The eleventh, and definitive, 1882 edition of this hugely popular, highly illustrated work consists of two volumes on Gothic ecclesiastical architecture and a third on church vestments. Bloxam records his concern that: 'In the so-called restorations of ancient churches, not a few historical features … have been ruthlessly … swept away.'
The eleventh, and definitive, 1882 edition of this hugely popular, highly illustrated work was published at the urging of Sir George Gilbert Scott, and consists of two volumes on Gothic ecclesiastical architecture and a 'companion' volume on church vestments. Matthew Holbeche Bloxam (1805–88), a solicitor by profession, was an enthusiastic architectural historian with a passion for churches. In the preface, as well as explaining his reasons for another edition, Bloxam records his concern that some features he had recorded fifty years earlier no longer exist: 'In the so-called restorations of ancient churches, not a few historical features … have been ruthlessly, and in many cases needlessly, swept away.' Volume 1 surveys the rise and decline of English Gothic architecture; Volume 2 discusses the internal layout of churches before the Reformation, and the monastic tradition; and Volume 3 discusses vestments, post-Reformation changes to church interiors, and funerary monuments.
