St James, Lode

     A few days, last week, with the bf. Tuesday we rolled up in Lode, a village poised between the fen and the chalklands in east Cambridgeshire.  Quite attractive too, but perhaps lacking an identifiable centre.  The parish church is small and Victorian, by an architect that even I haven't heard of before (and I do know some pretty obscure ones) called Major Rohde Hawkins (1821-1884).  Be confused by his name - 'Major' is actually his Christian name, he never served in the British Army. Or any other.

     Anyway the church he built in Lode is a simple affair of aisles nave and chancel.  It is built of clunch, that chalk that can be used as a building stone - quite common in east Cambridgeshire - but is really too variable for exterior work.  Quite a run-of-the-mill building really, the best parts being the timber porch and, inside, the organ case. We weren't, however, there to look at a dim church by relatively obscure Victorian architect. We were there to look the additions made to the church in the 1960s by Sir Albert Richardson for Lord Fairhaven of Anglesey Abbey. The most important is the Lady Chapel.  The outside is box-y, almost devoid of mouldings apart from the Late Gothic windows, and gaunt, like an electricity sub-station.  The masonry is snecked and semi-boasted like that on Richardson's extension at Anglesey Abbey.  Perhaps, I have to say, a little disappointing - though it looks better in my photographs than I remember it.  The inside is, however lucid and calm, somewhat spiritual, with some beautifully detailed fittings, i.e. the pews and the altar rails. It's all spoiled however by a great pile of junk in the back corner - indeed spoiled like the rest of the church by needless clutter. The usual Anglican shamefulness. 

     The other addition is the vestry on the other side of the chancel.  The windows are a particularly beautiful design.  The other things to look for are the inscriptions both inside and outside the church to the Fairheavens, we thought they both were by David Kindersley.

Wimpole III The church of St Andrew

     Nestling in the purlieu of the house is the parish church of St Andrew.  There is no village to be seen.  It was shipped south in the 18th century to what is now New Wimpole lining the A603, leaving the parish church like a piece of flotsam, beached. The church as it is now is an almost complete rebuilding of that period (1748-49), replacing a medieval structure (with a west tower), and it is a work of Henry Flitcroft.  In the 19th century somebody thought it a good idea to gothicize it. Not much of an effort was made, but that was more than enough.
     Both inside and out Flitcroft's church is a straightforward oblong box. Quite unimaginative really and devoid of the numinous.  However attached to the north side is a tomb chamber, a left over from the Medieval church.  I can't think of what else to call it as I doubt it has contained an altar for hundreds of years, and mausoleum sounds too grand. Anyway it contains an array of monuments - apparently the best collection in the county. (Apologies - I only photographed the baroque-y ones.) I think it originally only communicated with the church through a small door, either way the large arched opening dates from 1960 and was designed by Sir Albert Richardson.  Some of the windows contain Medieval glass, saved - one would like to think - from the old church.  And there is some later glass by William Peckitt of York.

Sir Albert Richardson PRA (1880 - 1964)

September's issue of 'World of Interiors' has a interesting feature on the home of Sir Albert Richardson, in the English market town of Ampthill, Bedfordshire.  Sharp eyed readers will recall he added a wing, or two, to Anglesey Abbey for Lord Fairhaven - did I tell you the bf now works there?  Sir Albert, or 'The Professor', was a leading 20th century classical architect in Britain.  He was also professor of architecture at the Royal Academy - hence the nickname.  He was also an eccentric (occasionally wearing powdered wigs and riding around Ampthill in a sedan chair), and an avid collector with a real eye.  His house, a large red-brick Georgian townhouse is stuffed full of lovely things. Queen Mary, and John Fowler (of 'Colefax and Fowler') were appreciative visitors.  As the interior has not been re-decorated for decades it is wonderfully illustrative of a type of  mid-century English taste - one I'm very comfortable with, though personally I prefer a stronger colour palette in the manner of David Hicks.  Richardson said of the house: "My house is my yardstick! [ ] It is my measuring scale by which I contemplate the past and assess the future."  He certainly excluded, as far as possible, rapacious modernity.  It is striking that there are, as far as I can tell, no twentieth century artists represented on the walls, not even artists such as Maur Griggs, Meredith Frampton, Laura Knight or Edward Seago who I would have thought would pass muster.  There is a similarity in that rejection of the modern world with the subject of another article in September IoW, George Upwell, the Norfolk potter. Not at all a similarity at first apparent.
As with all things, the collection and the other contents of the house are now to be auctioned (the WoI article makes for a fine record of Sir Albert's domestic achievement).  There are two sales.  The first, the 'Collection', in September will be at Christies in London (King St, September 17th & 18th); the second, the 'Residual sale', will be in November (Nov 14th) at Cheffins in Cambridge.

Wednesday III Anglesey Abbey cont'd

   Finally got back to blogging.

   I had hoped to write all I wanted about Anglesey Abbey in one post, but I thought it would make it over long.
   First some history.  Anglesey Abbey, like Swaffham Prior sits of the edge of the fens, in a rather unregarded if not forgotten piece of Cambridgeshire.  There was not an abbey at Anglesey, but there was an Augustinian priory, and the house contains some pieces of the conventual buildings in its fabric.  More of that anon.  Although founded in the later Middle Ages, it does follow an more ancient Anglo-Saxon tradition of monastic settlements in, or on the edge of, the fens in an avowed attempt to emulate the Egyptian Desert Fathers.

   There seems a little confusion in the sources with the early history of the Priory: Buildings of England stating it was on the go in 1212, the RCHMS saying it was founded in 1236.  You choose. Anyway it must have been a quiet unremarkable place.  Nothing seems to have happened there, and it was dissolved in the 1530s.  Around 1600 the site was acquired by Thomas Hobson, and the Elizabethan wing constructed from the remains of a medieval building.

   And so it continued its uneventful life until it became the residence of Lord Fairhaven between the World Wars.  He was immensely rich, single, and spent his time and money filling the house and park with good things - as though the long process of generations of a landed family had to crammed into one hectic lifetime.  There is a huge collection of paintings.  A lot of these are arranged according to theme:  one bedroom has moonlit landscapes, another seascapes, a third room is full of views of Windsor Castle.  These themes even influence the choice of object in each room: the seascape room even has a doorstop in the form of a 'Jolly Jack Tar'.  He liked religious art too, and had a taste for plants made from semi-precious stone and metal.  Of the paintings I was particularly struck by the oil sketches/studies by William Etty (all nudes).  Although there are a female nudes on display I was inclined to say that Lord Fairhaven's appreciation was more inclined to the male.  As I said before there was a definite Hollywood feel to the house, a lavishness (there are plenty of en suite bathrooms) that belies the smallness and intimacy of most of the house and gives it the air of a schatzkammer.  A secret, precious box of a house.

   Apologies for the photography.  I couldn't use a flash so my camera refused to co-operate!  Here is what I managed.

 This corridor, and its counterpart below, fill the 'gap' between the medieval wing (L) and the Elizabethan (R).

   The Library. Patrician, aloof Neo-Georgian.  An almost Baroque surprise after the over-bearing intimacy of the earlier house. A place to breathe.

   This is the dining room in the medieval wing of the house.  It is thought that this formed the undercroft of the Prior's hall on the floor above.  All the stone work looks reworked.

   Outside I noticed, and liked, these sculptures:

Wednesday II - Anglesey Abbey

   We finally arrived at our destination.  Anglesey Abbey is a property under the care of National Trust.  The house is an amalgam of the medieval with the late Elizabethan, with 19th and 20th century alterations and additions producing a 'rambling' plan and a picturesque exterior.  It is surrounded by a large mainly 20th century garden and park.

   This is the view from the drive on the approach to the house.  Typically picturesque.  Looking back the park seems to contain nearly all English park/garden traditions.

   The entrance formed in the angle between the Tudor wing (left) and the medieval remains of the priory (right) thought to be the Priors Hall.  The two wings were once separate.

   This is the Tudor wing of the house.  The walls are a mixture of Carrstone, clunch and limestone. The right hand side conceals an earlier structure.  I am not sure whether the wing to the left is 19th or 20th century, either way, inside is an immense Neo-Georgian library.  More of that later. 

   Another view of the exterior of the library.

   Finally at the rear of the house, added to the end wall of the medieval wing is this, designed by Sir Albert Richardson.  Note the polite way in which it continues the scale and design of the first floor windows (extreme right of shot).  It is however particularly austere, both inside and out, with some of that froideur that you get in twentieth century architecture such as in the work of Giles Gilbert Scott.  And just as in the work of Scott immense care has been taken with the masonry -  snecked and each block semi-boasted.  The other façade to this is one immense blank wall. Very 20th century. There is definitely a nod in the direction Richard Norman Shaw. It has a sort of Northern quality to it reminding me of that squared look that one associates with certain Elizabethan architecture, eg Garthorpe Hall.  The projecting bay contains, surprisingly, a great stone staircase to what I think is the music room.  Oddly it is the only access to that room.  I cannot help also seeing a Hollywood set in there too, a feeling I also got walking around the rest of the house.  Editing this, I realised that the house is a rather isolated - perhaps cocooned - place.  A world entire unto itself.