Sir Edwin Lutyens I: Spalding War Memorial

     Lincolnshire is perhaps not rich in the work of well-known architects, and what work there is tends to be on the small scale.  This small building, that might easily be mistaken for a mere garden pavilion, is a case in point.  It is, in fact, the War Memorial in the southern Lincolnshire market town of Spalding (I've mentioned it briefly before on this blog).  It is the work of the most important 20th century architect in Britain, Sir Edwin Lutyens.  It is his only work in the county.
     The memorial, which was unveiled in 1922, stands in the 18th century gardens of Ascoughfee Hall.  The billowing, cloud-like hedge on the right of first photograph is original, though grown to deformity with the years.  I think the pond too may be an original 'feature'.  Perhaps, then, a cramped place for the annual Remembrance Day commemoration.  It is an Italianate sort of design - Lutyens by this time had, to a great extent, abandoned the Arts and Crafts style for the Grand Manner of Classicism. However the spirit of the Arts and Crafts lived on in a building such as this; the roof is shod in pan tiles, and the cornice is constructed of stone and creasing tiles.  Inside, on the back wall are carved the names of the Fallen.  The floor of brick and stone recalls those he designed for his early country houses.  The Wiki article points out the similarity between the Spalding war memorial and the entrance pavilion Anneux British Cemetery at Cambrai
     In front stands the austere and enigmatic Stone of Remembrance which Lutyens had designed for the then Imperial War Graves Commission.

 

Own work: Doric Gate after Batty Langley

     Finally another piece to share with. It's been like drawing teeth! This is 'Doric Gate after Batty Langley' - mixed media on 300gsm watercolour paper. Who, I hear you cry, was Batty Langley? A character in the evergreen British sitcom 'Last of the Summer Wine? Alas, no. Mr Langley was a Georgian master mason/architect and architectural theorist. He is remembered now for his writing, and has been an influence of subsequent generations of British architects such as, beloved of this blog, Edwin Lutyens and Ben Pentreath.

London II

   In the late afternoon I headed off to Westminster to meet a friend for drinks. I had to cross Victoria St which I swear is waxing in ugliness. It's never been one of London's finest streets but the new buildings going up there are really quite monstrous, quite outdoing their predecessors. Thankfully P does not work on that hideous thoroughfare, but in quieter more salubrious surroundings. Anyway I was early having misjudged how long it would take to get there from my hotel, so the only thing to do was get my phone out and start photographing some decent architecture. And there's quite a bit to see in this part of Westminster - a sort of hinterland south of Westminster Abbey of a human scale, a beautiful and telling contrast to all that verbosity that one associates with Westminster. 

   An early urban work by Sir Edwin Lutyens, built in 1905 for Archdeacon Wilberforce as a parish hall for St John's Smith Square, though designed a good 7 years earlier.

   The Tufton St façade of a late work by Goodhart-Rendel built for himself. How would one categorize this? Neo-georgian? Neo-Norman-Shaw?

   Oblique view of Mulberry House designed Sir Edwin Lutyens - for more details see below..

   St John's Smith Square peering out between the boscage. Another of the those all too few churches built by 'Commission for building 50 New Churches'. This beauty is by Thomas Archer who also designed St Paul's Deptford for the Commission. Perhaps the most continently Baroque of all the churches built by the Commission.

   Another view of Mulberry House: the main façade on to Smith Square. It was built for Reginal McKenna the Liberal Politician and banker. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer (1915-1916) in the Asquith's war time Liberal government. This a political house par excellence: apart from service areas (stairs etc) the first floor consists entirely of three immense rooms designed no doubt for entertaining. An austere design; with links, such as the use of brickwork, to Lutyen's work at Hampstead Garden Suburb. Later owned by another Liberal politician, the industrialist Henry Mond. He had the interior remade in the Art Deco style. Alas.

   Finally a close up of these exquisite Early Georgian Houses, with their inventive free detailing. A delight.

Spalding III: Ayscoughfee Hall and gardens

     Adjacent to the parish church is Ayscoughee Hall, a late medieval house started in 1429 and added to and altered over the years.  It now belongs to South Holland District Council who run it as a museum, and is open to the public everyday except Tuesdays - Market Day in Spalding, along with Saturday.
     Built of dark red brick with stone dressings, and although a little municipal in feel, the Hall is a discreetly attractive, picturesque building - a mixture of 'genuine' Medieval Gothic, Georgian and Early Victorian Gothic and the classical; at times formal at others domestic. Sprawling.  For me the most interesting feature is the oddly detailed bay lighting the back of the hall. Almost as though it has arrived from the Late Medieval Holy Roman Empire. Interesting too that odd little door adjacent  very like the priest's door on one of the side chapels in St Mary's church. 

   The interior is fun but a little chill.  A sense that it was a bit of a challenge to fill the spaces.  As I have mentioned before one of the upstairs rooms was floor to ceiling with glass cases of stuffed birds.  All flown, alas. Period furniture and decor would certainly help warm the place up a bit.  The best spaces are the entrance hall, - a neo-classical refit of the original great hall - and the the warmly, Victorian, paneled library.  I could spend many happy hours there.  The great hall retains its original medieval roof, and and bay window.  

     In the early eighteenth century Ayscoughfee was the home to Maurice Johnson the founder of the Spalding Gentleman's Society, an example of thriving provincial cultural life.  Its members included Pope, Addison, Sir Hans Sloane, and the Lincolnshire antiquary William Stukeley.
     The hall stands in the remains of a formal, walled garden of c1730, which contains the the only building in Lincolnshire to be designed by the great Sir Edwin Lutyens - the town War Memorial of 1925.  In addition there are a number of sixties additions: a café and an aviary.  The 'Buildings of England' suggests that the designer of the gardens was the local architect William Sands.  The yew hedges have long since escaped their original bounds and now form huge billowing cloud-shapes.  It would be a shame to loose them in a full restoration of the garden, but certain features, like the enormous, and missing, gate pier at the back of the house could be put back to match the surviving pier and that would add hugely to the romance of the place.

Belton House II: The Interior

   The French influence continues inside with the plan: two public rooms in the central axis (Hall and Saloon), with three apartments of two to three rooms (withdrawing room, bedchamber and closet) on each floor with subsidiary service spaces.  That, apparently, is very close to the French manner of planning a country house, like Le Vau's Vaux-le-Vicomte.

   There is a touch of Baroque too to the original rooms with their luxuriant carvings by Edmund Carpenter and possibly Grinling Gibbons, just as there are little Baroque touches to the exterior: the curve of the door pediment crossing the string course on the garden (N) front, and the carving in the pediments. Nothing though to frighten the horses.  The panelling is a throwback to the Tudor period. The greatest room in Belton is the chapel, but alas the blinds were down and it was just too dim to photograph, so I can't show you fantastic the Wren style reredos, which is of wood, painted to resemble marble. Looking back through the photos it's become apparent to me that as we go round houses like Belton I tend to photograph the most architectural thing in the room i.e. the fireplace.  I've tried to keep the appearance of the fireplace to a minimum in the following images.  The two Neo-classical rooms are by Wyatt, the first (1778) replacing the Great Dining Room, and the the second (1776) replacing one of the withdrawing rooms. The fireplace in the last picture is by Sir Edwin Lutyens and came from another house.