Bridgnorth, Shropshire

 

Tribute bands

It’s easy to be dismissive about this sort of thing: a pattern of faux-timber framing painted on to a brick wall. ‘It’s not real,’ people say, hinting that it’s such a complete fake that it hardly exists at all. It’s the sort of thing you see quite often in counties such as Shropshire and Worcestershire, where there’s a long tradition of genuine timber-framed buildings. You’ll enter a ‘black and white’ village and stand at one end, admiring the view. Then you walk slowly forwards, realising as you go that, while many of the timbers are real, structural wood, a few are of this painted variety…and that there might also be some that are indeed genuine timber but are merely ornamental, tacked on to make the building look old.

There’s another ‘authenticity’ issue to consider when looking at this kind of thing. The familiar and much loved ‘black and white’ pattern of timber-framed buildings is itself something not quite original – most such buildings were constructed of oak that was left untreated, so that it aged to a beautiful silvery grey; infill panels were sometimes coloured with some natural pigment. Pink and grey, anyone? You can find this combination right across England now, from Tewkesbury to Lavenham.

So painted timber framing on a building like this one in a corner of Bridgnorth is obviously fake. And yet I’d not always want to remove it, to reveal the colour of the brickwork in a gesture of architectural ‘honesty’. Why? Because fake timber framing is itself now part of the history of many buildings. It is, one could argue, as much a part of the story of vernacular architecture in the West of England as oak beams and cruck frames. And it speaks of many things – an interest in history, or a respect for and tribute to the appearance of genuine timber frames, or a desire for a building to ‘fit in’. I’d not want every building to be like this, but I’m happy to find them here and there, wearing their artificial struts and showy braces with pride – and making some of us smile as we realise what’s going on.

Bridgnorth, Shropshire

Classical conventicle

Most British people, even if not chapel goers or architecture buffs, are aware of the thousands of nonconformist chapels that dot the towns and villages of England and Wales. And even if we’ve not thought much about it, most of us could draw a typical chapel from memory: central door, a pair of quite tall windows,* shorter window above the door, and a plaque with a name or date somewhere in the centre too.

Once everywhere, these familiar buildings are not quite so common now, but there are still many, and the variations on this simple design seem endless – Gothic or Classical or Romanesque style; brick or stone or stuccoed walls; variations in window height and proportion. Most of them were put up by local builders without the help of an architect and it’s very difficult (for a non-expert at least) to classify them or to find any sort of pattern that might ascribe one style to the Methodists, another to the Baptists, and so on.

The builders of the Bridgnorth Baptist Church set to work in c 1742, the town’s tiny Baptist congregation of the early-19th century having clearly expanded quite a bit.¶ Their chapel is therefore earlier than the big Baptist expansion that occurred later in the century, with the popular preaching of men like Spurgeon and the resulting large Baptist churches (‘large classic convenictles’, as John Betjeman described them§). At Bridgnorth they used the simplest of classical means to produce a quiet, well proportioned facade: very plain pilasters in the centre and at the corners; moulded surrounds to the windows and doors with just a little elaboration; quite a large parapet in which draws the eye to the central name plaque, which is done in the clearest sans serif capitals. A lick of paint, together with the sunlight, throwing all those details in relief, does the rest.

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*Or two pairs of windows, arranged one above the other on either side of the door.

¶The Baptist Magazine (in a piece by one J. B., dated 7 January 1821) says that in 1816 the church numbered just three members, one of whom died the following year; by the time of the article, the number was up to eight. The writer prayed, ‘May the set time to favour this part of Zion soon come!’ It looks as if this prayer was answered.

§ See John Betjeman, ‘Nonconformist Architecture’ in First and Last Loves, 1952. Betjeman does attempt to ascribe styles to specific denominations, and to generalize about the differences in architectural approach between different groups of, say, Methodists (Weslyan Methodists favouring a solid, faintly Gothic style, Primitive Methodists going for much plainer buildings in general, with the occasional ‘flimsy Italianate’ city chapel). But generalizatons about this are difficult. I am eagerly awaiting Historic England’s forthcoming book on nonconformist chapels, scheduled for publication towards the end of this year.

Bridgnorth, Shropshire

On the wall, on the ball

There are certain small towns that I’ve ofter visited and that, no matter how many times I return, seem to yield further visual interest, and the occasional wonder. Cirencester, Malmesbury, Ludlow, Stroud, are all examples. And there are others, further from my home patch, like Uppingham in Rutland and Louth in Lincolnshire, that I always find rewarding when I get there. Bridgnorth, a characterful hill and valley town with a distinctive townscape overlaying its hilly landscape, is becoming another favourite.

My last visit to Bridgnorth was on the train, and this took me into the town by an unfamiliar route, taking me straight past this cast iron street sign. It was probably the sunshine that made me notice it – the light, producing just the right shadows, was showing off the letters to their best advantage and making them look bright and crisp.

And pretty good letters they are, too. They’re quite well proportioned, there’s plenty of contrast between thick and thin strokes, and they stand out well (helped by the good natural light when I took my photograph) from the background. Maybe a lettering maven would adjust the spacing slightly here and there, but I think they do their job well. The corners of the plate, with their concave curves, are a nice touch too.

I’m always pleased to see these old – often 19th-century – street name signs surviving. They are simply many times better than modern, mass produced signs, fit well into historic settings, and have an elegance of their own. I suppose some councils don’t like them because they need painting periodically, but I’d say that they’re worth the effort. I hope Bridgnorth hangs on to them.

Bridgnorth, Shropshire

Getting the point

A couple of years ago I did a post about a sign in London with one of those wonderful pointing hands, the index finger straight and the wrist delineated with a cuff (both jacket and cuff-linked shirt visible). Although my London example was probably 20th century, the post provoked several interesting conversations (online and off) about the earlier history of graphic pointers, both fingers and arrows, and the ways they’ve been used. I was reminded of this when I came across this winning combination of old signs in Bridgnorth.

The street sign is a lovely cast-iron job, presumably Victorian. It has nice clear Clarendon letters that exhibit a pleasant balance of thick and thin strokes, but what makes it stand out is the pointing hand. From a frilly cuff emerges a long, elegant hand with a slender pointing index finger. I’m not sure the way the little finger bends backwards is very accurate – or even anatomically possible: I can’t seem to make my own finger do this. But the effect is pleasing and sends the pedestrian in the right direction.

Below are much later signs, aimed at the motorist, of a kind I remember from my youth. Clarendon letters have been replaced by the sans serif capitals popular in the mid-20th century and a big black arrow indicates the direction. Signs along these lines came in during the 1930s. There were slight revisions in 1944 and 1957, the latter featuring an improved alphabet designed by David Kindersley. As far as I can see these Bridgnorth signs are pre-1957. There was a major change after 1963, when British road signs were completely redesigned and the style still used today was adopted.

But a few of the old signs remain, like these in Bridgnorth. They still do their job, although, when one looks closely, it’s clear that these examples have not been helped by a rather hasty white paint job on the surrounding wall. The wall paint has messed up the black edges of both the street sign and the directional signs slightly, but all three signs still manage to stand out.

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Succinct information on the history of British road signs is available in Phil Baines and Catherine Dixon, Signs: Lettering in the Environment (Lawrence King Publishing, 2003); the 192 highly illustrated pages of this book comprise the best visual presentation of signs that I know.

Bridgnorth, Shropshire

Bricks of Bridgnorth

This Wesleyan chapel of 1853 clings to the hillside just off the High Street in the middle of Bridgnorth. It caught my eye because of its strong Classical façade and as I squinted at it through the rain on a darkening afternoon I thought its front wall was painted grey between the white pilasters. But the grey is actually the purplish grey of the bricks themselves, which have been used to striking effect here.

As with most nonconformist chapels, the emphasis is on the entrance front, a grand version of a common formula for dissenting chapels, with pitched roof, pediment, round-headed windows, and central doorway. The sides are much plainer, but the builder took the trouble to mirror the shape of the front windows in a series of blind arches, the first of which can just be glimpsed in my photograph.

The chapel’s front does have its oddities, it’s true – the curious moulding above the name stone towards the top and the little circular opening higher still. But its frontage shows a nice, and I think quite unusual, use of grey bricks, which are generally reserved for engineering projects such as bridges and viaducts. Even in the rain, they look good.

Bridgnorth, Shropshire

Funiculi funicula

The Shropshire town of Bridgnorth is set on steep sandstone cliffs that have brought all kinds of advantages to the place over the years – a good defensive position, caves that have been lived in until surprisingly recently, excellent views into the countryside. But it’s a challenge scaling the scores of steps that climb the 111-foot rise from the Low Town to the High Town and so in the 1890s a solution was found that most of us associate with the seaside: a cliff railway.

The building-fancier in me was immediately taken by the head building at the top of the track, a charming bit of 1892 fancy with an ‘old English’ timber-framed tower topped with a rather French looking roof. Beneath it run a pair of tracks. The original twin carriages were powered by water and gravity. Each car was mounted on top of a water tank. When the car reached the top of the slope its tank was filled, the weight sending it down the track and pulling up the other car with its empty tank.

Nowadays the lifting is done by electrical winding gear. The cars were renewed in 1955 in a curvaceous style like miniature versions of the charabancs of the time. But if with its 1950s cars and 1890s ticket office the cliff railway looks old fashioned, it’s obviously still providing an important service. The day I was there passengers were plentiful – and engineering, design, and public service were combining triumphantly together.