Although the firm where Douglas received his training was in a provincial city in the north of England, it was at the forefront of the Gothic Revival in the country. The Gothic Revival was a reaction against the neoclassical style, which had been popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and it incorporated features of the Gothic style of the Middle Ages. Both Edmund Sharpe and E. G. Paley had been influenced by the Cambridge Camden Society and, more specifically, by A. W. N Pugin who believed that "Gothic was the only correct and Christian way to build". Sharpe had also been influenced by Thomas Rickman, and he had written papers on medieval scholarship himself. Paley had been influenced by his brother, Frederick Apthorp Paley, who was enthusiastic about Gothic architecture, and who had also been influenced by Rickman. During the time Douglas was working in Lancaster the firm was responsible for building and restoring churches in Gothic Revival style, one of which was St Wilfrid's Church in the Cheshire village of Davenham, some from Sandiway. Douglas's first church, that of St John the Evangelist at Over, Winsford, was entirely English Gothic in style, more specifically Early Decorated.