Down Ampney, Gloucestershire

Crockets

The architectural feature known as the crocket is something that is often viewed from afar. If you don’t know what a crocket is and can’t reach for a convenient copy of The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, I’ll do that for you. ‘A decorative hook-like spur of stone carved in various leaf-shapes and projecting at regular intervals from the angles of spires, pinnacles, gables, canopies, etc., in Gothic architecture.’* That’s how Penguin’s exemplary reference book defines a crocket, although in the vernacular, as it were, I might say, ’The knobbly bits that stick out of the edges of church spires’, and you’d get the idea.

The crockets on church spires are by definition far from the ground and it’s difficult to see their details. When you get your eye in, however, it’s quite often possible to spot crockets near to ground level, as is the case on the pinnacle in my photograph, which adorns a tomb recess in the church at Down Ampney in Gloucestershire. Close-up, you can see that a well carved crocket is far from being a simple ‘knobbly bit’: it’s a flowing, organic-looking decoration that must have demanded considerable skill on the part of the carver. Great precision and a combination of delicacy and strength were required to carve the 20-odd crockets on this pinnacle and the matching finial on the top. To make the whole thing yet more intricate, the lower part of the pinnacle takes the form of a narrow, straight-sided arch, beautifully formed and set off with pairs of human heads that peer at us from the late-14th or 15th century.†  

There was a lot of this sort of thing about from the mid-14th century onwards, as English architecture entered the phase known to historians as Decorated Gothic. Much of it has been lost to the effects of iconoclasm and time – in particular, anything with an image of a human was likely to face the wrath of 17th-century Puritans and be defaced or simply lopped off. This makes the small heads on this example particularly precious survivals. Since much medieval stone carving was also painted in bright colours, there may have been another loss. However, light from the nearby stained-glass window has supplied a hint of colour, bringing a glow to a small marvel of the carver’s art.

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* John Fleming, Hugh Honour and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Penguin Dictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Penguin Books (5th edition, 1999)

† If you click on the image, a larger version should appear, making some of the details clearer.

Bedford

Looking up and up

A few weeks ago found me in Bedford in the rain. The conditions were far from ideal for looking up, or looking at anything very much except for puddles and other pedestrians. But another strident modern shopfront sent my eyes skyward briefly and they alighted on this. It’s the upper part of of a Victorian shop, built in a style usually called Venetian Gothic, which is to say that it features rows of arched windows, polychrome masonry (here brick and stone), some fancy carving, and some elaboration of detail in the gable.

This sort of thing was once common in English town centres, but World War II, redevelopment, and the stresses of time have put paid to a lot of it. There are also variations, like the similar ‘Bristol Byzantine’, some of which survives in spite of the devastation wrought on that city by the Blitz. This particular example dates from 1871 and was designed by Bedford architect John Usher for Henry Adkin, who was a gunsmith. The owner’s initials are carved into the upper central window. No doubt Mr Adkin sold high quality firearms, maybe even the sort with chased decoration on the metal parts. If so, his premises had a swagger to match. Best of all, but hard to see in the challenging light, are the two pinnacles that rise up from either side of the gable. They’re carved dogs – gun dogs, of course – and were made by an Exeter sculptor, Harry Hems. Adkin was clearly after the best, and others have agreed. In 1993 the two gun-dog pinnacles were stolen. They were later found in a local car park and put back in their rightful place.

The last member of the Adkin family in the business died in 1952. Soon after the shop was sold to Dunn’s, the men’s outfitters chain, who must have liked the look of the place given their penchant for faux-Tudor or faux-medieval shopfronts. Now sandwiches are there.*

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* Or rather, were there. The premises are now to let, as a reader has pointed out. I was so intent on the brickwork that I failed to spot the sign in the window.

Thorpe Mandeville, Northamptonshire

Brief encounter

On my way to an important meeting over lunch in a pub, my eye was caught by this small church, dating mostly to the early-14th century. The thing that particularly attracted me was the tower. This has a small pitched roof, a design known in archi-speak as a saddleback tower. But while the saddlebacks that I’m used to (on the Cotswolds, like this example) have a roof that overhangs the walls like any other pitched roof, this one is tucked behind a parapet. The masons who built it also added a small collection of rather large pinnacles, richly ornamented with crockets, in typical 14th-century style. 14th-century style, but some of the details may be Victorian, as the tower was restored in 1898.

These pinnacles, together with corner gargoyles and a tiny carved figure on the tower’s east wall, just above the nave roof, set this tower apart and help what is otherwise a simple-looking little church stand out. My appreciation is only from the outside, however. The church was locked on the day I passed by and I didn’t have time to contact the keyholder. One day I must return and try to get inside. Returning to old buildings, after all, is usually a good idea. You nearly always see something that you missed the first time round.

Isle Abbots, Somerset

Rubble rouser

Back at the beginning of the year I did a post about the church at Isle Abbots, which has one of the graceful late-medieval Gothic towers for which Somerset’s parish churches are justly famous. Around the side of the church I was fascinated to find a few masonry fragments that had been removed from the building at some stage, probably during a restoration. One of them is the part of a pinnacle shown in my photograph, and what’s particularly interesting about it is that it has a piece of metal sticking out of the top. This is a rod, probably made of lead, that was used to help hold this piece and another, now vanished, stone together.

Medieval masons used lead in their joints quite often, especially when building intricate, willowy structures such as window tracery, narrow shafts (mini-columns), and pinnacles. They did this by drilling vertical holes through the pieces of stone and lining them up. Then they called in the plumber – the man who worked with lead – and he undertook the painstaking task of pouring the molten lead in from the top. When the lead set, the pinnacle had a solid armature, adding greatly to its strength.

Working with molten lead in this way must have been a perilous business, especially if you were at the top of a 200-foot tower at the time. But it seems to have been a common occurrence in the Middle Ages, and helped architectural details such as this pinnacle survive from the 15th to the 20th or 21st century. Now some of these parts of the building have been renewed, it’s good to find some bits of the originals near ground level, so that one can look at them closely. Another medieval pinnacle seems to have found a new role in the garden of a nearby cottage.


Displaced pinnacle, Isle Abbots, Somerset