Lichfield Cathedral I: City, Close, Cathedral

   There are also outwardly built three Pyramids, or steeples of a good convenient height, all very well wrought with Free Stone and especially the two Gemmets that stand westwards, very well cut and cureously wrought.  The which West Part is [] exceeding finely and cunningly set forth, with a great number of Tabernacles, and in the same, the Images or Pictures of the Prophets, Apostles Kings of Judah, and divers other Kings of this Land, so well embossed and so lively cut, that it is a great pleasure for any man that takes delight to see such Rarities, to behold them.

     It was a relief to leave the city centre of Birmingham and head through some interesting and leafy suburbia north to Lichfield, in the unregarded county of Staffordshire.  An all together different city; Defoe described it as "a place of conversation and good company"; it was after all the place of Dr Johnson, David Garrick, Erasmus Darwin and Anna Seward, a place of sensibility. It was my second visit and the bf's first, and the place is a delight - busy and prosperous. The centre is compact, dense and hierarchical. It was market day too, which is always a good thing, though not so good for the photography! Lichfield is a planned medieval town, c1140, built to the south of the cathedral. The site though is of greater antiquity. Close to Tamworth and Repton, it was one of the major centres of power in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Mercia. And perhaps possessing a still greater antiquity.  

     The city stands just north of the Roman town of Letocetum (Wall) and the junction of two important Roman roads - Watling Street and Ryknild Street. To the north and east are the river valleys of the Trent and the Tame; to the south is the Forest of Arden and to the west Cannock Chase, and large area of heath and open woodland.  The name of the city was thought to mean 'field of the dead', but has been demonstrated to derive in part from the Old Welsh Luitcoyt - the 'grey wood', so that the meaning is the 'field in the grey wood'.  To the east, in the 'Heartland of Mercia' there are a number of other Brythonic names, entire or partial: Ridware, Hints, Comberford, and Dosthill.  To the west in what was once the Pencerseate are a number of others.  Arden is thought to derive from the Brythonic 'Ardu-' meaning 'high land'.  In 2009 the Staffordshire Hoard was discovered in a field at Hammerwich, a village nearly four miles west southwest of Lichfield.

     To the east of the city centre is St Michael, Greenhill. A medieval/Victorian church that stands in the midst of a vast graveyard. I believe it is the largest in the country. Mesolithic items have been found there, and legend links it to the persecution of the Christians under the Emperor Diocletian. Another credits the dedication of the cemetery itself to St Augustine of Canterbury and the Roman Mission. Whatever the basis of these stories, by the 8th century St Michael's had been endowed with vast landholdings. This has led some historians, such as Steven Bassett*, to suggest that St Michael's is the site of an important early Christian centre, possibly the seat of a British bishopric such as those at St Helen Worcester, and St Mary de Lode in Gloucester. It seems that the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons in the this part of the Kingdom of Mercia and the lower Severn valley was the work of the existing British populations, and not the Roman Mission.

      The Kings of Mercia took their bishops from Northumbria and also Ireland. St Chad, the fifth bishop, was no exception. He is thought to have been born in what is now Yorkshire. His name is Brythonic, as are names of his three brothers - Cedd, Caelin and Cynibil. As was also the name of his assistant/servant Ovin, ie. Owain or Owen, who is said to be the same Ovin who was part of St Etheldreda's household.  I wont describe Chad's earlier life in Northumbria except to say it is 'complex'. I don't mean 'problematic', only he was a very busy man, a bit restless maybe. It is enough here to know he, like his predecessors, was trained in the Irish monastic tradition in northern England and in Ireland itself. Chad's time in Mercia is subject to all sorts of legends and variants. It is thought he arrived c.669, but at one time it was believed he had arrived before that date and been living the eremitical life in part of Lichfield that is now known as Stowe, but what for centuries had been known as Chadstowe; attracted, perhaps, by the ancient sanctity of St Michael's church. Be that as it may Chad was appointed Bishop of Mercians c669 and was bishop for three years. It was he who, apparently, moved the cathedra from Repton to Lichfield. By his death there seems to have been two monasteries in Lichfield; St Chad's own skete at the site of St Chad's in Stowe (the church was then apparently dedicated to St Mary), and a second founded by the Mercian King Wulfhere. Chad was buried close to St Mary's church and remained there until c700 when his remains were translated to a new(?) cathedral church dedicated to St Peter on the site of the current structure, and which was situated within Wulfhere's foundation. I hope I've got that right!

     And so finally to the cathedral itself.  I can't do better than quote from the Buildings of England: "Lichfield is one of the smaller English cathedrals (371'), but it has two features which single it out from all others; its three spires and the Minster Pool and Stowe Pool assuring it of a picturesqueness of setting which none can emulate."

     In fact the building (for a cathedral) is so low (for instance, the nave vault is less than 60 ft high) that it scarcely registers in the urban landscape at all. I should add that the central tower, which has some stylistic links to the central towers of Pershore and Worcester, is uncommonly short; I think the great spire that that rests upon it must account for half the total height, if not more.  

      It's only as you approach, and I suggest you approach from the west along Bird St, that the three stones spires - the 'Ladies of the Vale' - appear above the trees. It is only at the moment of turning into the close that the cathedral finally reveals itself to the visitor, all dark and spikey, the flat façade of the w end enmeshed in a dizzying net of tracery and statuary. For all its flaws, (and it does divide critical opinion), it is quite the spectacle. A proper coup du theatre.

      At this point we step into the cathedral close - I've written about cathedral closes before now, but never explained them: a close is simple an enclosure, sometimes fortified, containing the cathedral and its ancillary buildings, such as housing for the cathedral clergy and staff. Here the close is neatly rectangular, unlike say Lincoln which is a very awkward shape and is intruded on too much by the modern world such as a main road.  The close at Lichfield dates from the 1200s but I'd like to think that the boundaries are actually Anglo-Saxon. Though without the profound numinosity of the close at St David's, it is still a particularly attractive and peaceful place, and it contains some beautiful houses.  Two buildings stand out for me: the Neo-classical austerity of Newton's College, and the rather French bishop's palace, dating mainly from the Restoration. It is has been credited to Edward Pierce (1630-1695) the mason/sculptor, who worked for Sir Christopher Wren. I should add here a note about what has been lost in the cathedral close: the gates have been demolished at some point, as has the late Medieval cathedral library (a half-timbered structure apparently. It is just visible on Hollar's engraving of the w front). In addition a chantry chapel has been demolished on the north side of the nave, and, intriguingly, depicted on two 19th century plans of the cathedral the location of the tomb chamber of the Mercian kings. Gerald Cobb in his fascinating book 'English Cathedrals: The Forgotten Centuries' mentions a free standing bell tower, but I've never seen that mentioned in any other book.**

      'The Ladies of the Vale' make Lichfield quite unique amongst the medieval cathedrals of, not only England, but the British Isles.  No other possesses, or has ever (as far as we know) possessed, three stone spires. But be not fooled though, for the central spire - the 'Rood Spire' - is not medieval but a 17th century reconstruction of the destroyed original.  Even so Lichfield fared somewhat better in this regard than Ripon and Lincoln, both of which had three spires constructed of timber & lead and lost all over time.  The two three spired cathedrals in Scotland, Elgin and Aberdeen, fared worse of all. All is Ichabod, or almost, for although the former is in complete ruins and the latter only a fragment - loosing choir, transepts and central tower & spire - it does retain the nave with its two w spires, built of intractable granite.

      Lichfield is constructed, like the cathedrals of Worcester and Chester, of Triassic New Red Sandstone of varying intensity of colour from dark brown to pinky-grey.  One imagines it, under certain weather conditions, to be a brooding, sombre presence.  The great problem in using this stone is its susceptibility to weathering, hence the presence of scaffolding on the central tower in the following images. The result of this almost constant repair and replacement of stone is that in places very little of the original medieval stonework is left; this particularly true of the west front where virtually all of the visible masonry dates from the late 19th century, the work of Sir George Gilbert Scott and his son John Oldrid Scott; the figures sculpted by Robert Bridgeman & Son, except those around the Great West Door which are by Mary Grant. The waspish architectural historian Alec Clifton Taylor was rather sniffy about their work, saying the sculpture was  "passable advertisements for the local hairdresser, every little wisp having been carefully 'set' in a fussy little curl."

     In addition, as hinted to above, the cathedral suffered massive amounts of damage during the English Civil War when the close was held as a fortress alternatively by both sides. It was besieged three times. Canon fire brought down the central spire and destroyed the roofs. Puritans smashed anything considered idolatrous. The cathedral remained in a near derelict state until the 1660s when a restoration was undertaken under Bishop Hacket (the church was re-consecrated in 1668). When divine service had been resumed in 1660 services were held in the chapterhouse, the rest of the cathedral being in such a bad state of repair.

   "June 16th, 1660. This morning Mr Rawlins, of Lichfield, told me that the Clerk Vicars of the cathedral had entered the chapter-house, and there said service; and this, with the vestry, was the only place in the church with a roof to shelter them."

Elias Ashmole ?

      Not only was the spire rebuilt, but new window tracery inserted, vaults rebuilt and new furnishings supplied.

      How much then does this lack of original work matter? And how, exactly do you conserve a building such as this?  These are questions that are still 'live' in the worlds of architecture and architectural criticism. These thorough-going Victorian restorations have come in for much criticism since, but it can be argued that the very survival of these buildings depended on the thoroughness of our nineteenth century forebears. Perhaps it matters little for any changes embody the history of the building, and surely it cannot be expected that any building should or can survive intact for so long. A pragmatic approach is required, not a desire for purity.

* cf 'Church and Diocese in the West Midlands: The Transition from British to Anglo-Saxon Control' in 'Pastoral care before the Parish' ed John Blair and Richard Sharpe (Leicester, 1992) pp 13-40

** Doing a quick bit of research I found it mentioned in the original Bells Cathedral series volume on Lichfield. It was demolished in 1315.

Own work: Doric Gate after Batty Langley

     Finally another piece to share with. It's been like drawing teeth! This is 'Doric Gate after Batty Langley' - mixed media on 300gsm watercolour paper. Who, I hear you cry, was Batty Langley? A character in the evergreen British sitcom 'Last of the Summer Wine? Alas, no. Mr Langley was a Georgian master mason/architect and architectural theorist. He is remembered now for his writing, and has been an influence of subsequent generations of British architects such as, beloved of this blog, Edwin Lutyens and Ben Pentreath.

Birmingham

      To Birmingham last week and a family wedding; and what a moving, joy filled day it was.  Beautiful weather and much happiness.  A day spent on foot for we walked from the Registrar's to the reception in bosky, rus in urbe, Edgebaston. And back. 

     We did indeed do a lot of walking that weekend, and saw a lot of the city.  The return to our hotel Friday evening along Broad St was particularly egregious - "The Road, like all main roads into a big city, achieved a kind of vast squalid importance .... it was a life line with a low opinion of life."*

     Early the next morning we traversed the city centre to the north end of Corporation St to get the bus to Lichfield.  Corporation St., it must be remembered, was Joseph Chamberlain's well meant but slightly cack-handed attempt at a 'Parisian Boulevard'.  Judging from old photographs, even when new it seemed to lack the visual cohesiveness necessary, and that cohesiveness is even less apparent today. One wonders if it could ever, at a certain level, really succeed - after all laisez-faire Birmingham was not the Second Empire.

      The northern section of the street is the legal centre of the city, what with the mediocre Crown Court and the spectacularly blood-red terracotta Victoria Law Courts by Aston Webb and Ingress Bell**. There are Barrister's chambers everywhere. But oh how that part of the city looked neglected.  The old County Court building, 1882, by John Williamson, in a fine Neo-Renaissance style and which I mistook it for a Victorian Bank (A confusion of typologies?), is empty and forsaken; the towers and pinnacles of Law Courts sprout shrubbery.***  It is not at all acceptable that a functioning public building should be such a condition. However the presence of the paraphernalia of building works does suggest (hopefully) that restoration is at hand.

     The whole thing however piqued my interest in what appeared to be an down-at-heal part of the city centre, and when I got back here I had a trawl on the internet. It revealed the whole sorry tale of the destruction of a vast area of the city in the 1950&60s.  Of an urban landscape sacked and left for dead. A whole area of the city dis-enchanted.  The damage done to Whittall St was particularly telling and deeply saddening.  Frustrating. Enraging.  It all seems a long way from the 'Civic Gospel' of late nineteenth century city.

     Sometimes I feel, as much as I actually like Birmingham, that it isn't really a city at all just a conglomeration of random buildings. A simulacrum.

* 'The Long View', Elizabeth Jane Howard's novel of 1956.

**Sir Aston Webb, you may recall from an earlier post, was architect of Birmingham University.

*** Turns out the County Court building is still a functioning law court.  Well, there you go.

  

Some thoughts upon the Coronation of King Charles III

       

     It was my original intention to publish this post in two parts.  The first dealing with the event in general terms, the second in specifics.  The second part was never completed, and languished.  I decided that, really, a second part was not justified – it would have been arcane and largely negative in tone. Instead, both have been edited in to a single, and I hope not too arcane post.  I have been unable, though, to exorcise the negativity.

  

 

     "In this way the Imperial power, exerted with order and measure, thus represents the harmony and movement which the Creator has installed in all things."

De Ceremoniis Aulae Byzantinae

 

     It is a week since the Coronation and I have been pondering upon what we witnessed. On Thursday Allan Barton committed his thoughts to video on YouTube here and this has helped clarify my own thoughts. I should add here that those Anglican clergy I follow on Twitter (and they are few - I have found to my cost that there really is nothing worse for my faith than a trawl through Anglican Twitter. It's enough to make you want to throw in the towel.) have, in the aftermath of the Coronation remained conspicuously silent.

    In revising this post nearly a year later, I have come to see the Coronation as an embodiment of the ‘Meaning Crisis’, and its particular manifestation in the ‘Crisis of Ritual’.  I think it is also manifest in a number of recent Royal occasions such as the last three of the Queen’s Jubilees and the Thanksgiving for the Life of the Duke of Edinburgh (Westminster Abbey, 29.03.2022.).  And it was present at the other religious service held to inaugurate the new reign, the 'Service of Thanksgiving and Dedication' held at the High Kirk of St Giles in Edinburgh.

     However, first let me say that there were a number of places in the service that were incredibly moving, most importantly the Anointing, and the investiture that immediately followed.¹ It is telling that in both instances the music took precedence over the words of the liturgy, and the effect almost overwhelming, as the service, with its unity of music and ritual, edged towards a sort of spiritual gesamtkunstwerk. A moment of total integration, of axial alignment.  However, as Dr Barton points out that this was an innovation, not really that Anglican or even Protestant, but seemed to hark back to an earlier manner of doing things. The truth is that, even without those fleeting moments of sublimity, the coronation is a glimpse, no matter how much through a glass darkly, of the Pre-Modern.  No wonder the likes of the Guardian have been so snarky, so embittered by it. There has been a lot of elite 'coping' and the efforts of Polly Toynbee and Timothy Garton Ash have been conspicuously desperate.  For the Coronation, at this time, is almost an act of defiance. It represents both an alternative source of authority and a different way of viewing the world, and they, rightly or wrongly, perceive it as a threat.  No wonder all those politicians, huddled together in the choir stalls, looked so sullen and resentful, so uncomprehending.  A conflict between the enchantment and dis-enchantment of the world. Be that all as it may, those rare moments of integration I mentioned above were only possible thanks to some wonderful music and wonderful musicianship.

     That a full-blown coronation should have happened at all is, in itself, something to be extremely thankful for.  There were times a few years ago when it seemed highly unlikely - all the talk was of a 'multifaith installation service'. Prince Charles - as he was then - was rumoured to be in favour. In 2006, and based on an essay in The Spectator, the Daily Mail ran an article to that effect, suggesting that the Prince wanted a second service on Coronation Day in Westminster Hall in which the leaders of the various faith communities would play an active part. Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, was said to be supportive, but Rowan Williams, the then archbishop, against. In some ways the article was merely repeated what the Dean of Westminster, Wesley Carr, had written in 2002. As late as 2014 Lord Harries of Pentregarth, the former Bishop of Oxford, was calling for the Quran to read at the Coronation. However little of this came to pass. In fact as James Walters, of the LSE, points out here there was very little multi-faith content to the coronation at all. Perhaps the King's age put a stop to that idea, or maybe, as Walters suggests, the culture had just simply moved on.

     At this point I should speak here, I suppose, of my own response to events in the build-up to the Coronation. To be honest they were decidedly ambiguous. The Coronation has held a particular place in my imagination for years. A rather exalted position. And so perhaps, I have to admit, the reality was never going to come close to the ideal of my imaginings.  The return of my depression also did much to dampen my enthusiasm. But those considerations aside, I had a deep unease over the nature of the forthcoming event, re-assured though I was that we would not be getting an 'installation service'.  The time allowed to prepare for the Coronation seemed inadequate, after all the Queen’s Coronation had taken over a year to organise.  The incessant drip-drip-drip of information by the authorities involved did little to reassure. Information that was sometimes later to be completely countermanded. And what material was available through official channels such as websites seemed trivial - inadequate for the nature of the event, as though the authorities, like the politicians in the abbey, either didn't understand or were just simply embarrassed by such an anachronism.  There seemed to be no concerted effort to explain what was about to happen.  It was, one should remember, the first PR Coronation.  And then there were the repeated delays; the official, definitive order of service did not appear until late on the eve of the coronation. None of this was particularly re-assuring, or edifying. There was talk in the press (viz: Private Eye & the Daily Mail) of serious disagreements between the two palaces - Buckingham and Lambeth. It was said that the church dug its heels in, thereby ensuring a service along traditional lines. For that alone we can and should indeed be thankful.

     So, on the day I was, in a way, unprepared for what I saw; Oh, all the right music was played, and all the rituals were conducted and as I have said I was at times deeply moved, but there was a sort of unreality to it all that I find difficult to define.  In truth, compared to the Coronations of the 20th century, in particular those of 1937 & 1953, it was, this time around, pretty much a milk-and-water affair.  There was simply something lacking.  A sense of narrative? And with it a sense of liturgical and aesthetic clarity? And, far more importantly, a sense of the numinous? Sadly, all were conspicuous by their absence. ²

      And while some of the changes to the order of service stemmed from the relatively short time in which to organise the event, the majority were no doubt undertaken with an eye to the age of the King and Queen, just as it should be. However, a lot of decisions just seemed arbitrary, and rather pointless, such as the use of the presence of the 6^th century ‘St Augustine Gospels’ at the Proclamation of the Gospel.  I think a lot of these can be ascribed not only to the King's dilettantism but to his rather patrician-inflected Perennialism.  Whatever the reason, result was an oddly parochial affair, as though it was a society wedding, rather than an event of national and international significance. It wasn't helped by the decision to use Common Worship rather than the Book of Common Prayer.³  These sorts of decisions tended to exert a centrifugal force on the liturgy fragmenting its narrative clarity.⁴ 

      I realise that circumstances have changed and an ‘Imperial’ coronation was never going to be enacted, however I believe it was still possible to create something that is cogent and compelling, even at a time of ‘Meaning Crisis’.  To illustrate by point I think a useful comparison can be drawn at this point between the Coronation and the funerals of both the Duke of Edinburgh & the Queen.  Both retained a sense of clarity and narrative and were profoundly moving having a reach that was both national and international.  Perhaps importantly, they were the work of a previous generation (and one that had been through WWII).  They were personal, but that element of the ego was subsumed to function of the service which, as a sort of ‘Rite of passage’, a ‘Life-cycle Ritual’, is concerned with the passage of the deceased from the seen to the unseen, and the passage of the bereaved from one set of relationships to another.  Sadly, I don’t believe this can be said of the Coronation.  The opportunity for proper catechesis,⁵ both before and during the service (i.e. the sermon), to explain what is a complex and rarely seen ritual, was not taken.  Neither was there any attempt to make manifest the transcendental, let alone begin the task of re-enchantment.  The choices made in the ‘lead-up’ to the event worked for the opposite. (16.03.26  Looking back on it nearly three years later, it was, I suppose, the highpoint of Boomer religion.)

     That such a service occurred at all was almost miraculous, but it was achieved by the skin of our teeth.  God alone knows what we'll get with the next king.  I am not at all hopeful.

 

 

1 Even watching these two rituals back now a fortnight later they move me profoundly. There is a moment in particular just after the anointing when the screens are removed to reveal the King kneeling and prayed over by the archbishops and assistant bishops that each time just catches my breath.

 2 The lighting required for the broadcast probably did for the latter.

3 And there was that bizarre comment made by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, during his sermon about 'Jesus laying down his privilege' - so God has 'privilege'?  It was just ill considered, a stupid thing to say.

4 The same applies to the music at the Coronation.  There were a lot of new commissions - in itself a good thing - but the diversity of music styles/approaches tended to dislocate the service.  The relatively short ‘lead-up time’ to the Coronation may have contributed to this – it being easier to commission five composers to each work on a section of the ‘ordinary’ than one composer work on the whole thing.  However, this slightly scatter gun approach reflects a facet of the new King's character. 

5 In preparation for the Late Queen’s Coronation the then Archbishop of Canterbury prepared a booklet of devotions for the Queen’s use during the month leading to the event.  It was entitled: ‘To the Queen: A little book of private Devotions in Preparation for Her Majesty’s Coronation.’

'Metro-land'

Every single little dream

Is a rafter or a shingle

We can paint the house with laughter

When we build a little home.

It's not a palace nor a poorhouse,

But the rent is absolutely free,

This is my house but its your house,

If you'll come and live with me.

With a carpet on the floor,

Made of buttercups and clover,

All our troubles will be over,

When we build a little home.

     Earlier this year, the 26th of February to be exact, the BBC quietly marked the fiftieth anniversary of that wonderful documentary 'Metro-land' made by that admirable combination of the then Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman and producer & director Edward Mirzoeff. The result, as one would expect, is a delight. For A N Wilson, Betjeman's biographer, it was 'too good to be described simply as a 'programme''.

     I've outlined before, in my post about their 1974 documentary 'A Passion for Churches', the history of the Betjeman & Mirzoeff's collaboration. (That really does sound like the name of a firm of solicitors or even, maybe, a rather posh shoe shop!); but just to recap. The two of them began working together on three programmes BBC2 documentary series 'A Bird's Eye View' in the late 60s, and 'Metro-land' represents the continuity of their collaboration and, one must feel, their friendship. 

     'Metro-land' was, apparently, conceived (in a very civilised fashion) over lunch in Wheelers, the well-known London fish restaurant. Originally the documentary was intended to be an exploration of the suburb in general but it was decided to concentrate on one area of suburbia in NW London that was served by the Metropolitan line out of Baker St.  This was chosen not only as a sort of paradigm of suburban living, but because of the unique way the suburbs in that part of the capital developed in the interwar period with the railway company effectively acting as property developer. (It was the advertising department of the Metropolitan Railway who coined the term 'Metro-land'.) Compared to 'A Passion for Churches' this is a straightforward linear narrative. Sir John takes the train from Baker St tube station to the end of the Metropolitan line in distant Buckinghamshire, stopping off along the route for a little exploration, both historical and contemporary. And a lot is crammed into those 50 odd minutes. Our first call is at an earlier suburb: St John's Wood. It can, in fact, claim to be one of the earliest, dating from the end of the 18th century - all villas strung out along tree lined avenues. Rus in urbe. We then proceed to stop off at Neasden, Harrow, Wembley, Moor Park before we come to the end of the line at Amersham. We visit Grimsdyke (1870-72), at Harrow Weald, by Richard Norman Shaw; the great Baroque house Moor Park which is now the club house of a golf club; the Orchard (1900) by Voysey at Chorley Wood and High and Over (1929-31) by Amyas Connell. We meet the man behind the Neasden Nature Trail and the chap with a full scale cinema organ in his house.  And although, as I've said, a lot is squeezed into those fifty minutes, the pace is calm and unhurried. The camera is left to linger in telling ways.
     I couldn't help but feel, watching Sir John standing in one of the avenues of, I think, Harrow Garden Village which was the Metropolitan railway's Flagship development that 1973 is a long way away from today. What has become of those neat front gardens, bursting with roses? Probably paved over for extra parking. If not I imagine the roses have long gone for the sake of easy maintenance and the wooden window frames painted in such jaunty colours lost to upvc. 

     Indeed they have.

     One of the joys of this documentary and, indeed, its contemporaries, is that it contains no introduction as such - Betjeman does not tell us he's 'on a journey'. As the writer Gareth Roberts wrote in a recent article for 'The Spectator' an awful lot of programmes these days are essentially all, or nearly all, padding. It really is amazing how the producers of, say, 'Strictly' or 'The Masked Singer' manage to stretch things out as they do, rather like a 1940s housewife eeking out a meagre meat ration. I remember watching a recent documentary about gardens - by a well known tv gardener - and there were three consecutive introductions. He was on that 'journey' as he repeated told us.  With 'Metroland' we just jump straight in.  The audience is treated, properly, as adults.  Sink or swim.  Neither do Betjeman or Mirzoeff feel the need to repeat ad infinitum what they are doing.  And neither is Sir John vain enough to make the documentary about himself.  I can think of a number of presenters of BBC arts/history documentaries, all male I might add, who really are demons for this. 

     The suburbs and the 'semi' (the semi-detached house) have come for a lot of criticism over time some of it valid and some it just downright snobbery; the most obvious example here in the UK is the play 'Abigail's Party' of 1977, which the playwright Dennis Potter described in a 'The Sunday Times' review as "based on nothing more than rancid disdain, for it is a prolonged jeer, twitching with genuine hatred, about the dreadful suburban tastes of the dreadful lower middle classes".  For good measure, try this example, which I inadvertently and fortuitously found last night while flicking through a small book on interior design* published by 'Good Housekeeping' magazine in the early 70s:

'Sophisticating your semi

   Moving into a 1930s 'semi' is enough to make anyone's ideas shrivel up on the spot. It is daunting to know all the neighbours have got floral carpet in the halls, three-piece suites in the living rooms, and dressing tables in the upstairs bay windows. But there's no reason why you shouldn't go out on a limb and create a very sophisticated interior with, say, bitter chocolate carpet in the hall and up the stairs (perhaps with off-white walls, plenty of modern prints, stainless steel spot-lights and, if you can, afford it, some new dead-simple banisters) With modern seating units in the living room, grouped into a square 'conversation' area, instead of set at an angle around a ghastly mottled fireplace. With built-in storage in your bedroom instead of the cumbersome and space-consuming wardrobe, chest of drawers, and dressing table trio. And with crisp roller blinds at the bay window instead of frilly, knickerbocker drapes.'

    Well, there writes somebody eager to escape their upbringing, and no mistake. At least the author has a strong opinion; read 'Good Housekeeping' these days and your brain will turn to mush.

     Oh, I suppose it is easy to mock the suburb and the 'semi', and indeed there has been a long history of that too from 'Diary of a Nobody' to the satirical magazine 'Private Eye' with its one time near obsession with Neasden. And then there the numerous sit-coms set in suburbia whether it's 'George and Mildred' or 'The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin'. The best, perhaps, was 'The Good Life'. All that said the suburban type, which was originally developed with the slightly elitist Garden Suburb and was popularized and commercialized with the spread of Metro-land, has turned out to be a particularly successful and popular urban type - certainly a damn sight more successful and popular than that proposed by the Post-War professionals. And I have to admit at this point to a certain ambiguity: rather liking the houses (at their best they can be rather good) having grown up in one not in the orbit of some British city but a small pretty nondescript Lincolnshire market town, but hating the suburban form. I think I would find it too quiet a place for me to live. I need more human interaction. 
     And then there's the issue of style. The suburban-semi is based on the Vernacular architecture of the southeast of England, as reinterpreted by the Arts and Crafts architects such as Sir Edwin Lutyens, or the earlier Queen Anne and Ye Olde Englishe Revival such as Richard Norman Shaw.  I suppose, if one was being particularly mean, you could call it a process of bastardisation. The problem for me is that with the success of Metro-land the semi, as a sort outlier of a particular vernacular architecture tradition, began its inexorable march across the UK and nowhere was safe. Tile hanging, red tiled roofs, pebble dash (that is wet dash) spread like a rash over the entire country. There are to be found here in South-west Wales. Local vernacular materials and traditions tended to be ignored. At the least the builder of my old house, who was my great grandfather, provided it with a pantile roof in the local tradition.

Steam took us onward,

Through the ripening fields,

Ripe for development,

Where the landscape yields,

Clay for warm bricks,

Timber for post and rail,

Through Amersham to Aylesbury and the vale.

In these wet fields the railway didn't pay,

The Metro stops in Amersham today.

*'Doing Up Your Home', written by Shirley Green; part of the 'Good Housekeeping Family Library' series, General Editor Isabel Sutherland. 

The Passionate Pilgrim: Elgar at the Brangwyn Hall

Rarely, rarely comest thou, Spirit of Delight

     To the Brangwyn Hall last night and a concert by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales under their Conductor Laureate Tadaaki Otaka. Three items on an all British programme: Elizabeth Maconchy's 'Nocturne for Orchestra', Benjamin Britten's Violin Concerto and, in the second half, Edward Elgar's 2nd Symphony. The orchestra played wonderfully as did the soloist Simone Lamsma.  All together a night to remember.

     Maconchy's Nocturne was a revelation, beautifully orchestrated. Strange and brooding, occult. Britten's violin concerto was interesting; the solo writing for violin was a revelation it was so virtuosic, however the outer movements seemed to lack structure, but the middle movement was intense and concentrated. The influence of Shostakovich was self-evident. That influence was there too in Maconchy's Nocturne, but was less obvious; it seemed in retrospect more integrated within her musical language. The Violin Concerto was written when Britten was 25 and not quite reached his mature style. Moments of brilliance none the less.

     And so to Elgar's 2nd symphony. And finally I got to hear it in the flesh. It is a work that apparently puzzled critics when premiered. And it is still for those who expect the public Elgar. Although a stronger work then the 1st symphony, it isn't so readily comprehensible. That first listen can be quite baffling, the listener being jerked in all directions it seems, but it is a work that rewards repeated listening.
     It is a deeply interior work, as Elgar wrote to a friend 'I have written out my soul in the concerto, Symphony no 2 and the Ode and you know it....in these three works have I sewn Myself'.  Rather introspective, then, complex and, perhaps paradoxically, full of dazzle - the most wonderful orchestration and orchestral effect. The Elgarian sound world is lush and rich. He called the symphony 'the passionate pilgrimage of the soul' and the first three movements are correspondingly  intense and changeful, quixotic even. Uneasy and restless.  Passionate indeed. One would, judging by this work, believe (correctly) Elgar to be a man of great sensitivity. And it is only the last few minutes of the work is there peace. There were tears in my eyes last night.

The Architecture of Disenchantment

     Last week a welcome return trip to Brecon in the Usk Valley. On our last visit the museum was closed for a major re-ordering. The Museum reopened in 2019 and then, obviously, closed due to Lockdown in 2020, so this was our first opportunity to look round. Now, before I go any further I should say that the project has been controversial, the project being neither to schedule or budget, and may still be the subject of a council enquiry. This post is not about the logistics of the scheme but its aesthetic qualities, which are sadly baleful.

     But first a little history, a little context. The site, I think, is situated just within the circle of the Medieval town wall, at the point where it meets the main road east out of the town. It is  roughly triangular; if it helps think of a leaf with its point to the east. And it is at that apex stands the most important structure on the site: The Shire Hall of 1839-43, by T H Wyatt and D Brandon; Neo-classical and remarkably correct and severe for its date with none of that richness, even over ornamentation, that is associated with the 'Victorian'. Doric order under the influence of the heavy architecture of the Magna Greacia, and lots of plain wall surface. Crisp detailing.  It also has to be noted that it is built of ooltic limestone from the Limestone Belt. For many years it served as the Assize Court and the court room is a particularly fine space, with a beautiful apse at the west end. After the court moved out, the building became a museum and art gallery. The recent work has been added at the rear of the Shire Hall as part of a multi-million pound redevelopment - a 'cultural hub', God help us, called 'Y Gaer', the fort. The architects are PowellDobson. And to be fair to the architects at this point I have to say that the brief was a difficult one: the site is cramped and there was a lot to cram in - library, café, teaching space etc.

     And so to the new work. Our first view was from the car park on Canal Rd., and it was not good. Chaotic. Discordant. The Architecture of Disenchantment in which nothing has been really resolved or reconciled. And while one can have some sympathy for the idea of giving expression to the various functions of a building like this, the truth is that this symbolic language is used here in a purely arbitrary manner. Old and new stand together rather like an unhappily married couple, barely talking to one another. From our low vantage point the 'cultural hub' (ha,ha,ha) consists of three sections; (from the right) the side of the old Shire Hall, a glass and steel atrium, and a taller red-clad block, the most prominent feature of this side of the building (you can hardly call it a façade). It presents itself as one of those 'basking shark' facades rather like the open end of an enormous cardboard box that suggests it contains a single volume space, a significant space.  These things have been oh-so-fashionable recently. I suppose the original 'basking shark' was 'The Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts' by Norman Foster, completed in 1978.
     We approached the 'complex' from Captain's Walk - itself now contentious - and its lack of integration with the warp and weft of the urban fabric became clear. Closer to, the cladding reveals itself to be stone or an imitation thereof. I couldn't decide. The colour (which is strident) suggests the former, but I could be wrong. Perhaps the elements may have a tempering effect over time. Now these oblong slabs have a remorseful logic of their own which works well enough on the long west façade but on the short end facades this logic simply breaks down. The attempt at a resolution of the conflict between architecture and material was inept. It just wasn't thought out properly. The utter rigidity of the dimensions of the cladding slab dictate everything in these circumstances. The design should have been re-thought.  The entrance façade is just as ill-handled as the south façade. 

      The interior is no better. The atrium is incoherent and the clad block reveals itself as a merely inconsistently applied façade. Nothing more. It contains no significant space. All that signification, that symbolic representation of interior space expressed on that outward facing façade has been immediately subverted. It cannot even contain the library which spills out into the atrium. There is a total lack of integration between the old and the new, with the former, one feels, looked upon as an embarrassment. In all a terrible disappointment, and in many ways symbolic of our age.