Manor houses, castles and churches

click photo to enlarge
It's not widely appreciated that the number of different building types was relatively few before the advent of the Industrial Revolution. Houses of various sizes, churches of various kinds, castles, windmills, watermills, inns, almshouses, guildhalls, schools, universities and colleges, barns: once you've run through that list there's not much else to add to the buildings of the period before 1700. The factories, railway stations, offices, power stations, bus depots, garages, law courts, police stations, and the multiplicity of other specialised buildings we see around us are largely a product of the last three hundred years, and particularly the last one hundred and fifty.

I was reflecting on this the other day when I visited South Kyme. At the edge of the village is a trio of buildings that one sees in close proximity in many settlements across Britain - the castle, the church and the manor house. In those three buildings was vested much of the local power and influence of pre-industrial society. The lord of the manor not only owned land and organised agriculture and civil society, he also dispensed justice through the manorial court. The castle was a power base that kept order in the locality, defended the interests of the rich nobleman who lived there, and represented and supported the power of the monarch. The church (in South Kyme, originally a priory) also had legal powers and large land holdings, and its clergy were not only educated perople but a powerful presence in the community.

I have described what is known about Kyme Tower here. On my recent visit it was The Manor that drew my attention. It is a house that dates from the early 1700s and is built on the double range plan. The front range has a symmetrical ashlar facade with a plain tile roof. A nineteenth century porch conceals the original door. The back range, interestingly, is built of brick rather than stone, has a pantile roof, and what appears to be a twentieth century bay at ground and first floor level. Is this the only manor house to be built on this site? I don't know, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that it replaced an earlier building.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 17mm (34mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/640
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Walking by the River Slea

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A twelfth century document notes that a record dating from 852AD refers to the Lincolnshire town of Sleaford as Sliowaforda. This is the earliest known reference to the settlement. Over the centuries the spelling of the town's name varied considerably - Eslaford (1086) and Sleforde (c.1170) are two examples - but generally bore some correlation to either that first name, or the name we use today. The first element of Sleaford's name comes from Sliowa, an Old English river name that means "muddy waters", or "water with slimy vegetation." So, the full name of the town means the ford over the river called the Sliowa (Slea). Evidently the town was at a good crossing point, a common reason for the siting of a settlement.

Today's photograph shows the River Slea flowing through the countryside a few miles east of Sleaford, near the village of South Kyme. Nothing about the river on the day of our walk suggested that it was well-named! The water was clear and the patches of vegetation on the river bed were visible, aligning themselves with the flow, though I didn't ascertain whether or not they were slimy! As I headed back to the car Kyme Tower, St Mary & All Saints church, and a tractor harrowing a river-side field came into view. The serpentine leading line of the river, these three points of interest across the scene, and the increasing cloud mass suggested a landscape shot, and here it is. Take out the tractor and the telegraph poles and it is a fairly timeless scene of the sort that features in English landscape painting by the likes of John Constable.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 67mm (134mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

South Kyme Tower

click photo to enlarge

As you drive across the flat, Fenland landscape near South Kyme, Lincolnshire, and see the white stone of Kyme Tower in the distance it looks much higher than its seventy seven feet. But then, as you get nearer to the building, it seems to shrink, and looks smaller and somewhat forlorn, standing alone among the grass and trees.

The tower was built between 1338 and 1381 by Sir Gilbert de Umfraville, and was part of a more extensive structure, most of which was apparently removed in the eighteenth century. It was never quite a castle, more a moated, fortified house. There is a suggestion that one or more other towers might have formed part of the building, but the truth is that no one really knows. What remains has four storeys, prominent string courses, battlements, and a projecting, slightly taller, square stair-turret. Pointed windows with single mullions and simple tracery heads are placed regularly around the tower. The ground floor is vaulted but no floors or ceilings survive above this level. However, records show that the second storey had a patterned floor and was called the Chequer Chamber. Lincolnshire is not particularly rich in medieval fortifications, having relatively few standing castles, and amongst them Kyme Tower is a bit of an oddity because fortified houses are more typically found in Northern England, particularly the Border counties, where the threat of the marauding Scots was very real. What was the particular menace that caused such a structure to be built on the Fens I wonder?

An eighteenth century farmhouse looks across at the tower, and a few hundred yards away, out of the village in the fields, is the remaining fragment of a priory of Augustinian canons. This was founded before 1169. As with many monastic buildings it was pulled down during the Dissolution (1536-1541). The west end of the south aisle, part of the nave and the south porch were allowed to remain and serve as the parish church. Major restoration work in 1888 gave the building a neater form and it continues in use today as the church of St Mary and All Saints.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On