and in the same year, after a fire destroyed the old Houses of Parliament, he was commissioned to design all aspects of the decoration of the new building. In 1836 he published Contrasts, promulgating his vision of an appropriate architecture for his times, and followed this up five years later with The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture, in which he advocated the Gothic style as the only true Christian architecture. By the time Pugin left Salisbury in 1841 he had influenced the path for Victorian architecture to follow; and after his death his ideas were taken up by such luminaries as Sir George Gilbert Scott and George Edmund Street. While in Salisbury, Pugin converted to the Roman Catholic faith, and six years after he left the city he designed and built St Osmund’s Church in Exeter Street.