All Saints, Oystermouth

     Last week's jaunt was to the parish church of All Saints, Oystermouth, one of the communities that make up The Mumbles on the south east tip of Gower. This church has a long history, dating perhaps to the very earliest Middle Ages, and a Roman structure, possibly a villa, stood there in Antiquity. Tempting to see some sort of continuity there.

     However to look at it from some angles you would be forgiven for not believing any of this at all.  From the north and east all that can be really seen is the very large extension - essentially a new church - designed by W L Barnard of Cheltenham and dating from 1915. However the tower, in good plain welsh style, is late Medieval and the s aisle is earlier still.  Except that the south aisle isn't really that at all but the much handled old nave of the church, and the e chapel (older still) is the former chancel. All of this old work is constructed of rubble masonry, grey and black and hoary. Barnard's extension is built of browner quarry faced masonry and limestone dressings, possibly Bath stone, and is somewhat staid for though designed in a full, luxuriant (and English) Perp style that particular masonry finish almost gives the design a hint of muscular High Victorian Gothic, of solid (if not stolid) Victorian Middle Class comfort. Earth bound. If not downright dull.  All that said there some interesting architectural moments on the outside; the gargoyles are on the n aisle rather fine, as is the door to the n vestry. And then there is the contemporary w porch - the least said about that car crash the better.
     The interior continues with the late Victorian common sense and produces something that decidedly lacks the numinous.  The first thing that strikes the visitor is the breadth - the nave is unusually wide, horizontal when one would expect it, being Gothic, to be vertical.  The other features that some would take exception to, the unequal height of the arcades and narrow n aisle I really like and add a little necessary piquancy.  I do find however the interior. which is really quite complex both spatially and historically, lacks integration, perhaps a dose of whitewash would help integrate the whole and add some of the numinous quality that is lacking.  Barnard's details though are rather good, screen and woodwork especially.  The reredos of the High Altar is a rather curious design, sub SSPP, that dates from 1951 and was made by The Faith Craft-Works.

   Actually this visit was not a little unpleasant. I arrived just after a service and was treated with suspicion, if not hostility by a member of the congregation who suspected me of taking photographs for financial gain. I won't be returning.

Heroic Materialism

     Tucked away behind the stuccoed Victorian terraces of Uplands in Swansea is this mighty industrial structure, built by, and for what purpose, I don't know. I've checked and it isn't listed. My first suspicions were that it is the work of  E M Bruce Vaughan the architect of the elegant, Bodleyesque church of St Paul, Plasmarl - redundant now and beginning to look very parlous, and that it may have been built in connection with the Swansea tram system.  However I'm no longer so sure about the former; Bruce Vaughan was mainly a church architect, and my guess was based on the presence of the large thermal, or Diocletian, window in the e wall and there being a Gothic paraphrase of a thermal window lighting the crypt of St John's.  A tenuous connection, I suppose.

     That being said it is, as you can see, a remarkable building, skilfully and sensitively designed of rubble and smart limestone (?) dressings, an heroic projection, manifestation, and celebration of the industrial power of Swansea in her pomp, lifting it beyond the merely utilitarian. The influences are various, Late Antiquity, English Baroque and French Neoclassicism of the Ledoux and Boullee type.  A touch too of the Arts and Crafts.  As for date, I'm not entirely sure about that either.  It could date from anywhere between late Victorian and the eve of World War II, but a building with considerable heft and presence, that makes for a profound contrast to the jolly Victorian suburbia around it.

Own work: collage

     My latest finished collage, as yet without a title: 16.9 x 14.4 cms on 300 gsm watercolour paper, mixed media including hard-marbled paper.

Own work: Llandeilo church

     Ahead of my next exhibition I have returned to topographical painting. Here's the first in a while; Llandeilo church.  Mixed media on 300 gsm watercolour paper.  I'm not at all sure whether I'm satisfied with what I've created!  Looks a bit overworked to my eyes.

St Benedict, Glinton

     I spent a week back in Lincolnshire in the beginning of December catching up with people and things.  I took the opportunity to pop over to Glinton and have a look at the parish church of St Benedict, a building that has connections with the poet John Clare (1793-1864). It was here that Clare went to the village school, which was then located in the N. chancel chapel and here too that the love of his life, Mary Joyce, lived.  The day of my visit damp, cold and thoroughly miserable.  It seems a long way off as I type theses words in a spring-like Swansea. Like Helpston and Northborough, Glinton suffers from proximity to Peterborough and the slow defeat of 'village' by 'suburbia'.  All three are stone-belt villages that sit on the wide flood plain of the Welland. To the east beyond Northborough and Glinton (which is, I think, on some sort of gravel peninsular) lie the fens. Places then that one wouldn't necessarily associate with charming stone-built cottages.

     Be that as it may, St Benedict's and its large graveyard sit midway along the straggling High St. The spire is quite something - tall and quite out of proportion with the squat tower below, it changes angle about two thirds of the way up.  Quite a landmark and unique, I would guess. Dramatic too. The church less so, small, with a noticeably tall Perp clerestory. In the porch are a couple of large, much worn effigies, male and female, removed from inside.  They probably took up too much floor space - the interior is on the small side, but that tall clerestory does add a much need sense of drama and verticality.  (Note the large corbels high between the windows - evidence of an earlier, perhaps more interesting nave roof) All that said the interior is, quite frankly, dull; a victim of conventional Anglican taste. The font is possibly the best thing - square, Norman and carved with abstract patterns.  One wants, however, a little mystery.

St Michael and All Angels, Ledbury

     Two weeks ago now and on the way to family in Worcestershire we made a breakfast stop in Ledbury, Herefordshire.  I hadn't been there for years and I was eager for a return visit to the parish church of St Michael and all Angels, a large town church of warmest sandstone, vibrant in the sparkling winter sunshine. So much more noticeably colder than Swansea, with a heavy, lingering frost on the churchyard grass.

     St Michael's is reached from the High St by the almost improbably picturesque Church Lane - a fitting lead up to a church that is rich in texture and is architecturally complex and varied.  Quite my sort of place.  So where to begin, when stepping through the fine churchyard gates and you are met with such a competition of interest with all the elements begging for your attention - detached bell tower, north transept, two storey porch and west front with a great Norman west door embedded in its midst? I made for the north transept which I had completely forgotten about until I saw it illustrated in a book by Basil Clarke and John Betjeman.  It was so intriguing and so beautiful I had to return one day.  It took two years from buying the book in a second-hand bookshop in Cromer to make the journey. It did not disappoint at all.  It is an exquisite piece of architecture.  Early decorated, with vast windows encrusted with a plethora of ballflower ornament, a Herefordshire/Worcestershire speciality. Think sleigh bells! I particularly loved the small, richly detailed doorway poking its head into one of the windows in the west wall. In all exceptional. And so then to the rest of the church.  The chancel is Norman, but the nave is Decorated Gothic, though not as elaborate in style as the N transept.  Workman like, I'd say, but far from unattractive.

   The aisle windows are exceptionally tall, because the vast interior, all reddy-brown for the walls have at one time been stripped of plaster, is a hall-church of sorts with nave and aisles are equal height separated by thin arcades of octagonal piers (the work of two separate building campaigns by the look of it) giving a great sense of space and height (there is no clerestory).  The chancel though retains its original Norman arcades and now function-less circular clerestory windows. The three parallel roofs are open and a little dark it has to be said, but the interior is rich in civic and funerary trumpery.  We would have lingered but the there was a meeting getting underway in the Lady Chapel so I felt unable to fully explore the east end.  Still, it is an excuse to return.

     Ledbury is a beautiful place with a mixture of sandstone, warm red brick and half timbering.  I love the architecture and the urbanism of these west Midlands market towns. Apart from architecture the shopping in Ledbury is exceptional for a town of its size.  On the east side of the High St are a number of yards and alleys that contain some fantastic shops, one of which, Tinsmiths, I have to confess, was, after reading about it on my friend Ben Pentreath's blog, another reason for my visit.