Animal assortment
Hereford's museum is one of many built in the 19th century as the Victorians, rich from the fruits of empire, set about furnishing their cities with monuments and buildings that spoke of culture and education. The burghers of Hereford chose F R Kempson as their architect. Kempson had been working in South Wales and moved to Hereford in the 1870s to build this museum, following it with many other buildings in the city and surrounding area. He seems to have brought some grey Welsh sandstone with him for the building, and designed it in a kind of Venetian Gothic, a homage, as it were, by a great maritime power at its height to another that even then, as Ruskin himself had pointed out in The Stones of Venice, was slipping quietly into its lagoon, its decline a terrible warning to us all.
The ornate parapet, rows of pointed windows, little loggia, and arches on the ground floor are all Venetian Gothic features. Typical of both the Venetians and the Victorians is the rich carving, which here runs to an array of birds and beasts, indicative, no doubt, of the natural history displays that the building originally contained. Some of these creatures sit on the parapet at the very top of the facade, and two of them, a cat and a bird, are enacting a hunting drama that is concluded at a lower level, where we see that the cat has caught its prey.
The cat has suffered a little from time and the elements, and must always have been rather lean and mean. It's also looking as us – shouldn't it be concentrating on its dinner? Or is it rightly keeping a weather eye out in case we interrupt its hunting? Whatever the reason, these characterful carvings by Robert and William Clarke are engaging. If I was a young child, still unsure about what to expect in a museum, they'd draw me in. Come to that, they drew in this more experienced visitor too.
7 comments:
I think the cat is trying to coerce you into becoming a part of it's conspiracy! It's a really engaging piece of decoration on a superb building.
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Bazza: You could be right: it's a cat that is playing to the gallery.
You've done it again. Getting me to blow up my bicycle tyres and putting a bottle of Tizer in the saddle bag. Funny Kempson being in Wales, there's something of Aberystwyth University about this. The one on the seafront, obviously.
Peter: Aberystwyth is not a place I know. But it's certainly a characterful building.
Peter: Just looked the Aber building up and it was designed by J P Seddon, of whom Kempson was a pupil, so it all adds up.
I agree that the ornate parapet, rows of pointed windows, loggia and arches on the ground floor were designed to remind the viewer of Venice. It is a splendid bit of architectural design and still looks great now.
But how did it get past the planning process in the local council? Rather I should ask if architects had to submit their plans to any local authority. And once built, did any local authority have to pass it as meeting all building standards?
Hels: In the 1870s, when this building was built, there wasn't much in the way of a planning process in Britain. Laws were passed in the 19th century to place some control on the building of houses, but these were mainly public health measures, to ensure that houses had adequate drains for example, and rooms that were not too small. More comprehensive planning laws began in Britain in 1909, but it wasn't until 1947 that the system of planning permission as we know it was created. The freedom that existed in the 19th century for individuals and local authorities to build what and how they wanted was one of the things that made Victorian cities (with their mix of vast factories and beautiful town halls) to develop as they did, and as quickly as they did.
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