Harrington church and S.S. Teulon

click photo to enlarge

My interest in church architecture leads me to read a lot about the architects of the Victorian period: the major names of the nineteenth century such as Scott, Pearson, Street, Butterfield etc, but also the second rank of practitioners and the lesser lights too. The other day, following a visit to the church of St Mary at Harrington, Lincolnshire, I was delving into my books to find out more about Samuel Sanders Teulon (1812-1873). I'd always known of him because he was one of Harry Goodhart-Rendel's "rogues" i.e.one of the architects who departed drastically from the mainstream Gothic of the time, and injected their own whim, fancy and personal vision into their country houses and churches. I recall too seeing his estate cottages at Sunk Island, East Yorkshire, and his individualistic churches dotted about in Lincolnshire at places such as New Bolingbroke, Riseholme and Burringham. However, when I read about the extent of his practice and the number of commissions he worked on, I felt as I often do when reviewing the work of these men - exhausted.

It's hard to imagine how the successful Victorian architects juggled their commissions. Yes, they had assistants and trainees, but the sheer weight and range of commissions that came to someone like Teulon is staggering. And that doesn't take into account the amount of church restorations, rebuildings and extensions that many undertook. Harrington church was a rebuild by Teulon of a medieval structure, but such an extensive rebuild that little of the old work remains. So, given his reputation for dazzling polychrome brickwork, weird gables, tall towers, complex silhouettes, a style that some admired and others called "illiterate", what characterises Teulon's work here. The word that comes to my mind is "boring." It is a greenstone church with little to distinguish it from others. Inside the building its painted plasterwork, pulpit, windows and roof are all too typical of a Victorian church. The building disappoints because it displays neither novelty or a respect for the original building. The fact that I'd visited Harrington twice before and could remember nothing of it says it all.

But, from a photographic standpoint, the light on the day of my most recent visit was strong and Teulon's painted walls reflected it around the interior giving it quite a nice glowing quality. So I composed this asymmetrical shot looking down the nave, past the "wine glass" pulpit to the "Geometrical" east window.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 500
Exposure Compensation: -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Writers and locations

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When I was growing up in the Yorkshire Dales I was always aware of the relative proximity of "Bronte Country", the hills around Haworth where the Bronte sisters and their family lived, worked and wrote. I also noted that in more recent times the northern Dales assumed the title, "Herriot Country" on the back of the popularity of James Herriot's books and their TV adaptations, though I confess to never having read or seen any of his work. This mania for giving areas names based on the works of writers or painters is of relatively long standing, though it does seem to have increased in the past thirty years or so.

Thomas Hardy's books are largely set in Wessex, an old name that describes an area that includes including Dorset, Berkshire, Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire. He gives fictional names to actual towns - Puddletown becomesWeatherbury, Bridport is changed to Port Bredy, Bournemouth to Sandbourne etc - and this has, for tourist authorities and readers, created an area that is now recognised as "Hardy's Wessex". This kind of association is sometimes disputed when more than one artist is connected with a location. Thus, the Lake District in the minds of some is linked with Beatrix Potter, but others see it as closely intertwined with the "Lakes Poets" - Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey and others.

What has this to do with my photograph of oilseed rape and ash trees? Well, it was taken over the past couple of days when I spent some time walking, cycling and driving in a small part of England that has acquired the title of "Tennyson Country". The rolling hills of the south Lincolnshire Wolds in the vicinity of Somersby, Bag Enderby and Harrington is the area where Alfred (later Lord) Tennyson was born, grew up, and where he wrote much of the early poetry that led to him becoming the most admired poet of Victorian England.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On