156 Architecture in Great Britain. form with great success. The Halifax Town Hall, his latest work, deserves special notice as a free adaptation of Renaissance architecture. The detail of this building is excellent, and its composition spirited ; it is crowned by high-pitched roofs, and possesses a species of spire as original as it is happily conceived. As distinguished examples of modern Renaissance we may name the Leeds Town Hall, by Broderick ; the Carlton Club, by Smirke ; Holford House, Park Lane, by Vulliamy ; the Liverpool Exchange, by T. H. Wyatt ; and the interior of the India House, by Sir Digby Wyatt. As a specimen of a still more recent date we may take the Royal Albert Hall ; no building of the day has more successfully combined the skilful arrangement of plan and the bold treatment characteristic of early Roman buildings with the constructive dexterity of our day; though it is inferior in refinement of detail and in architectural merit to many of the buildings just enumerated. The Albert Hall is in the form of a Roman amphitheatre, with a velarium (i. e. awning) overhead ; the corridors, staircases, and sloping rows of seats are all borrowed from the Roman type, but the huge roof of iron and glass, the external terra-cotta decoration, and the mosaic frieze are modern features. The original design was by Captain Fowke, but the actual construction and the working; designs are due to General Scott, C.B. Horace Walpole (1753—1770) was one of the earliest to attempt to revive mediaeval architecture ; but the first great impulse was given by the erection of Fonthill Abbey, a vast private residence in which Mr. Beckford attempted to reproduce an old Gothic Abbey. It was completed in 1822, and caused a great sensation.
