Own work: The House of Correction, Folkingham

     The first big piece of art I have done in a long while. The House of Correction, Folkingham, Lincolnshire, by that excellent provincial Georgian architect Bryan Browning. A favourite of this blog. Here is the real thing.  Perhaps a little more restrained than I would have liked, but maybe that is a reflection of how I'm feeling at present. Usual mixed-media.

Bryan Browning I The House of Correction

   The bf was not sure what to expect when standing in Folkingham church yard I told we should go and see 'The House of Correction'.  I don't whether or not he was disappointed, or perhaps relieved, (what was he imagining?!) when we took the road to Billingborough and stopped on the very edge of the village to look at this.

   What you're looking at this the remaining portion of a gaol built in 1825 by the remarkable local architect Bryan Browning. (I have already mentioned his son Edward in connection with Folkingham church.) Browning was born in Lincolnshire in Northorpe, just south of Bourne, and really not much else is known about him.  He trained in London under, I think, Thomas Hardwick.  He lived in Brunswick Square in Bloomsbury for a while and then returned to Lincolnshire, practicing in Stamford.  He built a small number of powerful buildings in and around south Lincolnshire: Bourne Town Hall, the Stamford Institute, the workhouses in Bourne and Stamford, and a number of rectories such as at Deeping St James, and this 'The House of Correction'.  It shows the influence of Vanbrugh and Ledoux - English Baroque and French Neo-classicism - not a bad mix for a provincial English architect.  It is now a holiday let owned by the 'Landmark Trust'.

Folkingham

      After leaving Aslackby we drove a couple of miles north to the understated beauty of Folkingham.  What makes it such an attractive village (apart from Hansen's Chocolate House!) is the immense green or market place.  Roughly triangular, it has been laid out on a south facing slope, (in the Middle Ages, I presume), and is lined with attractive, but not flashy, eighteenth century houses.  Presiding over everything at the top of the hill is great red brick bulk of the former Greyhound Inn - a Georgian coaching inn with assembly room attached (right hand side in photograph).  At the bottom of the hill the fine stone built manor house that also served as a courthouse.  I think the Assize Courts used to sit there, hence the Assembly Room at the Greyhound; Folkingham, then small market town, becoming a social hub for the local gentry when the court was session.

 

     Tucked away at the side is the parish church of St Andrew.  The tower is particularly fine.  It seems to belong to the same family as the towers of St John and St Martin Without both in Stamford.

     Inside the tower has a tierceron vault very similar to that at  Morton.  And just as at Morton and Aslackby there is a lot of fine ashlar masonry above the arcades.  Quite an extravagant thing to do when you consider that originally it would be whitewashed and painted.

     I think the Victorian restorations (Kirk and Parry, 1857 and Edward Browning, 1859) must have been quite drastic - the chancel looks almost entirely Victorian - but there a couple of good medieval furnishings left: the Rood Screen and the piscina in the south aisle.

Kaffe Fassett at St James, Aslackby

     On Saturday the bf and I returned to Aslackby where the church had been transformed into an exhibition space for a display of the quilts - 'Glorious Quilts' - by the multi-talented Kaffe Fassett.  The manor house garden was also open, there was tea and cake, ice cream, honey for sale, and the man himself was autographing books.  The weather was about perfect, with a sweet melancholic hint of approaching autumn.
     The quilts, which were created over a number of years, were hung in the arches of the nave arcade, on the aisle walls and one was hung below the east window; it was curious how the context changed the quilts.  They ceased to be bedroom accessories - if ever they were merely that - but were turned into tapestries.  It somehow connected to the long tradition of fabrics in Churches, which has generally been forgotten about.  Even some of the patterns gained something, I think it's called 'signification', in their new context.

     This quilt hung below the east window.  It fitted perfectly.  There's something about it that suggests Italian Pietra Dura.  It was one of my favourites.

      Like a Opus Alexandrium pavement.

      I had a go at trying to juxtapose the quilts in a single photograph.  The colours seem so typically Fassett - the vivid blues and pinks.

     Only in writing this and selecting the images have I been struck by the potential contrast between the coolness and stasis of the architecture and the vivid, vibrant quilts.  It was something I wasn't so aware in the experience.  My favourites were the more abstract (one or two contained a representational images and were not so successful), and which had the smaller pieces of fabric.  Not being a quilter I don't know the technical word. If there is one.  I also preferred the pattern on the pieces of fabric 'small'.  Perhaps it might be said that my favourites were those that I found made reference to architectural pattern. It would have been interesting to know if the ones I particularly like all dated from the same time.  Interesting too to try to have put the quilts into a date sequence simply by comparing their design.  I wonder if that was possible.  In the guide there's a quote from Kaffe Fassett: "Working with your hands brings sanity and bliss."  It's hard, very hard to disagree.

     We had to have a look around the garden.  The herbaceous borders had grown blousy and overgrown, the trees heavy with fruit.

     By the way, the honey, which is from the hives in the Manor House garden, is quite delicious - mild and fragrant.