Friends' houses
Walls built of small bricks, laid in Flemish bond and with a lovely uneven colour palette ranging from sandy red to raspberry. Low eaves, dormer windows, white-painted casements, sashes, and gates, tall chimneys. The houses of Jordans Village, arranged around a rectangular green, are of a piece, and have a timeless quality. Some could almost be Tudor; or Arts and Crafts houses of the end of the 19th century; or early 20th century outposts of Hampstead Garden Suburb. The last is nearest the truth. Jordans Village was planned in 1915–16 and built as a Quaker community, mostly in the 1920s, not far from the 17th-century Jordans Meeting House (the subject of a future post, I expect) and in part to shield this venerable building from speculative builders, who were eyeing up the neighbourhood because it is within striking distance of the railway line into London's Marylebone Station.
The architect of the village was Fred Rowntree, himself a Quaker and a relative of the famous family of confectioners. He produced something with more beauty and character than the spec builders would probably have done. The houses, with their painstaking details like the brick column on this example, look beautiful against a background of greenery and snow – I suspect they would look even better on a sunny day. I visited Jordans with friends who have a longstanding connection to the village, and I can say that the success was not only aesthetic. Jordans was and remains a true community, which not only retains control over the village's buildings (they are owned by Jordans Village Ltd, a Friendly Society) but fosters a network of families and friends that is supportive and sustaining. Some of the light and warmth of the Quakers shone through on the cold winter day of our visit. Friends indeed.
11 comments:
I adore fine English brickwork and this is a great example.
I looked for 'Jordans Village Green' on Google Images and Bing but no photo quite did it justice.
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Thanks, Bazza. Photographs of brickwork are greatly improved by some warming sunshine. The sun wasn't out the other day when I was in Jordans, and a lot of the online images seem to be taken when the sun was in, too. One of these days I hope to return when it is out, and do the place more justice photographically.
Another Arts-and-Craftsy touch in these cottages is the individuality of the latches and hinges on the doors - each one hand-made and subtly different, rather like the residents.
Sadly cricket is no longer played on Jordans village green, for reasons of health and safety - or at least jitteryness about windows.
Emma: Yes, all those latches and hinges are wonderful. A good example of those small things that matter much more than one would imagine.
As to the variety of inhabitants - isn't that something that makes a real community? A lot of villages in "nice" areas have turned into retirement ghettos. There is something more alive about a place where the old, the young, young families, single people, rich, and poor, can live peacefully together.
Neil: A shame about the cricket. Cricket on the green is such a traditional part of village life. Hugh de Selincourt's 1920s novel The Cricket Match (and John Parker's 1970s follow-up The Village Cricket Match, in which a car window is broken, en passant) are good literary testimony to this. These novels take place not in Bucks but in Sussex, in a fictional village very unlike Jordans, but they nail the role of this peculiar summer game in English life rather well.
Neil: Although now I come to think of it, the game in these books is played not on a village green but a sports field, albeit one, with the village war memorial at one corner, and that is near the centre of the village. So it's almost the same...
I always think the game described in 'England, their England' takes some beating especially the catch that determones the result. The village sounds stunning and worth a visit.
Stephen: Yes, that game is a classic.
Jordans is small - there are just four rows of the red brick houses that I describe, plus other scattered detached houses, but still very special, especially its arrangement around the green. The Meeting House is worth a visit in its own right - I'm not sure what the opening arrangements are, though. We were lucky enough to have it opened specially.
Mmm, its buildings like these, and particularly the Meeting House at Jordans, that makes me think about being a Quaker. I could do with sitting quietly in a bare room, looking out at the snowy trees through plain glass. Actually, I am. Almost.
Peter: Indeed. We would all be better for some contemplative quiet.
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