Gibbs surrounds

click photo to enlarge
It is said that examples of rusticated walls - where the joints between stone blocks are cut back and emphasised - can be found in Roman architecture. If that is the case then they aren't too common. However, in Renaissance architecture rustication of this sort, rustication applied to columns, window surrounds, quoins etc are commonplace. The word "rustication" derives from the same root as "rustic" and means rough and rural, or unsophisticated. In Italian and European Renaissance architecture in general, as well as the nineteenth and twentieth century revivals of the style, it is frequently seen applied to the ground floor of a building with the first floor (piano nobile) and above invariably faced with smoother ashlar.

Renaissance architects delighted in applying new variations of rustication to buildings. English Georgian architects used it prolifically too. Today's photograph shows a doorway and some windows of 67 High Street St Martin's in Stamford, Lincolnshire, one of a pair of very similar houses dating from around 1740. Here the rustication is in block form and applied to the architraves on either side of the door and windows and to the key-stoned lintels. In England this treatment is often termed a "Gibbs surround" after the architect, James Gibbs (1682-1754), who popularised the style here.

We arrived in Stamford a little earlier in the day than is usually the case, and the lower sun combined with a clear, blue sky showed the crisp shadows created by the rustication off to great effect. As I framed my shot I reflected that  decorative elements raised above the mass of the smooth stonework of the wall, that were designed to work well with sharp Mediterranean light, worked equally well in the light of a cold, clear English spring.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm (48mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Plastic wrapping and facelifts

click photo to enlarge
What could be behind this slightly dramatic looking plastic wrapping? Is it a modern office block under construction, all gleaming glass and shiny steel, a testament to opulence, affluence and the worship of money? Perhaps what is underneath is of little consequence, and it's the shrink-wrap itself that is important because it's an artwork by those artful charlatans, Christo and Jean-Claude. But no, as you've probably guessed, it's a building under renovation. But which building? Here is an official description in the dry but precise prose of English Heritage's National Monuments Record.

"BOSTON TF3243SE HIGH STREET 716-1/14/63 (East side) 27/05/49 Nos.118A, 120 AND 122 GV II* Includes: 118A, 120 AND 112 HIGH STREET OXFORD STREET. Banker's house, now flats. c1770, added to late C18, early C19, altered late C19 and C20. Red brick in Flemish bond, slate roofs, ashlar dressings, red brick ridge and valley stacks. EXTERIOR: centre house of 3 storeys, with 5 bays, the 3 centre bays slightly advanced and pedimented. Plinth, 1st floor platt band, dentilled cornice, cartouche and rococo scrolls to pediment, balustraded parapet. Plain sashes with cambered heads and fluted keystones, arranged 2:1:2. Central 6-panel doors with radiating fanlight, panelled reveals, set in Ionic stone doorcase, pedimented with scrolled keystone and egg-and-dart surround. To left a late C18 canted bay of 2 storeys, with dentilled cornice at original height has been raised later to match the other side. Plain sash to both faces, fluted keystones, centre one with acanthus leaf scroll. 1st floor windows have been heightened, front one is blocked. To right an early C19 canted bay of 2 storeys with a single plain sash to each canted face matching the left one. 3 similar windows above. The return to Oxford Street has a 2-panel C19 door with plain overlight and pilastered doorcase with dentilled flat hood on scrolled acanthus brackets. Rear is faced in ashlar, painted, with sill bands, dentilled cornice to plain parapet, plain sashes and later inserted modern fenestration. INTERIOR: although much altered retains some full height panelling and panelled doors. HISTORY: the house was the C18 and C19 home of the Claypon family of Garfitts and Claypon Bank of Boston."

Yes, it's a large eighteenth century town house on the old High Street at Boston, Lincolnshire; one that had fallen on hard times that is currently in the process of being restored. Its status as a Grade II* listed building means it is an important structure for architectural, historical and locational reasons. When the work is completed I'll see if I can get a photograph of its new, post-facelift visage.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm (80mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.8
Shutter Speed: 1/1250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

High Street, Cromer

click photo to enlarge
I've spoken elsewhere in this blog about High Street as the name of a road. In that post I talked about how it is one of the commonest street names in Britain, how it means "main street", and that a road so titled is usually one of the oldest in a settlement.

A number of consequences flow from these facts. Firstly, being old it is often quite narrow. Even though the properties that line the street may not be the first to be erected in those positions, subsequent dwellings usually followed the same building line. So, unless later generations widened the street to take account of larger, wheeled traffic, and greater numbers using the road, today a High Street is often too narrow to fulfill its function as the main street of a settlement. Many such roads have have been superceded by wider routes where the newer shops and grander dwellings will be found.

Most old, narrow High Streets also suffer the disadvantage of having a sinuous line, which further handicaps them in a world of cars and delivery lorries. Moreover, many of the old buildings that flank such a street don't lend themselves to conversion to the sort of retail properties that are now required. And even if they could be converted conservation regulations (quite rightly) prevent adaptations that fundamentally alter the character of the ancient structures. If you add to these factors the likelihood that the streets adjoining many High Streets are also old and narrow, and suffer the same commercial disadvantages, then you can see that if these streets are not to die new uses have to be found for them. Many towns have done this very successfully. When I lived in Kingston upon Hull the old High Street that comprised commercial properties, Georgian and earlier houses, and warehouses by the river, was turned into a quarter that featured museums, flats, restaurants, cafes, etc.

Today's photograph shows the old High Street at Cromer, a road that fits my description above very well. On the morning I took my photograph it was free of the bustle that characterised the nearby shopping thoroughfares. The filtered sun was coming into the narrow street through recesses, and reflecting off painted buildings giving a very nice quality to the lighting: an almost theatrical, "stage set" effect. A solitary figure seemed to be debating whether to give the King's Head pub a try, and in the background the medieval church of St Peter & St Paul looked down on the scene. The curving line of the road leading to the tower seemed a workable composition so I took this shot.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Facades, fanlights and foliage

click photo to enlarge
The house shown in this photograph, a detached building on the High Street of the village of Billingborough, Lincolnshire, has puzzled me for a while. It has a symmetrical facade with a centrally placed, panelled front door flanked by a fluted doorcase, traceried fanlight with a semi-circular head above, single glazing-bar sash windows (with extra margin lights) either side, and three similar windows at the first floor level. A parapet hides the double ridge roof. There are gable-end chimney stacks, and the front of the house is finished in light-coloured stock brick, whilst the remainder is red brick. Two things have baffled me about the building: its date, and whether or not the fanlight is original.

Everything about the unembellished front of the house says early 1800s - the plainness of door and windows combined with symmetry, the spare-looking parapet, the colour of the facing brick, the absence of surface ornament. It looks to belong to the period when Georgian proper was giving way to the Regency-style: that is to say, about 1815. My researches show that it is indeed early nineteenth century. But what about the fanlight? My guess was that the almost Art Nouveau curves were late nineteenth century - that it replaced an earlier, more fan-like fanlight. But I appear to have been wrong. I find that designs in both cast-iron and wood, incorporating tear drops, curves and circles of the type seen here, were not uncommon in the early 1800s. And, on subsequent trips, I have come across more examples exactly like this one, and others that are similar, in houses of the same date.

So, that explains my interest in this facade as architecture. However, I probably wouldn't have photographed it for blog-posting purposes had it not been for the sensitive symmetrical planting of Pyracantha, Senecio greyii and potted dwarf conifers around the door. Combined with the restrained architecture they produce a very appealing combination of colours and textures. Even the more recent use of tiles for the steps adds to the charm of this attractive composition.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/25
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Looking up

click photo to enlarge

I've observed elsewhere in this blog that walking along looking up gives you a good picture of how a town or city centre looked in the past. The mania for modernising shop fronts usually means that the original architecture of a building remains only at the level of the first floor and above, the ground floor reflecting one of the fleeting fashions of the past twenty years or so applied with little respect for the rest of the facade.

Looking up can reveal exquisite terracotta ornament, brackets, consoles, cartouches, dated rain-water heads, Moderne windows, columns, capitals and more. It also lets you see the original compositional intention of the architect and the frequent emphasis on good proportion that underpins much eighteenth and some nineteenth century building.

That being the case, you may wonder why I've chosen this boring building with which to make my case, a nineteenth century structure on the High Street at Boston, Lincolnshire. The ground floor is a shop, and probably always was. However, I can't for one moment imagine that the flat fascia, spindly glazing bars, large sheets of glass, and clumsy white rendering were part of the original frontage. This insubstantial composition that looks ready to collapse at any moment under the weight of the bricks above, would have had heavier components, and would have been composed in a way that linked more strongly with the first and second floor windows. Those windows still use the eighteenth century (and Renaissance) idea of large fenestration at the piano nobile level, with smaller windows "closing" the facade above. And that is where the interest lies when looking up at this point on this street: you see a good compositional idea based on the importance of proportion, that was widespread a century earlier, still being used, albeit in a debased way, providing continuity between the building styles of two distinct periods.

I photographed this particular building not only for the reasons noted above, but because it is nicely separated from its neighbours, and for the small, ragged cloud drifting by, an interesting insubstantial counterpoint to the dead weight of brick on brick below.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Corn Office

click photo to enlarge

The High Street of Boston, Lincolnshire, was once a major town thoroughfare, thronged with riverside businesses, and a desirable residential area. Today it is cut off from the town centre by a dual-carriageway bypass. Consequently it's a bit down-at-heel, the focus of some half-hearted "regeneration". However, for the photographer it's a visual cornucopia, with potential images at every turn.

The buildings along the street record every century from the 1400s to the present day. There are Victorian buildings both dour and lively, eighteenth century survivors displaying faded elegance, and other buildings, like the Artisan-Mannerist, late seventeenth century/early eighteenth century terrace at 124-136 (known locally as "The Barracks") are just plain quirky. However, one of the most striking buildings is a former warehouse dating from the early 1800s. One side faces the street, and the other is on the river. It is a tall structure, only three bays wide by two bays, brick built with rendered infill, stone quoins, and a stone ground floor. It has been sensitively converted into flats, but formerly it was the Public Warehouse, with a winch for loading and unloading from ships moored on the River Witham. During restoration some of the Victorian script on the building was uncovered, and this has been preserved for all to see.

My photograph uses part of that script set amongst the the dressed stonework and rendering of the ground floor. I liked the contrast of materials and, particularly, the way the limited range of colours fitted together. The words "CORN OFFICE" gave it an extra dimension. I aimed for an asymmetrical but balanced composition.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/40
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3EV
Image Stabilisation: Off