Hereford

Jones the entrance

Threshold mosaics were common in shops in the early-20th century. These shops often had a doorway recessed in a small lobby, and the mosaic on the floor was a way of reinforcing the owner’s identity – another kind of advertising, if you like, to add to the name on the shopfront and the display in the window. Now customers and passers-by can enjoy them as charming bits of craftsmanship or as useful historical clues to the past owners of shop premises.

I have to say, though, that I don’t know who the Jones was who had this shop in the centre of Hereford. He or she* has long gone, but their mosaic remains, framed by the rich green tiles of the curving stall risers on either side. The mosaic isn’t in the best condition – it’s a shame about that crack, and the missing tesserae† – and perhaps the person who made it wasn’t the most accomplished mosaicist: I’ve seen other examples where all the ‘blank’ tesserae are laid in staggered courses, like a perfect brick bond. But there’s still much to enjoy, from the multicoloured border to the stylish lettering.

Regular readers of this blog will not be surprised that it’s the lettering that caught my attention.¶ The N, with its curving cross-stroke, and the very curly J are my favourites. To create these, with tiny bits of stone or tile, would have taken plenty of art and effort, as did the serifs present on some letters, and as did the outline tesserae – look at the way the black line of the O is followed by the white pieces that surround it.

If threshold mosaics like this are modest compared to the work of master artists like Boris Anrep and the mosaicists with whom he worked, they still show their share of flair. They deserve to be noticed as we step over them or walk past, as reminders of a time when shopkeepers built their names into their premises in the hope that their businesses and their reputations would prosper and endure through the generations.

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* Probably a he, but businesswomen’s names are sometimes concealed behind the gender-neutral initials of a shop sign. Did you know that the H. Samuel of the famous jewellery chain was a woman?

† Tesserae: the small individual pieces of stone or other material that make up a mosaic.

¶ Am I predictable, or am I predictable?

Embankment, London

Water gate revelation

I used to work in Covent Garden and sometimes, especially in summer, there was a strong temptation to cross the Strand and make for the refreshment provided by Gordon’s Wine Bar in Villiers Street. After a glass or two one could walk back via an architectural detour, through the remains of the Adelphi perhaps, or across the Embankment Gardens, past this monumental gateway, a reminder of a London long gone.

Before the Victoria Embankment was built in 1862, the gateway stood on the river bank. It was built in 1626 as the water gate to York House, home of George Villiers 1st Duke of Buckingham (whose name and title are commemorated in the street names hereabouts). The builder was the appropriately named Nicholas Stone, Buckingham’s master mason and an associate of Inigo Jones, the man who had introduced Palladian architecture to England a few years earlier.

Stone’s water gate is a vigorous, almost restless, design with its banded columns, its big keystones, and its busy cornice jutting in and out. Less restrained than most of Inigo Jones’s rather severe surviving buildings, it seems to look forward to the more baroque style of the late-17th century. And stranded in its garden it looks even odder than it must have done in the 1620s. One up to the London County Council (also long gone) for preserving it.

Chesterton Windmill, Warwickshire

WESTERN WIND (1)
Windmills are much more common in the east of England, where they take advantage of the stiff easterly breezes that blow across Lincolnshire and East Anglia, than in the west. But travellers along the Fosse Way, the Roman road that connects Cirencester in Gloucestershire with Lincoln, are used to seeing one windmill on a hilltop at Chesterton in Warwickshire. It’s one of the most striking mills in England, making a strong silhouette that’s visible for miles around.

Most windmills were built without the help of an architect. They were put up by builders or millwrights who knew how to construct a piece of machinery that worked efficiently and weren’t much interested in architectural airs and graces. But Chesterton Windmill, which was built in 1632, is very unusual because it was obviously built to the designs of an architect who had imbibed the influence of the Classical style. It was one of those buildings that people used to attribute to the great Classical architect Inigo Jones, though there’s no evidence that Jones designed it. A more likely candidate is Jones’s pupil John Stone, who worked on the manor house nearby.

The other odd thing about the mill is that the man who probably commissioned it, local grandee Sir Edward Peyto, was an astrologer and astronomer, and there’s a tradition that the building was originally an observatory that he used to look at the stars – presumably the rotating top, turned by means of a hand winch, housed Peyto’s telescope. If so, it was probably converted to milling quite early in its history, with added sails covered in sailcloth that cost 9 old pence per yard. It's very windy on top of this Warwickshire hill – it certainly was on the day I visited recently anyway – and Chesterton Windmill harnessed this energy to grind corn until around 1910, and was restored in 1969. For more about the history of this building, go here.