Of all the contributions made by Catholics to the cultural life of Britain and Ireland in the 175 years since this paper first appeared, a historian suggests that the work of architects such as Pugin and Bentley is among the most striking Catholic architecture of the 1840s changed the cultural history of Britain. And we are still feeling the resonance of that dramatic period 175 years later.Everyone knows that A.W.N. Pugin was a Catholic. He was a Catholic of an idiosyncratic kind: his faith was that of the pre-Reformation English Church, and he rejected the term “Roman Catholic”. He had little in common with most Catholics in England of his time, whether Irish immigrants or the scions of recusant families. But he was a Catholic ­nevertheless, and in alliance with politic