The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture is Matthew Holbeche Bloxam’s popular introduction to the styles of English church building, cast in the form of question and answer for the use of students. Bloxam explains how to distinguish the successive phases of Gothic, Norman, Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular, by their windows, arches, mouldings, and ornament.
Long a standard handbook, the book did much to spread accurate knowledge of medieval architecture during the nineteenth-century Gothic Revival and the wave of church restoration that accompanied it. Its catechetical format makes the subject easy to learn and remember. For anyone wishing to read the architecture of England’s parish churches and cathedrals, Bloxam remains a clear, methodical, and genuinely useful guide.