Waltham Abbey Church - Later Architectural History

Later Architectural History

In 1859 the architect William Burges was appointed to undertake a restoration of the site and a refurbishment of the interior. The restoration was extensive; the removal of pews and galleries from the South and West, a new ceiling (painted with signs of the zodiac as at Peterborough Cathedral), a new chancel and significant re-building. The designs were exhibited at the Royal Academy. Work was completed by 1876. In the view of Burges's biographer, J. Mordaunt Crook, "(Burges's interior) meets the Middle Ages as an equal." However the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner states that Burges's remodelling was carried out "with all the robust ugliness which that architect liked". The revised Pevsner of 2007 takes a somewhat more sympathetic view, describing Burges' work as "pioneering (and) powerful".

The Abbey's stained glass is particularly noteworthy, including early work by Edward Burne-Jones in the rose window and lancets of the east wall, and A K Nicholson in the Lady Chapel. Much was destroyed during The Blitz.