Ruardean, Gloucestershire

Hero in motion

Gloucestershire has a long border with Herefordshire, and it’s not really surprising that, in the west of the county, there are some examples of work by the renowned Herefordshire school of Romanesque sculptors, the artists responsible for churches such as Kilpeck and glorious works like the font as Castle Frome. One Gloucestershire example is the tympanum at Ruardean in the Forest of Dean. This shows St George killing the dragon, and a wonderfully vigorous carving it is, even if not quite up to the stellar standard of Kilpeck.

St George is on horseback, his mount stretched somewhat horizontally to fit the space, his cloak streaming in the wind,  his spear entering the dragon’s mouth. There’s the usual linear quality seen on many Herefordshire school carvings – it’s visible in the dragon’s head, the folds of the cloak and the saint’s ribbed lower garment. The horse is doing a good job of helping its rider by treading all over the dragon’s long, serpent-like body.

The horse’s elongated form, the blowing cloak, and the angle and thrust of the spear all give the carving a dynamism, as if the saint has made his strike while his mount is still moving at some speed. It’s an eye-catching image (it exhibits a wonderful collection of undulating curves that I find really effective), if not as well carved as some – Malcolm Thurlby in his book* on the Herefordshire school suggests that it may have been the work of an assistant to the master carver. Whoever did the work, it does a good job of conveying the power of the galloping horse and the thrust of the deadly spear.

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* For more information on the Romanesque sculpture of this area, see Malcolm Thurlby, The Herefordshire School of Romanesque Sculpture (Logaston Press, 1999)

Great Rollright, Oxfordshire

Fishy

The fascinating church at Great Rollright, not far from Chipping Norton in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds, has many notable features and I’ll more than likely return to it, but for now, I wanted to share the wonderful late-12th century doorway. This is a rustic example of Romanesque carving: it has many of the typical features of this style – chevron ornament, beakheads, a carved tympanum (the semicircular panel above the door) – but all of these done in a very vigorous and simple way that shows the hand of a local carver. This is not the work of a top-notch sculptor, then, like the great doorway at Malmesbury Abbey or the outstanding work of the Herefordshire school, but still arresting.

The beakheads are crudely done. They’re recognisable, just, as heads with beaks, although some seem to lack eyes of other facial features (and a couple on the far right seem to break with the conventions completely) so one has to wonder if the carver knew exactly what he was doing. And yet their simple shapes and strong linear carving have a strong character. For beakheads and chevrons done with more sophistication, look at the doorways at Elkstone or, especially, Kilpeck.

The tympanum bridges the gap between completely abstract, patterned carving and the figurative work that the Normans often placed above their church entrances. Along the bottom there are roundels, some flower-like, some that seem to incorporate a star pattern, others looking a bit like round shields with a central boss. Above are cross patterns and an enigma – a carving that seems to show a large fish, a human head, and a figure wrapped in a decorated shroud. I wondered when I first saw them if the head and fish were meant to represent Jonah and the whale – but why the shrouded corpse?

If this doorway poses more questions than it answers, it’s still an eloquent reminder that all over the country, from Yorkshire to Sussex, there was an explosion of sculpture in the late-12th century, work that survives in large quantities, in both towns and remote villages, and can still give us much pleasure.

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Please click on the image to see more detail in the carving.

Maida Vale, London

Roundel, deluxe version

London’s roundel symbol, conceived for the underground but also used on buses and coaches from the 1930s onwards, is one of the most successful logos in the world. When shown bearing the word UNDERGROUND it alerts us instantly, and combined with the underground’s typical architecture (oxblood-tiled early-20th century stations by Leslie Green, 1930s ones by Charles Holden and his colleagues, for example) it quickly becomes part of the visual vocabulary of anyone visiting or living in the capital.

The roundel appears in various forms – painted, reproduced in tiles, or printed, for example – but I know of only one station (maybe there are others) where it’s reproduced in the form of a mosaic. This is at Maida Vale’s station (opened in 1915), where two big mosaic roundels, their red tesserae glinting slightly, greet the passenger at the top of the stairs. The roundel is complemented by the off-white tiles around it, and the elegant linear pattern of off-white and green tiles, a lovely touch. It’s an early version of the roundel, with the red disc that preceded the now-familiar red ring (it’s actually one of the last to have the disc) and with non-standard typography, but still striking.

I don’t know why Maida Vale station was singled out for this visual treatment, but it’s an absolute treat. Excellent as the exterior is – it’s one of the oxblood tiled ones, with segmental-arched windows and bold white diamond glazing bars – it doesn’t prepare one for these mosaics. A pleasant visual surprise for the visitor and a feature in which locals can take justified pride.

Gloucester

A new light

A change in the light, a chance upward glance, and we can see familiar buildings anew. I’ve walked past this branch of Lloyd’s Bank in the middle of Gloucester dozens of times, and often registered its 1890s gables, Flemish Renaissance details, and modest signs. It took a particularly strong dose of winter sunshine to make me see its familiar face more clearly: to mark the differences between the pediments above the windows (segmental in the projecting side bays, triangular in the central recessed section); the ornate pinnacles and oeil de boeuf at the top of the central gable; the horizontal bands giving a touch of extra richness in that gable; the variations in the window sizes.

The architect was a local man, Frederick William Waller, son of Frederick Sandham Waller, also an architect. Both father and son worked widely in Gloucestershire and round about and must have been successful men of the city. They were both architects to the Dean and Chapter of Gloucester Cathedral as well as prolific designers of new buildings and restorers of churches. This bank shows Waller Junior articulating in his building some of the prosperity and confidence of his home city – port, mercantile hub, manufacturing centre, and county town.

When the sun lit up this facade the other day, making the red bricks as red as they can be in all their colourful glory, its illumination made me look a little more closely than I’d done before at this confident frontage. It helped me to realise that the dressings of this very red brick exterior were not stone, but terracotta, lending the whole upper part of the building a warmth that contrasts with the paler granite of the arched ground floor, just visible at the bottom of my photograph. Perhaps I was seeing this frontage for the first time as the architect hoped people would see it, standing out in all its redness against a clear deep blue sky.

Revisits

A top ten of 2014

Before we advance into a new year of architectural encounters, it occurred to me to take a look at what my readers have found most interesting during the last year – or which of my 2014 posts, at any rate, have been viewed the most. I have compiled a top ten, and they are a mixed bunch indeed, featuring mostly modest buildings such as prefabs, a shop front, some almshouses, and a public lavatory. They also include some memorable architectural details and a couple of reviews (of the recent exhibition of Edwin Smith’s photographs and the reprint of Nairn’s London). Miscellaneous as they are, they seem to represent a reasonable if partial cross-section of my interests and, I hope, those of my readers to.

They are:

Far from ordinary: the story of prefabs in Catford, south London, notable examples of the glory of the ordinary.

A sort of Jacobethan: a whimsical but interesting bit of pseudo-Jacobean detail in Northampton. God, or the Devil as they say these days (and well they might in these unMiesian contexts), is in the details.

Hygienic high-style: a terrific Art Deco shopfront in Ashby de la Zouch, showing that Deco can be about restraint as well as showing off.

The essence of place: the stand-out exhibition of the photographs of Edwin Smith (closed now, but it’s still worth reading about this photographic master).

What we see, and when we see it: a meditation in Malmesbury about how photography often reveals what we don’t see.

Fifty years on: a personal memory of some almshouses in Louth and the architecture of James Fowler.

Old orders changing: an unusual classical order in Clifton (pictured above).

The ladies, vanishing: a memorable cinema in Cheltenham, which is no more.

Being moved in London: a review of my favourite book about London, which has recently been reprinted.

From the sun to the stars: a cast-iron public lavatory in Bath.

Happy New Year to you all.

Winchcombe, Gloucestershire

Snow on stone

Snow is threatened for the Cotswolds, and as we hunker down to continue the family Christmas festivities, I thought I’d share a rather seasonally chilly photograph from a couple of years ago. This is a grotesque from Winchcombe’s parish church, St Peter’s, which was built in the 1460s and has featured on this blog before. No one knows for sure who is portrayed in this carving, but there’s a local tradition that the subject is Ralph Boteler, lord of nearby Sudeley Castle, who provided funds to enable the church building to be completed.

Arguments are rife about this theory of the sculpture’s identity. Some ask whether medieval carvers would depict a local bigwig and benefactor in such a humorous way; others set more store by the old oral tradition. We just don’t know the answer, and it doesn’t matter. This carving, and its neighbours, are an asset to the church and a perennial source of smiling admiration from visitors and from people like me, who pass this building almost every day, snow or shine.

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There’s another of Winchcombe’s admirable series of grotesques here, captured on the same snowy day.

Yarnton, Oxfordshire

By Gabriel begun it was, right as the sun shone through the glass 

The church at Yarnton has an outstanding collection of stained glass, mostly quite small pieces, and ranging from 15th-century saints and angels to an impressive number of pieces of 17th-century heraldic glass. Much of this was not made for the church but was donated in the early-19th century by Alderman William Fletcher of Oxford. This lovely feathery angel is one of the earlier pieces. Along with much English medieval glass, he’s paler and less colourful than he probably was originally. But the drawing of the face, hair, hands, and feathers has much charm and the deep red and blue of the glass above and below the figure gives some indication of the rich colours medieval glaziers could produce. He comes with Season’s Greetings to all my readers, and my very best wishes to you all for the coming year.

Although the angel in my photograph is not Gabriel, he reminded me, at this time of year. of the Annunciation, so to go with this medieval panel of glass here’s some 15th-century English music: a carol, “Alleluya: A newe werke”, concerning the Annunciation and the coming of Christ: “By Gabriel bygone hit was, ryzt as the sunne shone thorwe the glas.”

It’s sung by Ruth Cunningham, Marsha Genensky, Susan Hellauer, and Johanna Rose, whose four pellucid voices make up the group Anonymous 4.