St Nicholas, Sapperton, Lincolnshire

click photo to enlarge
English churches are often a reflection of the settlement in which they stand. Large town churches were usually built with not only the offerings of a large congregation, but also the riches of a local guild. Small villages and hamlets frequently have small churches, the best that could be afforded by a limited community.

But often these generalities don't apply. The village of Skirlaugh in the East Riding of Yorkshire has a large and fine C15 church of a much higher quality than might be expected in such a place. It came about because one of its inhabitants, Walter Skirlaw, became Bishop of Durham, a position that enabled him to fund the building. The village of Hoar Cross in Staffordshire has a large, lavishly built Victorian church by Bodley that was built in commemoration of Hugo Ingram of Hoar Cross Hall by his wife.

What then of St Nicholas at Sapperton in Lincolnshire. Well, this small church had no fabulously rich benefactor, and its modest size reflects its modest parish consisting of farms, cottages and seventeenth century hall. It dates from the late twelfth century (the north arcade), and has further work of the C13 and C14. The exterior, which is very crisp and neat, has all the hallmarks of a Victorian restoration that was a bit too enthusiastic. However, St Nicholas does sit very nicely in the unpretentious churchyard, with its mixture of stone and slate gravestones. I photographed the church on an afternoon when the shadows were lengthening and the low sun was saturating the colours of everything it fell upon. Snowdrops were peeping through the drifts of decaying leaves that had been blowing around the churchyard all winter. I composed my shot using the path as a lead in to the slightly off-centre building, and balanced the shot with the prominent gravestones and trees to the right.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Battered but not broken

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The climate of the British Isles is classified as "temperate". The summers don't usually get too hot, the winters are never that cold, and rain is fairly regular. Snow doesn't fall as often as children would like, and frost is a winter regular but is usually not too harsh. One of the effects of weather with these characteristics is that ancient buildings slowly crumble unless serious efforts are made to conserve them. Freeze-thaw, rain (including the acid variety), wind and general damp take their toll on mortar joints, roof coverings, bricks, stone and foundations. Metal rusts easily, and wood rots.

It's salutary to compare the Roman remains of Britain with those of the drier, warmer Mediterranean countries. Hadrian's Wall that crosses Northern England is a visible structure of clearly cut stones, but details, sculpture, lettering etc are difficult to find, and the best examples are those that received the protection of being buried for centuries. There is no remaining, standing, Roman triumphal arch in Britain, yet beautifully detailed examples can be found in Southern France, Italy and elsewhere.

The same is true of medieval work. Italian buildings of the thirteenth century look fresher, and have more detail, than those of the same date in Britain.With all this in mind, many people are surprised to find that original wood and ironwork on the exterior of medieval buildings can still be found in this islands. Today's image, the south door of c.1250AD on the church of St Andrew, Sempringham, Lincolnshire, is a subject that I've photographed and written about before here. I had the opportunity to capture it again yesterday, and this time I included the handle of the door. The thumb lever has been worn extremely thin over the centuries, yet it still, like the door itself, performs its useful task perfectly. In fairness, at the end of the Victorian period a porch was built over the south door, so for just over a century the metal and wood has been protected from the elements. However, it is a tribute to the skill of the original crafstmen and to the reverence for this aged artefact that has existed down the ages, that in Britain's climate it is still there at all!

My recent visit to see the door gleaned one fact that is at variance with my original description of its construction: apparently the wood is "fir" (yew perhaps?) and not oak.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Three questions

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The quiz in Saturday's "Guardian" newspaper asked: "Which Gauguin painting poses three questions?" The answer, is of course, "Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?" Or, if you prefer the original: "D'où venons nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous?" This great work, painted in 1897 in French Polynesia, asks what are, probably, the three most important questions of life.

Some people have seen religion alone as the source of the answers to Gauguin's questions. Others have suggested that history, philosophy and science are the disciplines that can best deal with each one. And there are those who think that history and science together can give us the answers. Ironically, each individual's existing view of life will determine which, if any, of these approaches is deemed the best.

I think history can be a great help in answering the first question. However, history is not an unchanging collection of facts. It is interpretation of the past, and consequently it changes over time, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, according to new research, historiography, and the individual historian's views. What doesn't change is the actual artefacts of the past - the things that our ancestors made and which still remain. I like to visit churches because, besides being places of worship, they are tangible records of the past, offering a marvellous combination of social history, architecture, art, and crafts. And, whilst one can read about the past, it only truly comes alive when you look at, touch and experience it through that which remains. So, a church like St Mary at Weston, Lincolnshire (above), shows us not only the wonderfully ornate stiff-leaf capitals on the columns, a form popular in the early 1200s and categorised as "Early English" by Thomas Rickman (1776-1841) who classified medieval architectural styles, but also the chisel marks of the individuals who carved them eight hundred years ago. And, in so doing our answer to the question, "Where do we come from?" is broadened to include "a past where people toiled at seemingly pointless tasks because they knew the power of beauty, and believed it would help them to achieve eternal life."

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/13
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

To the ends of the earth

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Lincolnshire is the second largest English county (by area), encompassing that swathe of Eastern England between the Humber estuary and The Wash. The county has relatively little industry, no large cities, and only a short section of motorway. For many it is England's sparsely populated, sleepy backwater, and those who give it any thought at all think of it as flat and fecund. Both of these words have elements of truth: the Fens and the coastal areas are flat, but the Wolds and the hills of the Stone Belt are certainly not. And, whilst some of the most productive arable land in the country is to be found here, so too are marshes and pastures.

Consequently many are surprised to find that Lincolnshire produced more than its fair share of explorers who left the green fields and ancient churches of their home county to travel to the ends of the earth. Sir John Franklin (1786-1847), a Spilsby man, explored the Arctic and mapped two thirds of the northern coastline of North America. Matthew Flinders (1774-1814), who discovered and mapped much of Australia's coast was born in Donington. George Bass (1771-1803), who sailed with Flinders, mapped some of south Australia, and predicted the strait that separates that continent from Tasmania. Flinders named it the Bass Strait after his friend and companion who was christened in the church shown above.

This building of twelfth century foundation, is dedicated to St Denis, and is in the small, picturesque, "estate village" of Aswarby. George Bass was born on a nearby farm, and became a naval surgeon before undertaking his explorations. The church has a memorial and information about Bass, and an Australian flag hangs near the west end of the nave in memory of the village's famous son. I took this shot, one of several I have of this particularly lovely church and setting, on a late March morning when the light said spring, but the wind said winter's not quite gone!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off

Symmetry

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Photographers don't like symmetry. Nor do painters, graphic artists or sculptors. But architects and designers do, and always have done!

Symmetry in building is a manifestation of the Classical mindset. Greek and Roman architecture is highly symmetrical, and so are the Renaissance styles that took their inspiration from the antique. However, the rise of the Romantic movement pushed all this to one side. The love of the wild, the untamed, the natural, all led to an admiration for architecture and design that eschewed symmetry. Thus, in landscape gardening, out went formal French parterres, and in came "informal" English parkland with its serpentine paths and lakes, and asymmetrically placed "eyecatcher" follies. Out went Palladianism, and in came asymmetrical houses and villas like Nash's Cronkhill House and Philip Webb's Red House. Interestingly Gothic architecture loved both symmetry and asymmetry. Romantic painters favoured asymmetrical compositions, and Modernists continued this love affair. Photography seems to have adopted its position by reference to painting: balanced asymmetry is in, straightforward symmetry is out.

But I like a bit of symmetry now and again! Today's photograph is of Boston Baptist Church, built in 1837, a time when English church architects had dumped Georgian Classicism, and were casting around for a new style. This rather spare Gothic characterises the period before 1840. After that date the writings of A.W.N. Pugin and the Oxford Movement pushed churches towards a Gothic based on archaeolgical principles and the careful study of real medieval buildings. The design above is interesting, but owes nothing to Pugin, and verges more on the hysterical than the historical!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 20mm (40mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off