Own work: West Walton

     The latest finished painting ahead of my exhibition in October: The Bell Tower, West Walton. 28 x 52.5 cms, mixed media on watercolour board.

     West Walton is one of architectural sights of Britain - a mighty detached bell tower, sophisticated Early English Gothic, except for the parapet and pinnacles. West Walton is in the extreme west of Norfolk on the silt fen, and is one of a number of excellent parish churches to be found between the rivers Nene and Great Ouse.

'A Passion for Churches'

     'I was eight or nine years old when I used to come here, to the Norfolk Broads on the river Bure, sailing and rowing with my father and I think it was the outline of that church tower, of Bylaugh against the sky, which gave me a passion for churches so that every church I've been past since I've wanted to stop and look in.'

     Back in 2015, you may remember, the bf and I went on holiday to Horsey in flattest N E Norfolk. On our last full day of holiday we went out into the Broads, walking along the Fleet Dyke until we stood opposite the scanty remains of St Benet's Abbey. A small homage to Sir John Betjeman, the Poet Laureate, and the documentary film maker Edward Mirzoeff and their collaboration of 1974 the BBC documentary film: 'A Passion for Churches' (subtitled 'A celebration of the C of E with John Betjeman'). Previously they had worked together on three episodes of 'A Bird's Eye View' between 1969 & 1971, and most famously 'Metro-land' of 1973. Their final work together was, I believe, 'The Queens Realm - A Prospect of England', 'an aerial anthology with verse chosen by Sir John Betjeman'. It consisted of clips garnered from 'A Bird's Eye View' series accompanied by music and poetry read by the likes of Janet Suzman and Michael Horden; the whole thing tied together Betjeman's narration. It formed part of the BBC's cultural offerings for the Silver Jubilee Year of 1977, along with Huw Wheldon's 10 part series 'Royal Heritage' which Wheldon co-wrote with the historian J H Plumb. They certainly knew how to celebrate a jubilee back in the day. In 1979 Mirzoeff collaborated with Betjeman's daughter Candida Lycett Green on documentary film 'The Front Garden'.

     Anyway, my first encounter with 'A Passion for Churches' was in 1984, when, following the death of Sir John, I caught a glimpse of this wonderful film on the BBC tribute to the late Poet Laureate. There were, I think, three sequences shown and two have remained with me: there was the visit to the 'Golden Church' of Lound (in Suffolk, but part of the Diocese of Norwich) where between 1912 & 1914 the church architect Sir J N Comper worked his magic, and, more importantly to our family, the Mother's Union garden party in the cloisters of Norwich cathedral, where we believed we could espy my paternal grandmother amongst the crowd. 

     Judging by Eddie Mirzoeff's account in The Oldie the filming process seems to have been a picaresque affair, with an ever shifting cast of characters, such as Penelope Betjeman and the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, popping up and needing to be dealt with.  However the result of the collaboration of poet and film maker is something quite sophisticated and complex. The nearest equivalent would be a novel by Barbara Pym where the profound is both hidden and revealed to us through the medium of the domestic and mundane. The churches seem to be mainly chosen from N and NE Norfolk. The churches to the W and SW are largely omitted, though this partly because the churches of the Norfolk fenland are in the Diocese of Ely. 

     The title itself is a pun of a gentle sort, referring to both Betjeman's love of church architecture and the passion of Christ - that his death and burial; the implication being that the churches themselves were undergoing a death, or martyrdom (the Latin passio is used to describe the martyr's death), as faith was beginning in earnest 

     'its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, retreating, to the breath of the night-wind'.

     Perhaps the best way of understanding this film is to think of it as cable or yarn made of a number of individual threads entwining together: the celebration of the church architecture of the diocese  and a plea for conservation; the celebration of the parish life of the diocese - PCC meetings, church fetes and the like, in which we see the preparations for Easter. Connected with that there is a linear exploration of the spiritual journey of the individual parishioner through the 'Passage Rites' such as Baptism and Marriage, the sacraments by which we participate in the death and resurrection of Christ, through the portal of death to the resurrection - of which the joy of Easter Day, with which the film ends, is a foretaste.

*  *  *  *  *

     I think a lot about Norfolk these days - that land of lost content - from this Infernal City that is a place of of exile and a place of eclipse. The very gutter. 
     I love the county. My paternal grandparents were from Foulsham, my maternal grandmother from Melton Constable. (My maternal grandfather was the odd-one-out here being a Yellow Belly.) Growing up I used to visit so many times. Hopefully I will return soon.

Into my heart an air that kills  
  From yon far country blows:  
What are those blue remembered hills,  
  What spires, what farms are those?  
  
That is the land of lost content,
  I see it shining plain,  
The happy highways where I went  
  And cannot come again.

Sheringham and Cromer II

Mainly pictures of Cromer....and trains!

Sheringham and Cromer I

   On Wednesday the bf and I took the Norwich train from Ely bound for the north coast of Norfolk and the small, quiet seaside resorts of Sheringham and Cromer.  It took nearly two happy hours gliding through the understated Norfolk landscape to get there, changing at Norwich.  It was a day punctuated by trains, for waiting on the other platform at as the slid into Cromer station was a steam train, a late engine too being built in 1957, that would spend the day trundling up and down between the line between Cromer and Sheringham.  And at the rear of the train, and only adding to the excitement, was a fabulously liveried diesel engine that once belonged to London transport.  The first thing we made for in Sheringham was the original red brick station that now belongs to the North Norfolk Railway heritage line.  A wonderfully evocative place, that has often been used a location for a number of tv productions.
   It was a sunny though very blustery day, with a chill in the air on the cliff top at Sheringham. Up until my twenties I used to visit both resorts regularly, Sheringham more than Cromer.  It was interesting, but sort of bitter-sweet, to return after so many years.  Both resorts have changed; Sheringham perhaps has gone a little shabby in places while Cromer was looking decidedly sprucer than I remember it.  

   Both resorts developed from pre-existing fishing and trading communities - Cromer was already a small town before the fashion for sea-bathing developed.  It has an enormous Late Gothic parish church and narrow lanes of Georgian and Victorian houses.  Very atmospheric. However the heyday of both resorts was the late nineteenth century when this part of the Norfolk coast suddenly became wildly fashionable, and both resorts have plenty of buildings in the 'Queen Anne Revival' style of Richard Norman Shaw and George & Peto.  The local exponent of this style was 'Skipper of Norwich', G J Skipper - John Betjeman thought of him as the Gaudi of Norwich - and the prime example of his work in Cromer, now that the Metropole and the Grand have been demolished, is the magnificent 'Hotel de Paris' high and proud above the cliff.  Sheringham has lost all its grand red brick hotels except one, the Burlington, and that is currently for sale and is likely to be turned into apartments. I can remember the demolition of one of them.  It made the local news and sadly the site is still a car-park.  I suspect it was the Sheringham Hotel which was another work by Skipper.

   Quite the best building around however is St Joseph, the RC church in Sheringham, and is an exceptional early work by the architect of Liverpool Anglican cathedral Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.  A very powerful essay in Gothic Revival architecture, my only criticism really being the rather tame roof inside.  It definitely required something punchier.  Still there was much to enjoy.  A very refined and convincing piece of work verging on the sublime, with none of that froideur that could infect Scott's later work.  The detailing is excellent, rather Spanish inspired mainly.  The tiny oculus in the mighty N wall being inspired however, I think, by the one in the North transept of Melrose Abbey, and more obviously the East wall of the collegiate church at Fowlis Easter, also in Scotland.  The interior is narrow and vertical; the narthex is small and low and with its sense of compression has an element of Baroque theatricality.

   Sheringham is rather more low-key than Cromer, less brash perhaps - the original settlement being really more of  a village.  The original parish church is inland in the utterly charming flint village of Upper Sheringham; the Victorian one, St Peter's, in Lower Sheringham (to use its proper name) dates from 1895-7 is by St Aubyn & Wadling.  A big boned church, pretending to be in Surrey, that looses a lot by having a slate roof.  Pan tiles would have been better.  Final word: don't miss the Shell Museum in Sheringham - it's fantastic!

London and Walsingham

     It's been an eventful week.  A week ago today I took the train into town and a wonderful party at the Art Workers Guild in London's Bloomsbury.  Think architecture meets interior design, meets journalism, meets academia, meets literary London.  The host was my friend Ben Pentreath; the occasion was the launch of his stylish new book 'English Houses'.  With beautiful photography by Jan Baldwin its a lavish, seductive book.  The hall of the Guild (by F W Troup 1914) was decorated in the best Pentreathian manner with armfuls of dahlias that Charlie, Ben's husband, had brought up from their house in Dorset. I'm sure the waiters had been chosen as much for their looks as their hospitality skills. In the long years of caring it was the sort of invitation that came along rarely, and one that would be invariably declined.  The logistics of it would have been just too much hassle. Initial nerves were overcome, and I had a lovely evening meeting new people and catching up with old friends. I briefly met Ben's business partner Bridie Hall (it was her birthday) and Max, her dog and a total charmer.  Ben and Gabby Deeming, the Decoration Director of House & Garden magazine, both made speeches.  And I left with my copy of 'English Houses' autographed.  'Result', as they say.

       The other event of the week was of a totally different nature. And one I'm reticent to speak of, partly because at times I am such a low-grade Christian, but that was in its quiet way such a profound experience that I feel compelled to share.  On Saturday I joined a local pilgrimage party and headed east across the great, flat extent of the Fens and into Norfolk and to Walsingham. Here is my post from last year.  The morning's weather was superb again. Walsingham has this amazing air of serenity that, I think, is quite unique. The sun was warm and the apple trees were heavy with fruit in the garden of St Seraphim's church, like a painting by Samuel Palmer. The afternoon was, however, unfortunately wet.  After attending two indifferent services in the Anglican shrine (Pilgrim Mass and Sprinkling - both meagre food for pilgrims) I found myself attending Orthodox vespers upstairs at the Anglican Shrine.  The chapel was minute - hardly really more than a landing.  So narrow a space that the iconstasis had room only for two doors instead of the usual three.  An elderly priest lead the service, supported by a choir of one - I think it was his wife. From such meagre resources was created something incredibly moving, incredibly spiritual and powerful. Numinous. Transcendent.  The congregation varied between two and seven, but that didn't matter.  It had a deep integrity that somehow what was going on downstairs in the Anglican bit simply did not possess.

     I've been attracted to Orthodoxy for a long time, but rarely attended a service.  The opportunity has rarely arisen.  To attend therefore something that is so freighted with expectation is to risk disappointment.  I needn't have worried, the experience exceeded expectation.  I need to return.

Houghton Hall III: The Interior

     For visitors, paying, entrance to the house is under the west perron.  Beyond the austere porch we found ourselves in a vast dim space: the 'Colonnades' which runs under the 'state centre' for the entire depth of the house. How much darker it would have been when the east perron was in place.  It explains too why the windows of the 'rustic' are longer than those illustrated in the Vitruvius -  the practical need for light overcoming the intellectual game of proportion. The 'Colonnades' (Cruikshank) or 'Arcades' (Girouard & Hussey - see, back to the confusion!) forms the heart of the 'rustic' - dedicated, as Lord Harvey said, to 'hunters, hospitality, noise, dirt and business'.  It was on this floor that Walpole held his twice yearly 'congresses' when he entertained the local gentry and all lived 'up to the chin in beef, venison, geese, turkeys, etc. and generally over the chin in claret, strong beer and punch.'  Lord Harvey again.  Some of the side rooms are likely to have fitted out by Ripley, others by Gibbs.  Opposite each other in the very centre of the house are doors leading to the two staircases.  We, like all visitors, used the south staircase - the Great Stair.

     In my post about the interior of Belton House I remarked on how close the plan of that house, and innumerable other English country houses, are close to the French manner of planning a country house.  For all of it's much vaunted Palladianism Houghton is no exception. As Mark Girouard wrote in 'Life in the English Country House' Neo Palladiansim' often represented nothing more than a 'change of uniform'.  If anything the plan of piano nobile at Houghton is closer, in some respects, to the French ideal than Belton.  Certainly the plan is much more rational, and in fact is very simple: the 'state centre' runs e-w; at right angles to that are four apartments each one arranged enfilade and occupying', as it were, the corners of the house and separating the apartments are service rooms - stairs, dressing rooms etc. (there are no closets).  Each side of the house therefore forms an 'apartement double' - a plan form introduced by Le Vau at Vieux-le-Vicomte (1657-61). There are indeed a number of parallels in the history of both houses.  The plan at Houghton also follows that of Ragley in Warwickshire (1679-83) designed by Sir Robert Hooke, and a sketch design of an unbuilt house that it is believed to be by William Talman. Much is often made of the clear contrast the public nature of the piano nobile of a house like this and the domestic of the ground floor 'Rustic'.  At Houghton, however, this was never as clear cut.  The two southern apartments were used by the family; Sir Robert taking the south west one; and the south west one eventually becoming a common parlour and the bedroom a library.  The piano nobile became divided into public and family spaces sharing the 'state centre'.  It is an arrangement that was followed, and became formalized, in the construction of Hagley, Worscestershire, (1753-9).

     In c.1727 William Kent was brought into decorate the house (raising the interesting possibility he worked with or under James Gibbs) and his work in the state apartments is stunning.  His work on the Great Stair less so.  Kent was a poor painter, a better architect and a superb interior designer and gardener.  Even at Houghton is it is possibly better not look too closely at his painted work.  He was a protege of that arch-palladian Lord Burlington, but his work is far more varied and eclectic than his association with milord Burlington would suggest.  In fact Kent had trained as a painter in Italy in the Late Baroque tradition, and there is a feeling in his work that he is straining at the leash to be let loose.  His work at Houghton is of astonishing richness.  The state apartments form a real schatzkammer, even if they do not contain the art that originally decorated the walls.

     The first room the visitor enters is the Stone Hall - a great 40ft cube of a room, and the eastern of the two rooms that form the 'state centre'.  It is the same size as the cube room in the Queens House at Greenwich by Jones. The ceiling has a great Baroque cove to it, based on the sort of cove Inigo Jones used later in his career (e.g. Wilton) when he was more influenced by contemporary French taste than Palladio.  Ironic really, considering it is possible to see Neo-Palladianism as an attempt to dethrone French taste in Britain and replace it with the Italian.  The carved detail here and on the Great Stair are based on the details found in Coleshill - a house then thought to be by Jones but was in fact designed Sir Roger Pratt. Beyond that is the salon with its deep walls of Genoa velvet, and a fantastical ceiling that seems to combine that sort of Baroque form favoured by Wren (eg. St Lawrence Jewry) and the English Baroque school, with Renaissance detailing and painted in the manner of Guilo Romano, with a central panel painted in full blooded Italian Baroque.  The other State Rooms follow this pattern adding a good dash of contemporary French decoration in the manner of Jean Berain to the mix.  The furniture, which Kent also designed, too is a mixture of the Roman Baroque, the Antique and the contemporary French.

     It all culminates for me in the quite staggering Dining Parlour Kent created out of the withdrawing room in the NE apartment.  There he clad the walls in marble and alabaster and decorated the ceiling in the Italian Renaissance style.  Almost overwhelming.  Kent I suspect, had much more in common with Wren, Hawksmoor and Gibbs than has been suspected.  All of them took a stylistically eclectic, pragmatic, and contextual approach to design, and I think Kent did the same.
     All of this is in deep contrast to the two rooms in the family side of the house which were open to the public: simple panelling and plain plaster ceilings.  Domestic in tone, and rather pleasing.

     In 1742 Walpole fell from grace, and three years later he was dead.  As his youngest son, Horace, wrote; 'It is certain he is dead very poor; his debts amount to £50,000, his estate a nominal £8,000 a year, much mortgaged.'  The family struggled on, but in 1779 the 3rd Earl was forced to sell Sir Robert's entire art collection to Catherine the Great of Russia, and with the death of Sir Robert's youngest son, and 4th Earl, Horace, the estate passed to the Chomondeleys.