Bristol and beyond

Small but perfectly formed

Before I return to regular posting, I would like to offer my readers one more selection of past posts, to celebrate this blog's tenth anniversary. This, time, I've chosen a handful of very small buildings. This is in part a reminder that, over the past decade, the English Buildings blog has taken pride in noticing very small structures that many people pass by without a thought. It's also, in a way, a tribute to the great architectural writer Nikolaus Pevsner and the colleagues with whom he worked. A very long time ago I bought my first volume in his Buildings of England series: it was Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds, and I added it to my shelves shortly after it came out, in the 1970s. In fact, it was one of the volumes not actually written by Pevsner – the great man was getting old and realised that the only way to complete the series was to enlist some help. So the Gloucestershire volumes were written by local expert David Verey. Be that as it may, they followed Pevsner's lead in including many small buildings among the more obvious churches and big houses.* I was made aware of this when I looked up the entry on a place I knew to find that the most unassuming building of all – a privy – had been singled out for notice. I learned something that day, that even the most modest structure could be worth looking at. I have tried to keep that in mind ever since. So here are five of my posts on small buildings, easy to miss but very memorable...

A public lavatory in Bristol

A Turkish bath in London

A fountain in Warwickshire

A lock-up near Oxford

A churchyard seat in Herefordshire.

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* Now that revised editions of the Pevsner volumes are appearing, with more and larger pages allocated to each county, more and more of these small buildings are included, and a good thing too.

Eastnor, Herefordshire

Rest and art

Standing in the corner of the churchyard at Eastnor, Herefordshire, is this extraordinary seat of c. 1900, sheltered by a sloping tiled roof and adorned with a series of five large terracotta panels, each bearing a sculpted figure and a Christian text. Many is the visitor, tending a grave perhaps or just taking a stroll, who must have been thankful for this unusual bit of churchyard architecture, their eyes moving across the sculpted panels and their messages: from a figure representing the harvest (‘They that sow in tears shall reap in joy’), past an angel, Christ in Majesty, another angel this time carrying a child, to a sower (coming back to the agricultural metaphor again: ‘He that now goeth on his way weeping bringeth forth good seed’). There’s much to admire in the gentle realistic modelling of the figures and faces, from the upward-glancing harvest figure (sometimes called Ceres) to the expressions of repose in the faces of the angels.

If the user of the seat is thankful, who deserves their thanks? The seat was provided by Lady Isabella Somerset (also known as Lady Henry Somerset, 1851–1921), one of the notable social reformers of the late-Victorian era. She was stuck in an unhappy marriage: her husband was gay, a fact he only revealed to her after the wedding. She bore him a son, moved out, and threw herself into social work. Lady Somerset was a leader of the temperance movement, a campaigner for the emancipation of women, and an advocate of contraception. But she did more than campaign. She gave funds to causes she supported, devoting much time and money to causes such as a home where women alcoholics were helped to overcome their addiction. She was a pragmatic social reformer; it was not enough for her piously to condemn, as some of her contemporaries did, those addicted to alcohol: she wanted to help them too. Small gestures like this churchyard seat in the village next to the castle she inherited, not to mention the well on the village green, must have been typical of her.

Some sources (including Pevsner) say that Lady Somerset actually modelled the terracotta panels herself. This surprises me in a way: they seem very good for an accomplished amateur with a very busy life; and yet Lady Somerset seems to have been a person who could pull surprises. Whoever did them, though, clearly had a flair for modelling and a sympathetic eye for female faces. As for the donor, it’s perhaps typical that she wanted people to have not only rest and shelter, not only religious messages to ponder, but beauty too. A very Victorian mixture of values, and by no means a bad one.

Note I first found out about the seat from the excellent Tile Gazetteer compiled by Lynn Pearson (Richard Dennis, 2005).

Eastnor, Herefordshire

The splendour falls on castle walls

In early March the trees are still bare of leaves and the landscape yields enticing views. This one, through a hedge on the A438 not far from Ledbury, is of Eastnor Castle, rising massively like the border strongholds built by the Normans to defend their lands against the Welsh. ‘Like’ being the operative word. Eastnor is no 12th-century pile, but a Norman revival castle built in the second decade of the 19th century. It was designed by Robert Smirke for the 1st Earl Somers and was perhaps intended to add the stamp of antique status to a man whose wealth came partly from banking and a judicious marriage.

The building is massive and the task of constructing it was formidable – a workforce of 250, stone brought from the Forest of Dean by water and cart, ten years of toil. Even under construction, the castle must have seemed a romantic place, a world away from the Napoleonic Wars. And yet these wars had an impact. Timber, in demand for ship building, was at a premium, and the builders drew heavily on the trees on the estate. Smirke looked to new technology for a way around the problem. Many of the roof trusses and beams in this neo-Norman building are made of iron.

In spite of its massive masonry and iron beams, Eastnor was suffering huge structural problems by the end of World War II. Perhaps with less tenacious owners than the Hervey-Bathursts the castle might have turned into a sad but Romantic ruin. But the last few decades have seen huge efforts made to repair the building, and it’s at last in very good shape. You can read more about it here.

Eastnor is now in fighting trim to host visitors, corporate hirers, weddings, and all the other uses that generate the income necessary to support a huge structure like this. One should not be sad about these new uses of this old building. Country houses have always been businesses, and their farms, timber yards, workshops, and kitchens supported armies of workers. Tourism to country houses has a long history too – remember those Jane Austen characters visiting big houses and being shown around by housekeepers. Eastnor has been open to visitors almost since it was built. The tradition continues.