Laura Ashley

The regular reader will know that I have a deep admiration for some of the fabrics and wallpaper created by Laura Ashley in the 1970s and early 1980s.  Looking at early editions of the World of Interiors in my collection (alas an incomplete one) Laura Ashley is ubiquitous, to be found in all sorts of places, from the Country house downwards; and there is a sort democracy to that I find pleasing and that harks back to Arts and Crafts theory.  There was also a sort of high seriousness, an earnestness, about those early designs; more than a hint of the Gothic Revival with their heraldic beasts. Colours, fittingly, could be incredibly bold and striking - rich and dark in a way unimaginable today.  At least on the High St.  Looking around Pinterest I found these designs to illustrate.  Apologies if you find an image of yours in this selection.  I hope you don't mind.

As an addendum I'd like to add these images of Laura Ashley designs in my own collection(!)  The first is a piece of wallpaper from a roll I bought sometime in the late 1980s and was never used except to line drawers and shelves.  I rescued this piece, and three others, from some bedroom furniture that had been my parents and I was about to throw out.  The other two, the dark, dark blue 'Lady Fern' and 'Elizabethan Trellis' I bought recently on ebay. 

Lincoln Cathedral

St John The Baptist, Morton

   St John the Baptist, Morton, stands at the end of the long and wide village street that leads from the 'high' land to the west, east into the fens. Morton has this long, linear pattern in common with the other three fen edge villages that have already appeared in this blog: Thurlby, Baston & Langtoft.  Like the latter two it has no village green as such (Thurlby had a village green but, in what can be only described as an act of vandalism, that was built over in the sixties and seventies).
   Morton is a grand, rather imposing church, being cruciform (almost), with a tall central tower, and built upon a mound.  Most of what you can see from the outside is Perpendicular.  There are north and south doors to the nave, but the main entrance is from the west.  The west door is protected by a porch - quite a rare thing. The top of the  tower is very close in design to the one at Bourne Abbey Church.  The interior is spacious, but, alas, there are no fittings of note.  The best thing is the space under the tower, which has a tierceron vault decorated with cusping and a circular bell-hole. I think that in Pevsner it is described (wrongly) as a fan vault. There are also a number of bold foliage capitals, the carving like that Langtoft (see previous post).