« Until about 1820 the Gothic Revival was almost wholly a matter of private houses – an upper-class whim. In any case, between, say, 1760 and 1820, very few churches were built in any style. Vast populated aeras – the industrial towns and the sprawling London suburbs – were without churches. This was most disturbing. It was bad in itself; it was also an invitation to dissenters to build chapels. The nineteenth-century gentry might let the poor starve and rot, but was always prepared to do something for their salvation. It was under pressure from the Church Building Society, as well from fear lest a godless people might also be a revolutionary people, that Parliament in 1818 passed the Church Building Act. One hundred and seventy-four churches were built. The style, if it could be called such, was an economical Gothic… […]. »