The final talk in the Centre for National Parks and Protected Areas series for 2025 took place this week at the University of Cumbria's Ambleside campus. And what an excellent talk, too.
Dale Townshend of Manchester Metropolitan University, spoke about Gothic Architecture and Gothic Fiction in the Long Eighteenth Century. Dale Townshend is professor of Gothic Literature, and the Manchester Centre for Gothic Studies of Manchester Metropolitan University.
Townshend is the author of many Gothic related books, including one of my absolute favourite books: Writing Britain's Ruins. In this book Dale Townshend brings together two of my favourite topics: ruins and literature. Because I have enjoyed this book so much I was really looking forward to Dale's talk and I wasn't disappointed!
The talk mostly focused on the first Gothic Revival of the 18th century, giving a sense of relationship between architecture and literature or the literary manifestations of the Gothic Imagination in the period 1700-1830. The talk commenced with the literary and architectural experiments of Horace Walpole, starting with The Castle of Otranto.
The talk continued with later Gothic writers such as Ann Radcliffe and Matthew Gregory Lewis.
By way of conclusion, the talk considered the ways in which Lanercost Priory and Furness Abbey, two significant sites of medieval ecclesiastical ruins in Cumbria, have recently inspired a range of literary and photographic creative responses on the AHRC-funded "Revenants and Remains" programme.
Townshend didn't focus on the second Gothic Revival, although there were some passing references to Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe and Mary Shelley.
One aspect of the talk that I really enjoyed was Townshend's theory that one of the reasons for the Gothic revival and the renewed interest in the ruins of abbeys, was the assertion of Protestantism over the Catholicism of Rome. The Gothic could be seen as a celebration of British Protestantism, the break with Rome and all the negative aspects of continental Europe, especially the French Revolution.
A thoroughly interesting talk, possibly my favourite of all the CNPPA talks over the last few years.