Architecture And Archæloogy.

Wellington College , Kneller Hal ' , St . Aldan ' s College , Birkenhead , and Bishop Stortford , are among the most considerable of these ; Avhile St . Olave ' s , Southwark , Huddersfield , Swansea , Liverpool , and Tamivorth , are in tho long list of national and grammar schools . When AVC remind our readers that it ivould be difficult to take up any number of tho Builder in ivhich there is not a notice of

now schools being built , it will be seen that it would be a very serious undertaking to enumerate thorn all . It has been urged that in this Victorian age we have no need of new castles , as some few may mistakingly think that our A-oluntcers are equally out of date . Nevertheless , we are favoured with both . This decade , of Avhich we write , has seen HCAV castles arise at Ruthin , at Cloughanodfoy , at

Hornby , not to mention the restoration of several ancient strongholds , of Avhich Alnwick is an example . Of " gentlemen ' s residences , " Cliefden , Tortworth Court , Somciiej'toii Hall , Bylaugh Hall , Mr . Hope ' s in Piccadilly , Mr . Holford ' s in Park-lane , are tho first that occur to us of a long list . Much , too , has been done in the way of itnproA-ing labourers ' cottages . In this respect tho last ten years outdo all others .

The Prince Consort's model cottages , as shown at tho Great Exhibition , incited many to turn their attention to a matter but too little thought of , whether in Edwardian , Tudor , or Georgian times . An estate Avithout a row of pretty cottages , with roses and creeping plants trained round the mullioned windows , will soon bo rare , it may bo hoped , though at present there are plenty of exceptions . Some ladies of rank

and wealth bestow as much attention on their model villages as it ivas the fashion , in the Spectator ' s time , to lavish on China monsters and black pages . We need not say Avith how much more advantage . We Avould confine these retrospective glances within architectural bounds ; but we must mention—perhaps their

gateways may be a sufficient link to our subject—the two new parks in the metropolis . Nearly two centuries intervened between Ihe grants that gavo us St . James ' s and the Regent ' s ; and here , in ten short years , wc have two for the metropolis , Aston for Birmingham , and others at Manchester , Halifax , and elsewhere . The drinking-fountains , with which most of our towns arc now supplied , aro entirely

the fruits of the period we are revicAving . They ought to be better , but there thoy are . For the one " Man of Ross " of the last century AVC have a score in tho present day , though thoy do not forget to mark tbe marble with their name . The transportation of the Marblo Arch was an incident ivhich , like that- of tho erection and removal of tho Great Exhibition building , appears to be part of some

Eastern fable , rather than one of the prosaic proceedings of John Bull in the nineteenth century , —somcthiug posterity will regard as AVC view St . George ' s combat with the dragon , and deem half mythic , half historic . Perhaps the removal of the Marble Arch will be considered a myth , expressing the shifting of somo fiscal burden off one shoulder on to another ; and any representation of the Great Exhibition building that may bo handed down , a hieroglj-ph tj'pifying

the volunteer review . The sites thej' once occupied are so utterly devoid of any token of their presence , that wc can pardon tho prospective unbelief in their existence that wo have imputed to posterity . Some statuary has been scattered about , in London and the provinces , and architects have been enabled to make moro use of sculptors in their designs than heretofore , and it is to be hoped will do so still more .

Perhaps in no respect is our progress made more evident than in a comparison of our recent street architecture ivith the dreary profiles presented in almost interminable succession in Harlcy , Baker , and Wimpole streets . Our shopfronts present occasional instances of tho application of architectural skill of a hi gh order . A style , to all intents and purposes new , growing out of the application of now

materials and processes ( such as we hai'c often urged ) to tho existing mode of house-building , is making itself evident . Amongst modern streets on an older type , Cannon-street ivill be specially noticed ; and other marts of our merchant princes are scarcely loss palatial . Then Ave haA'e a IIOAV Covent Garden Theatre , with its Floral Hall ; St . James ' s Hall ; a noble reading-room at the British Museum ; three new bridges over tho Thames ; a new market at Billingsgate ; the Oxfordstreet bazaar ; and innumerable banks , club-houses , life ,

firo , and other offices of architectural consideration , all belonging to the hist decade . The metropolis , of course , presents us ivith a larger cluster of now buildings than is to bo found elsewhere ; but the same vital principle is apparent all over the country , as well as in the sister kingdoms . To enumerate the new town-halls , such as those at Bideford and Cardiffaud some to ivhich we have already

, referred , or the new baths , such as those erected by the Duke of Devonshire at Buxton , or those Avith washhouses in London , Newcastle , Birmingham , Maidstone , or Bilston ; , or to mention by name only tho new asylums for the blind ,, for idiots , for lunatics ; the reformatories and the almshouses would fill a column . Monster hotels form a freshfeature , and will be still further developed . The great

accessions to our wealth in our museums we haA'e already treated upon at large . It is sufficient for our present purpose to have sketched this panoramic outline of thesethings . The advance of stained glass in the public estimation ,, though ' scarcely to that extent in excellence which could be desired , is another peculiarity of the time . Ten years ago n .

memorial Avindow was looked upon as remarkable ; but now the use of glass for that purpose is general . Hence our churches are becoming enriched with colours , though , as yet ,, not always harmoniously , instead of being defaced with cold , tasteless , mural tablets . Here we must withdraw the lingering glance we have thrown back upon part of the road Ave have travelledand

, again face , with fresh courage , the steep path before us . If so much has been accomplished within the last ten years , what may wo not achieve in the next ! Wo must not stand ' still : — " Thoro is nothing so revolutionary , because there is nothing so unnatural and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed , when all the world is , by the very law of its creation , in eternal progress . "—Builder .

GENERAL ARCHITECTURAL INTELLIGENCE . Melbourne Church , Derbyshire , after having been closed for about a year , ivas reopened on the 3 rd instant . The church may almost be called a small Norman Cathedral . Indeed , at one time , owing to the invasion of the Scots in the north of England , the Bishops of Carlisle held their ordinations at Melbournewhere also they had a palace .

, The present church is supposed to be built upon the site of one even still more ancient , ivhich is mentioned , in Doomsday Book , and supposed by the Rev . Joseph Dean , in his " History of Melborune " to have been built by King Ethclrcd on the spot where Queen Osthrid met with her death . The church of Melbourne has long attracted the attention of the archreologist and antiquary . The late

William Wilkins , who built Donnington Hall , gave plans sections , and descriptions of it in the 13 th volume of the-Arcliceologica . It is 144 ft . long , cruciform iu shape , with a lantern tower containing thirteen arches rising at the . intersections . It has triforia running over the arches of the nave , ivhich are continued round the lantern tower . The pillars of the nave are 4 ft . in diameter ; the arches are semicircular and enriched with zigzag ancl other mouldings . On

tho capital of one of the western pillars are carved two plain crosses ivith a pellat in each angle . The northern triforium is probably Norman , the southern of a later date , about the time of Stephen . The side aisles are of much later date . The AvindoAvs of tho edifice contain no stained glass , but arc IIOAV glazed with rolled cathedral glass . The fabric is entered by a Norman doorway at the west end , which

opens into a spacious arch , loading to a portico extending the whole breadth of tho church , ancl covered by a groined arch , over Avhich are chambers ivhich somo antiquaries supposed were the residence of the keepers of the church , called Porstophin . The font is a hemisphere of stone ,, supported by a cluster of four pillars . There are a few objects to interest the antiquary . These are in the south

transept , near the organ , and consist of the effigies of a crusader clad in mail and sureoat , his head being encircled with a bandeau of jewels . There are also some curious slabs to the memory of various members of the Hardingc family ( from whom Lord Hardinge was descended ) , who formerl y lived at King ' s NeAvton Hall . In the same transept , too , is a curious monumental cross carved upon a flagstone . Whilst on the-