Martock, Somerset

Well provided for

I always think of the Tudor and Stuart periods as the great age of English market houses, which are so often built in a kind of rustic classicism that suggests local pride and modest prosperity. The one at Chipping Campden is a favourite, Abingdon another, on a far grander scale and far from rustic. The stone town of Martock, however, has a mid-18th century one.

It’s quietly classical, with elliptical arches and piers that don’t have capitals but just a continuation of the stringcourse that runs around the building to show where the arch begins. Up above there are sash windows and, at the end, a Venetian window above a row of scroll brackets, and above that a blind niche in the form of a semicircle that, when you look at it closely, turns out to be a vent.  It’s very simple, a local builder’s assemblage of basic ingredients, but a satisfying enough recipe for a small country town.

Next to it is a structure known as the Market Cross or the Pinnacle. It’s a tall Tuscan column (about 6 m in total) that bears the date 1741. It is allegedly a copy of one once at Wilton, but wherever the idea came from, it’s effective enough as a corner feature on this junction. Not that it needs a landmark, with the Market House there too. In this, as in its profusion of stones buildings generally, Martock is well provided for.

Martock, Somerset

Edward, Edward…

The first time I went through Martock, I paused for just long enough to notice the bold black lettering painted around the curving corner of the Post Office. It looked like a nice touch in a small town that seemed proud to have retained this key local service when so many places have lost their Post Offices since email replaced letter-writing for so many people and some of the services provided by Post Offices moved elsewhere or declined in popularity. My eye having been caught by this strong lettering, I started to look at it a little more closely (noticing how that final ‘E’ looks a little cramped, and how the effect varies slightly as you move around and the curve) and then realised I soon needed to be somewhere else. So I took a swift photograph, jumped in the car, and drove away.

Later, looking at the photograph, I kicked myself for not examining more closely the post box to the left of the door. The splash of red with a white plate above told me that it must be a Ludlow – a type of box, distinguished by this white enamelled plate, the lack of a rain hood over the slot, and, if one could see how it’s made inside, a wooden inner body. I’ve noticed Ludlow boxes (named for their manufacturer) before. Months later, I was talking to someone who knew a lot about the history of post boxes and she mentioned this box in Martock as an uncommon example of one made and installed in 1936 with the monogram of King Edward VIII, who was king so briefly that he was not even crowned. When I was passing near Martock more recently, I stopped again and saw that there’s an ‘E R’, in a very curvaceous, ornate letterform. 

But which Edward does this monogram refer to? Now, I’m no expert in the minutiae of post-box design. This ‘E R’ is certainly different from the plainer, more classical one used in connection with a Roman number ‘II’, on the boxes marked with the monogram of the current queen, Elizabeth II. However, the curvy letterform on the Martock box is similar to that on some boxes said to be of the earlier Edward VII period, whereas most Edward VIII pillar boxes have a still more curly E made up of two loops. Online sources seem to disagree about all this. But it’s a charming bit of lettering anyway, and worth a pause. I’m pleased I managed to go back and see it.