Salisbury Cathedral: Exterior and Close

      On Monday, we left Bath for the day, taking the train south to Salisbury.  It was our first visit to the city and to the cathedral. We were in no way disappointed.  It was in fact a revelation; critics, I think, tend to credit Salisbury Cathedral with an icy perfection. Yet entering those vast and lucid cloisters for that first time was very much an emotional experience.

     History at Salisbury, for once, is straight forward.  Makes a change.  In the early 13th century Bishop Richard Poore relocated both city and cathedral from the ancient hillfort of Old Sarum down to the floodplain of the river Avon some two miles south, where the tributaries Nadder and Bourne join the river.  The foundation stone was laid on 1220 and the work continued until the 1250s - the cathedral was consecrated in 1258.  It is in Early English Gothic; the influences appear to be the cathedrals of Lincoln and Wells.  In 1270s major building work resumed with the construction of the Chapter House and cloisters to the s of the cathedral church.  In 1334 work commenced on the tower and spire, a massive undertaking - the stone spire is the tallest in England at 404ft.  It is a supremely elegant design; the tower appears, to me at least, to belong to the same family as the towers of Worcester Cathedral and Pershore Abbey. 

     Apart from the tower and spire, very little was added to the cathedral in the subsequent centuries, or for that matter altered.  A small porch and two chantry chapels were added to the structure in the Late Middle Ages, but these three Perpendicular Gothic additions were removed by James Wyatt (1746-1813) as part of his ruthless restoration and re-ordering of the building.  The result is an almost uniquely homogenous structure among British cathedrals.  At the Reformation the usual amounts of destruction.  Wren worked on the cathedral in the 17th century, Wyatt 18th, and Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 19th.  

     The cathedral is surrounded by a large close - all lawns and large old houses - all very attractive and tranquil.  Quite villagey.  One of Wyatt's more egregious acts at Salisbury was the destruction of the detached bell tower in the midst of the close, just to the north of the cathedral.  An act of vandalism.  The bells, as a result, are now hung in the tower of the cathedral.  He also demolished the houses that stood around it, in an endeavour, I suppose, to tidy everything up. He really shouldn't have bothered.  

Apologies for the dim quality of the photographs; the weather was against us.

     Finally, on our walk around the close we came across 'Arundells', the home in retirement of the British Prime Minister Edward Heath (1916-2005).  It is now a museum.  Arundells is a palimpsest of a building, the history of England told in stone.  Ted Heath moved there in 1985.  It was altered at the time, and redecorated by the interior designer Derek Frost (1952-).  The result is very satisfying; Frost responds well to historic properties.  The dining room is particularly rich. The influence of David Hicks and Mary Fox Linton is evident.  The house contains a small but fine collection of art.  The garden, which leads down to the river, has a particularly fine view of the cathedral.  In all very English.  Fittingly.

     The house is very much as it was left at Ted Heath's death. What results is not only a singular memento of an individual's taste but, interior design being an ephemeral phenomena, of a work of a particular designer at a particular time, a snap-shot, as it were, of one strand of interior design at the end of the 1980s.  And valuable for that.

Own work: Rusticated Façade from Colmann's 'Vollstandige Answeisung ze der Civil Baukunst'

      Finished on Friday, 06.11.25, mixed media, on 300 mgsm watercolour paper.  Based on a design in Nicholaus Goldmann's  'Vollstandige Anweisung zu der Civil Baukunst' of 1699, showing a rusticated façade of the Tuscan order.

Bath in November I

       To celebrate a significant birthday we have been to Bath for a few days, and it has been a lovely treat.  I feel revived.  Those few days I felt re-integrated.  We arrived Saturday lunchtime and stayed in the same hotel - The Kennard in Bathwick - as we did on our previous visit.  That evening with the fireworks thundering over our heads we ate at Cote Brasserie.  It was a pleasant surprise. Boeuf Bourguignon, Crème Brûlée, and a decent glass of Malbec.

     Sunday morning, our first full day, and, for what must have been a good two hours, the city air was filled with the joyous sound of church bells - Bath Abbey, St Mary Bathwick and St John the Divine, I believe.  How I have missed that sound in these past few years.  For the first time in far too long I went to church, to St Mary Bathwick - my sort of place, and I took Holy Communion.  I think it maybe the first church I have worshipped in with galleries.  Sunday lunch at The Architect, part of the Imperial Hotel.  In the afternoon a walk up to the Georgian Garden behind the Circus, and then back to the hotel via Walcot.

     Photos from my walk around the city before church.

November

 November by John Clare (1793-1864)

The landscape sleeps in mist from morn till noon;
And, if the sun looks through, 'tis with a face
Beamless and pale and round, as if the moon,
When done the journey of her nightly race,
Had found him sleeping, and supplied his place.
For days the shepherds in the fields may be,
Nor mark a patch of sky - blindfold they trace,
The plains, that seem without a bush or tree,
Whistling aloud by guess, to flocks they cannot see.

The timid hare seems half its fears to lose,
Crouching and sleeping 'neath its grassy lair,
And scarcely startles, tho' the shepherd goes
Close by its home, and dogs are barking there;
The wild colt only turns around to stare
At passer by, then knaps his hide again;
And moody crows beside the road forbear
To fly, tho' pelted by the passing swain;
Thus day seems turn'd to night, and tries to wake in vain.

Work in Progress

   It's the end of the month already, and I thought I'd just share with you something I'm currently working on.  It has no title yet.  Let me explain: this painting is based on an image I found on Pinterest, from some sort of Early-Modern architectural treatise, northern European most likely.  German or Flemish.  Mostly likely the former. And until I do some research  I'm at a loss as to title.  In the mean time I can say that the structure, some sort of pavilion(?), is in the Tuscan style, though the order has been stretched somewhat - it's usually much squatter than that, though I suppose the architect has taken their cue from Palladio's treatment of the Doric order.  The blank metopes are found in Serlio, I think.  In all, a very Mannerist design; the sort of thing the likes of Richard Norman Shaw purr with delight.  

     Anyway, the usual mixed media - in this case pen and ink, butter resist and watercolour.

Hay-on-Wye

     A fine day out in Hay-on-Wye Saturday.  Crisp and sunny.  The place humming with locals and late-season tourists.  Breakfast at the Blue Boar Café; lasagne and chips for lunch at the Rose and Crown (very fine those chips).

     A mere three books bought: 'The Garrick Year' by Margaret Drabble; 'Six More English Towns' by Alec Clifton-Taylor, and 'Rutland, a Shell Guide' by W G Hoskins.

     'The Garrick Year' is something I've been looking for for some time - though on Saturday I was actually on the hunt for Storm Jameson's 1966 novel 'The Early Life of Stephen Hind'.  'The Garrick Year', 1964, Drabble's second novel, is an exploration of a decidedly shaky marriage.  It is told from the wife's viewpoint, as she and her husband relocate from London to Hereford, where he is to take part in a theatrical festival.  Apparently satiric.  Could be fun.  Cover artwork by Caroline Smith.

     'Six More English Towns' written as an accompaniment the eponymous BBC television series, broadcast in 1981 on BBC2.  The original series - 'Six English Towns' - had been broadcast in 1978, and a third series - 'Another Six English Towns' aired in 1984.  The towns in this volume are Berwick-upon-Tweed, Beverley, Bradford on Avon, Lewes, Saffron Walden, and Warwick.  He said of these broadcasts, 'I'd like every programme to be an exercise in looking.'  I have mentioned Clifton-Taylor in a number of previous posts before.  He was educated at Queen's College Oxford, the Courtauld Institute, and (I think) the Sorbonne, and was a man of strong opinions.  He was brought to our screens by a man of equal robust opinion, John Drummond.  Clifton-Taylor was a regular contributor to the Buildings of England series, and wrote a number of books, such as 'The Cathedrals of England', and 'English Parish Churches Works of Art'.  As with John Drummond, it is unlikely we will see his sharp, erudite like again, or, for that matter, programmes such as 'Six English Towns'. He deserves a post to himself.

     So does the great WG Hoskins; and the whole phenomena of the remarkable the Shell County Guides. The guides were published by Faber & Faber under the patronage of Shell, and were edited by Sir John Betjeman and the artist John Piper. They were designed to be an alternative to 'The Buildings of England'.  Sadly, the project never reached completion. However the books are rather lovely.  The photography, for instance, is always top notch. In addition to 'Rutland, a Shell guide' of 1963 - one of the smaller and rarer of the series - Hoskins also wrote the Leicestershire volume in 1970, where in the introduction he manages to completely ignore the sw part of the county. No mean feat.

Tenby

      The bf's birthday yesterday and we decided, last minute, to take the train to Tenby.  Rather cold, but fine.  Lovely lunch.  Some photos for you.  Doors mainly.