The antidote to beige
Hanging around in Saffron Walden a few months ago, waiting for the Fry Gallery to open and some friends to turn up, I admired the nearby cottages, with their coloured walls. Where I live in the Cotswolds, nearly everything is made from limestone – “gorgeous, honey-coloured limestone” as the tourist brochures, never shy of a cliché, like to put it. Well, Cotswold stone is handsome stuff, and it has a colour palette that extends well beyond the brochure’s honey, embracing a variety of subtly varying shades from pale silvery grey to a sort of toffee brown. But sometimes, especially when not softened by flowers or greenery it can feel a little, well, beige. So I can find something to admire in a bit of colour wash on the walls of town houses, and have posted in the past about my love of pastel shades in places from Warwickshire to Lyme Regis. Coloured walls go back a long way, though centuries ago the results were more likely to be plaster tinted in yellows, ochres, or blood reds than these shades from the paint box. But, old-style shades or new, hats off to the people of the colourfully named Saffron Walden for putting some colour on their houses too.
I believe it to be true that the very traditional Suffolk Pink was gained by mixing pig's blood in with the whitewash.
ReplyDeleteYes, well my Saffron Walden example is far from traditional, of course. But yes, animal blood, it seems, was used to give the requisite tint to plaster and colourwash. It wasn't necessarily pig's – some sources say oxblood – but, as the French say, 'tout et bon dans le cochon'.
ReplyDeleteColoured walls can be delightful... after all, why does a town have to be drab? I wonder if the town council had any control over how people painted their homes. For example, was their selection made from a limited range of colours? Were they limited to pastels?
ReplyDeletebut, as the French say, 'tout est bon dans le cochon'.
ReplyDeleteBonté gracieuse ! Where did you find that?
François-Marc Chaballier
Hels: How much control the town council has would depend on whether the buildings are listed (on the statutory national lists of buildings of historical/architectural interest), in which case there are quite strict restrictions. If there's not a listing, there may be a less strenuous designation – a street or zone may be made a conservation area. This means that buildings can be subject to controls (defined by the council to suit the area concerned) that affect alterations that owners might want to make (replacing a door or window frame, for example)'; conservation areas can also have more general guidance about other aspects of the design. I think this street is in a conservation area.
ReplyDeleteFrançois-Marc: Well, it's all about the power of Google. I'd heard Juliette sing some songs by that great and eccentric French composer Erik Satie on an album I have. So I googled her to find out what else she had done, and came across the cochon chanson, as well as other wonders.
ReplyDeleteThese buildings look as if they are timber-framed with an overhanging storey covered in a thick render. I imagine to do the painting job properly you need some special stuff, as we needed on our house, and the range of colours on offer is not very great I see. One firm based in S E England seemed reluctant to go outside white/beige/yellow pastels. In an account of Rye c. 1975 I noticed that all window surrounds without exception were white.
ReplyDeleteYes, absolutely, they must be timber-framed buildings.
ReplyDeleteAlways nice to see a good paint job. Being bold with colour is one of the least destructive things you can do to a building. And now I'm listening to Juliette on You Tube. From conservation to pig's blood to Satie... Only on your blog, Phil.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Joe. These comments are terrific when they work, and part of that working is the passing on of enthusiasms. Juliette became one of mine after I heard her sing Satie's slow-waltz-song 'Je te veux', which melted my heart. In this song her voice breaks up all over the place but the result is beguiling. Her other performances are as variously different as the material warrants. Now, having heard the cochon song, I have to see the Jean Gabin film with the pork in the valises to which it alludes, which, in turn, reminds me of a favourite phrase of dismissal or scorn, culled from a Raymond Chandler novel: 'In a pig's valise.' And so the enthusiasms multiply.
ReplyDeleteHow totally delightful. It works even better with the overhang I reckon, which makes it even more quirky...although probably more difficult to achieve the 'my pink half of the drainpipe' (reference to a song by the wonderful Bonzo Dog Doodah Band).
ReplyDeleteEileen: Thank you for your comment. Somehow I missed out on that song by the Bonzos (although I know quite a few of the others), so thanks for mentioning it!
ReplyDelete