St Neots, Cambridgeshire

Caught on the hop

Seeing this building first from a distance, I thought it must be an old bottle kiln – after all, there were potteries everywhere, not just in the ‘potteries’, the towns of Staffordshire once famous as the centre of England’s ceramics industry. However, the louvre at the top made me doubt this, and a little research revealed that it actually began life as an oast house. For those who don’t know, an oast house is a different kind of kiln, one used in the brewing industry to dry hops or barley. 

This oast house was built in the 18th century by one William Fowler and is best known to history as part of Day’s brewery, the business of John Day, who acquired and ran it, together with a complex of other brewery buildings, now mostly demolished, nearby. On the ground floor of the oast there would have been a fire to provide the heat source. Above this, was a floor made of wooden battens with spaces between them, covered with cloth; the ingredients to be dried would be spread on the floor. When the fire was lit, warm air would travel upward through the cloth to dry the hops. Moist air escaped through the vent at the top. Oast houses are most often seen in Kent and Herefordshire, both important hop-growing regions. In the case of these areas, the hop growers processed the hops before selling them to brewers. This oast, however, reminds us that they were built in other places, and by brewers too.

Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

The lion and the unicorn, 1

The practice of displaying the royal arms in churches became widespread during the reign of Henry VIII, after the king broke with the pope and the Roman church and appointed himself as the leader of the church in England. Royals arms were put up in churches (often under the chancel arch, where the Rood had formerly been) under Henry and his son Edward VI, although the Catholic queen Mary I ordered them to be removed. They were brought back under her successor Elizabeth I, often destroyed or removed under Oliver Cromwell, and restored once more with the restoration of the monarchy under Charles II. Many remain from these periods and from the later Hanoverian rulers, although generally not beneath the chancel arch but in some slightly less prominent place inside the church.

These coats of arms are often worth a good look. Though most are painted on boards, there are some on canvas, as well as carved wooden ones and examples moulded form plaster. Often they reveal work of character by a talented local artist (most are unsigned). The skill with which the animal supporters on either side of the shield are depicted is often telling – they’re heraldic beasts, so don’t have to be realistic, and the lions, especially, are often strikingly painted or carved. The artists could also show their skill in the depiction of the scrolls, leaves and flowers that are included.

My photograph shows one of my favourites. It is of carved wood and it is huge – it occupies the entire space beneath one of the curved arches between nave and aisle in the parish church at Wisbech. The arms are those of James I of England, who, as James VI of Scotland united the two kingdoms under one criown. His heralds added the Irish harp and Scottish single lion to the shield, in addition to the three lions that had been used on the English royal arms for several centuries. Since I first saw it, I’ve admired the characterful faces of the two beasts and the vigorous portrayal of their bodies. The scrolling foliage around their heads is also impressive.

The arms of James I are just one example of several that I have admired during my years of blogging. Those interested in such things might like to seek out my posts on the arms of James at Abbey Dore and those of Edward VII at Onibury. Together they are a timely reminder in this Jubilee year of the commitment of British monarchs to the church over a long timespan. Like the one at Wisbech, both of these are carved. I have a painted one in mind to post here soon.

Ely, Cambridgeshire

Logistics, Regency style

Although repainted and sliced off on one side, this old sign is still worth pausing to look at. It begs several questions. How did it come to be missing its right-hand edge when the windows on either side look old? How old is it? Who were Isaac Marsh and William Swan? Answering the last question gives a hint of an answer to the second, at least.

There was a Marsh and Son operating wagons out of Cambridge in 1808, but by 1814 the company is called Marsh & Swan. They covered a range of Cambridgeshire and Norfolk towns, as well as operating their service to London’s Bull Inn, Bishopsgate Street, a major destination for London coaches and for vehicles carrying goods such as the flies, vans and wagons* that Marsh and Swan operated. But by 1845, the company was called Swan and Sons. So this sign must date to the period between the 1800s and the early-1840s.

They’d be called a logistics firm today and run a fleet of trucks and they were as essential to commercial life as the companies whose trucks carry everything from food to pharmaceuticals now. However, their modern equivalents do not leave behind them such well crafted signs as this one, which compares more than favourably not only with the lettering on most lorries but also with that on the modern sign below it.

The sign-writer who restored it seems to have done a good job of recreating the letterforms and ornaments of the original. The balance of thick and thin strokes in the capital letters, the fancy curlicues on the ornamental ’T’, ‘Y’ and ‘B’ , and the decorative arrangement of the ‘and’ between the proprietors’ names – all these, I hope, will meet with well deserved admiration .

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* Wagons or waggons were large four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicles for carrying goods. A fly was a smaller wagon, although the term could also be applied to a horse-drawn passenger vehicle – the main feature of both was the ability to travel quickly. Vans were smaller still, with a permanent covered structure.

Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

King size

I'm told that today is International Lion Day. In honour of this occasion, I offer my readers a lion – more national than international, as he is part of the royal arms of King James I of England (aka James VI of Scotland) and is found in the church of Saints Peter and Paul, Wisbech. The coat of arms, carved some 400 years ago, hangs in the head of one of the large arches separating the south aisle from the nave, and if I tell you that it fills most of the upper part of the arch you will get an idea of just how large it is. The lion must be nearly as tall as an average human adult.

Royal arms have been installed in English churches since the reign of Henry VIII, Henry having broken from Rome and declared himself head of the church in England. Many such coats of arms survive in churches, but most of them date from after the English Civil War. That makes the arms at Wisbech triply unusual – as rare survivors from the early-17th century, as amazingly large, and as quite well and vigorously carved. His tongue, teeth, and so on are carefully delineated, and his mane cascades about his shoulders like the wig of any Stuart monarch. Fit for a king, indeed.

Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

Deco memories (2)

Here is one more memory from my brief visit to Wisbech a year ago, and it is another Art Deco structure that probably gets overlooked by visitors – even those who appreciate architecture – this town being so rich in buildings from earlier eras. This is the Empire Theatre, built in 1932 to designs by F B Ward and C E A Woolnough. A lovely example of its type, it features symmetry, metal-framed windows with stunning geometrically pattern glazing bars, and jazz-age details like that central pinnacle – all things that we associate with this type of cinema, but which are all too rare these days.

I did not manage to get inside, which is a pity, because when I returned home I read that the Empire (now given over to bingo) has a magnificent period interior. And that is even rarer, as so many cinema and theatre interiors of the 1920s and 1930s have gone, often as a result of perfectly understandable moves to upgrade, convert, or modernize. Fortunately, there are images of this extraordinary interior online, revealing stylish plasterwork, luxurious inlaid wood, metal banisters, and all kinds of other details. No wonder the building has a grade II* listing. I hope the sustaining bingo business thrives.

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Addendum An Australian reader comments on the brownish stone cladding of this facade, which would be unusual on a movie theatre in Australia. It's not that common in the UK either. In my experience, British interwar cinemas are generally built of brick, with the entrance front often covered in stucco or sometimes clad in white ceramic tiles. Back, sides, and unregarded portions generally are usually left unclad: it's the entrance front that is meant to count, and to catch the eye. I've posted about a ceramic-clad cinema before and also one in which which the brickwork is left exposed (although on that occasion my main interest was a decorative element in the form  of a carved relief).    

Wisbech, Cambridgeshire

Deco memories

I quite often take photographs, intend to blog them, and then, such is the richness of English architecture – and such the breadth of my enthusiasms – pass on to another building that seems more enticing. Looking back through my pictures for something else, I came across just such a building, which I photographed about a year ago. It’s the office building of a canning factory in Wisbech and was originally built for the Smedley’s company in around 1923.

The flat roof line, gridded windows, and Art Deco detailing make it typical of a spate of industrial buildings put up in the period between the two world wars, although this one is rather early – most of them, in my experience, date from the late-1920s or 1930s. The Art Deco elements are confident but quite restrained compared to the Egyptian ornament of London’s Hoover Building or the feline extravaganza of the Carreras Black Cat tobacco factory, also in the capital. Here we have a stepped pediment, some more stepped effects on either side of the entrance, some diamond and rectangle motifs framing the facade at either end and picked out in red and blue, and some red saw-tooth pattern along the top of the frieze. There are more touches of red above the doorway.

True to the tenor of the times, this bit of modernistic display was laid on for the offices, the company’s public face. The working buildings are round the back and no doubt in the 1920s, as now, they were low utilitarian shed-like structures, with very little decoration to them. The building now belongs to Princes, who have inserted their company name where the sign previously said ‘Premier Foods’ and before that, according to the building’s listing text, ‘National Canning Company Ltd’.

I’d not associated this kind of building with food production. Most of the examples I’ve seen, on the outskirts of towns and along London’s arterial routes like Western Avenue and the Great West Road, have been engineering factories, electronics producers, firms making goods associated with the automotive industry, cosmetics companies, and so on. But there’s no reason why canning peas or baked beans shouldn’t be done behind a smart Art Deco facade, and the new owners have integrated the glowing red letters of their name rather well into the design. Can do.