The Bishop's Churches

The Bishop's Churches by Desmond Martin

The Churches of Anglican Bishop Robert Gray

This beautiful book by Desmond Martin documents the 50 churches established between 1848 and 1880 by Robert Gray, the first Bishop of Cape Town.

Forty of these churches were designed by his wife, Sophy. The text is accompanied by Desmond Martin's watercolours and line drawings of most of these buildings. Desmond Keith Martin was born in Cape Town and educated at Rondebosch Boys' High School. He commenced architectural studies in 1954. The following year he turned to a career in graphic art. Later, he studied fine art extra-murally, graduating with a BA(FA) in 1977. In 1990 he returned to his first love, architectural history, when he was appointed an assistant director with the National Monuments Council (now SAHRA). In 1993 his research into the Cape Town church building boom between 1880 and 1909 earned him an MPhil. He was awarded his PhD from the University of Cape Town in 2002 for the thesis 'The Churches of Bishop Robert Gray and Mrs Sophia Gray, a historical and architectural review'. Dr Martin retired in 2000. He and his wife live in Pinelands, Cape Town, where they are members and lay ministers at St Stephen's Church (illustrated below). The church, built in 1954 to a plan by Francis Hawkins, exhibits a number of characteristics of the Gothic Revival churches of the previous century reviewed in this book