Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire

Blue? True…

Here’s one further bit of signage, spotted above the crowds in Leighton Buzzard, as was the lovely swan in my previous post. This is a detail of the Conservative Club, built in 1913 as the Unionist Club*. I rather like the original lettering, which is somewhat restrained but has just enough of the curvaceous (look at the curls on the 9 and 3, and the little ornamental protrusions on the U) to give it some character. I’m pleased it’s still there, although it has been superseded by the bolder blue letters beneath.† These are good letters too, with decent proportions, and well spaced. Sadly, though, they don’t seem to have been made to last in the way the original sign clearly was. The C and L appear to be losing their deep blue hue and their visual homogeneity.¶

- - - - -

*Non-British readers might not know that the British Conservative Party’s official name is the Conservative and Unionist Party.

†The ‘CLUB’ shown in the picture is preceded by the word ‘CONSERVATIVE’.

¶I will make no cheap political points…

Stroud, Gloucestershire

Letter set (2)

Having finished the book recommendations that have occupied the last few posts, I return to buildings – but without leaving the world of books and words behind completely, because the other weekend I went to a talk in Stroud by Phil Baines, who is a professor at Central St Martin's School of Art in London. He has written two excellent books on the design history of Penguin books (Penguin By Design and Puffin By Design) and is also an expert on all things to do with type and lettering. I had encountered him a few years ago when he led a tour of central London on an antique Routemaster bus, pointing out interesting bits of lettering as we went.

During the course of the talk he mentioned that he had seen the Stroud Subscription Rooms (a 19th-century classical building by Basevi with its name high up in the frieze), and admired the lettering on them, which is a good example of a form of letter generally known as the Egyptian. In Egyptian letters the proportions are very similar to those of the English letter (see my earlier post on this), but the letters have slab serifs – rectangular, square-cut terminating strokes. The strokes often have a fairly even thickness, but if the letters are very chunky, the strokes can have some variation in thickness. Phil Baines encouraged us to go to the Subscription Rooms in Stroud, admire these letters, and pay special attention to the fine letter R. The letters stand out beautifully from the stone wall and Phil Baines was right, of course, to mention this letter; it has a lovely curve to the leg, which bends elegantly to avoid the large slab serif at the base of the descender. The two big slab serifs on the U, which nearly join together in the middle, and the big, generous D are attractive too. But the R is especially good, and in pointing it out, Professor Baines was showing us that he knows his Rs from his elbow.

Leicester

Letter set (1)

Little things can make a big difference. When it comes to architecture, one of those little things is the quality of the lettering used in signs, inscriptions, date stones, and the rest. Here's an example that caught my eye: the name and date stone on a chapel in the centre of Leicester. To harmonize with the classicism of the building the person who cut this inscription used what Alan Bartram, authority on lettering on buildings, calls the English letter. What he means is a letter form in which there is quite a big difference between the thick and thin strokes and in which the change from thick to thin in, for example, the curving bowl of the C here, or the P, can be quite sudden. On the whole the thick strokes are verticals. The serifs (the tiny protrusions at the ends of the main strokes) are generally bracketed, in other words the main stroke flows into them. But in this particular example the bracketing is quite subtle in some of the letters.

You can find English letters all over Bath, where they are used for the street names, which are carved directly into the stone walls. Elsewhere they pop up in all kinds of places, and are often, as here, to be found when you look up. They vary quite a bit in style –some have less heavy thick strokes than these. Many have fuller serifs. But if the letters are well proportioned and evenly spaced, they are all satisfying. Especially in the sun.

Rous Lench, Worcestershire

An unusual post

I had been meaning for a while to do a post about post boxes and was on the look out for some early hexagonal pillar boxes when I came across this, a village post box set in its own little building. It was built because Rous Lench is the Victorian estate village par excellence.

Rous Lench was held by the Rous family, and then the Rouse Boughtons, from 1382 to 1876. It was the last of the local Rouse Boughtons, Sir Charles Henry Rouse Boughton, who improved the village with a magnificent Gothic school and village hall, plus various cottages. Then in 1876 he sold out to the improbably named Rev W K W Chafy Chafy, who made further improvements. The letter box by the village green, set in sandstone with a timber-framed gable and, I think, the Chafy coat of arms, is one of his felicities. What a telling reminder, in these days of the email and the tweet, of the importance of letters and their housing. Rev Chafy’s letterbox is truly an asset amongst the hedges, evergreens, and honeysuckle of this verdant Worcestershire village.