All Saints Margaret Street | Tile Work in the Nave

: Tile Work in the Nave

The designs that adorn the walls and pillars owe much to Ruskin who, in The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849), advocated the use of chequers, zig-zags, stripes and geometrical colour mosaic. Matthew Digby Wyatt’s Specimens of Geometrical Mosaic of the Middle Ages may also have influenced some of the detailing. However, both of these favoured stone and marble, rather than tile, making the interior patterning of All Saints very much Butterfield’s own work. Ruskin, in fact, did not ‘altogether like the arrangements of colour in the brickwork.’ Butterfield’s tiled floor, made by Minton, is deep red with black checks and a white stone diaper, while the north and south aisles have a triangular variation on this pattern. The roof, now repainted, was originally in chocolate and white with blue detailing.