Farmhouse and church

click photo to enlarge

The most common type of building to find next to an English church is, not surprisingly, the vicarage. A place of residence for the parish priest usually came with the job in the eighteenth, nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries. In fact it often still does. Another building that frequently sits next to the church is a manor house or other property owned by a principal local landowner. The "living" of a church, that is to say the right to appoint the vicar, for many centuries often resided with such a person, and the twin powers of the church and mammon's local representative were often neighbours. These buildings can still be seen around churches and are present at this one at Aslackby. However, in a rural county such as Lincolnshire a third type of building may be seen alongside the vicarage and the manor house - a farmhouse.

I've photographed such a pairing before at Billingborough. At Aslackby the farmhouse is newer than that example, late eighteenth century, extended in the mid-nineteenth. The improvement of farming techniques and the consolidation of holdings into larger units in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries made some farmers relatively wealthy and this is often reflected in new, rebuilt or extended farmhouses. Here the building is L-shaped with gable stacks and has a fashionable mansard roof, a type popular in this part of the county, particularly in nearby Folkingham.The main elevation mimics, on a smaller scale, the country houses of the wealthy landowners. It is strictly symmetrical, of orange brick, with stone quoins, keystones, platband and gable copings. The semi-circular headed lattice-work porch may be original or could be a later addition. That disfiguring drainpipe surely must have been placed there more recently. The metal Xs at the top of the gable wall are the ends of tie-rods designed to control wall bowing or some other potentially troublesome movement that became evident at some point after construction.

I took my photograph on the same day as the previous two blog post images, a day whose photographic potential was curtailed by the clouds and rain that can be seen moving in on the left of this picture. Here I liked how the impending gloom splits the shot into two very distinct parts, one dark and troubled looking, the other bright and quite cheery.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 37mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: N/A

Aslackby church

click photo to enlarge

In a piece about Ropsley church that I posted in 2009 I reflected on the thoughts that go through my mind when I visit a church for the first time. The other day, before the rains descended in what seemed like a permanent way, I photographed the exterior of Aslackby* church. And, though it wasn't my first visit to this building - I've been several times - the first thought that entered my mind was the same as on my first sight of it: what is that arch outline on the tower?

My first thought is that the church tower was originally a crossing tower rather than the west tower that it is now; that the present nave was once the chancel and that the arch was the drip moulding marking the place where a transept had been. I've seen such things before. Or, was there an intention to build in that way, but a change of mind resulted in the current, more traditional layout, and the drip moulding was left on the tower face, a reminder of what was to be, but never materialised. Reading Pevsner on the subject I found that he too ponders along similar lines. Whatever the reason, it adds a little mystery to this small, fairly unexceptional church that dates mainly from the fourteenth century with a few bits from earlier and rather more from later.

I've photographed Aslackby church before, but the light and sky on this January afternoon were very good, so I composed a shot from across the road, near the ford that was filling with the afternoon's plentiful rain. I'd never noticed the old-style, black and white road sign before - perhaps it has been recently been painted - so I used it in my composition as a visual counterweight to the church tower.

* for the local pronunciation of the village name Aslackby, which departs significantly from what it looks like it should be, see this post

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/160
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On