Architectural Fashion vs Common Sense – the 19th century Battle of Styles and its legacy.

Saturday 27th September, 2025.

10:00am – 4:00pm.

Rutland County Museum, Oakham.

£25.

A Symposium to explore the Gothic controversy in the East Midlands which will draw on Petit’s work in the region. It will consist of keynote lectures and submitted contributions from both academic historians and local historians in the region.

Petit was one of the foremost writers and speakers on Church Architecture in the mid-19th Century, and one of very few standing against the re-introduction of 14th Century Gothic for new building or restoration, as prescribed by his opponents. He stood for originality in new work, and preservation of the old, believing there was great beauty in all previous styles. He devoted his art and speaking to identifying the forms and proportions of beauty in ecclesiastical architecture. He was both a modernist, in an historical age, for new buildings, and at the same time the pioneer of preservation of the old.