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 pantiles, 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.

 

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.

Spalding II: from the Town Bridge south

     I was back in Spalding yesterday.  It was market day and the place was busy with shoppers. Apart from a few bargains I was in search of architecture, Georgian architecture to be precise and Spalding is not a place to disappoint even if its charms are not at all that apparent. Persevere. The river Welland flows through the heart of the heart of the town and both sides of the river are lined with Georgian houses and in addition, below the Town Bridge, warehouses. There is a lot to see, so I have divided the town into two. This post concentrates on what is above the Town Bridge with the exception of Ayscoughfee Hall which really deserves a post of its own.

Spalding I: St Mary and St Nicholas

     Yesterday I had a look round Spalding, a market town in the Lincolnshire fens.  The sun was out and it was a busy market day, and there was much good architecture to photograph.  Today's blog-post focuses on the parish church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and, appropriately enough for a former port, St Nicholas.  It is a large sprawling, complex structure - a testimony to Medieval prosperity. And it is the kind of church I particularly like. There are inner and outer aisles, transepts and chapels.  In this photograph of the south aisle, transept and St Mary's chapel, and the others, you can see the accumulative, picturesque effect of centuries of building.

     From this angle you can see how both the tower and spire lean backwards due to the soft fenland silt beneath the tower.  To help stabilise the structure ties have been inserted and the belfry window blocked. 

     The interior is just as picturesque, though the walls could do with being plastered and whitewashed.   It is helped by having some really good furnishings (and one really bad one, but I won't say what).  There's also a large display of hatchments - the square pictures of coats of arms that used to be part of English mourning rituals.

     Through the screen (Late Victorian or Edwardian, I think) you can see boarded and painted ceiling designed by Stephen Dykes Bower in the 1950s - I was lucky enough to know Dykes Bower.  He lived in a grand house in Essex, near Saffron Walden.  He was Surveyor to Westminster Abbey, and with Geoffrey Allen designed the great Ciborium that surmounts the High Altar in St Paul's, and was the architect of the Cathedral extension at Bury St Edmund's, Suffolk.

Addendum 25.07.2019.  What the hell, the piece of church furniture I didn't name above is the organ case which was designed by George Pace and it is appallingly bad! He did produce some rubbish!