A Georgian farmhouse

click photo to enlarge
I have long been of the opinion that, as far as relatively modest housing goes, eighteenth century architects managed to do more with less than architects of any other period. That's not to say that architects of the Victorian, modern, seventeenth century or any other period couldn't produce good design within cost limitations - they could - but perhaps not as consistently. Georgian buildings often achieve their appeal through the careful management of proportion. This was a feature that became increasingly lost as the nineteenth century progressed. The Victorians too often applied ornament to achieve their effects, and it needed the Arts and Crafts architects, such as Voysey, to show how things such as the relationship of wall to windows and the massing of a building could be used to make appealing structures.

Today's photograph shows a brick building that is essentially of 1772, with earlier parts, and some Victorian additions. It seems to have started life as a Fenland farmhouse - Moneybridge Farm - but is today a residence known as Brownlow House, named after the Georgian family whose cypher can be seen on the stone plaques over the front and back doors. I could have chosen a better example to illustrate my point, but this one has the symmetry typical of the period, with a doorway given prominence by its central position and a wooden case and triangular pediment. The windows have stone surrounds, and brick lintels with an emphasised keystone. Obvious C19 additions are the Westmorland slate roof and the gable chimney stacks: these would have replaced pantiles and similar brick stacks with less detailing. What makes this building particularly interesting is that it forms part of a larger group with brick and pantile outbuildings that date from the same time as the house. Of special note is the tall dovecote with a wooden, white painted turret with two tiers of flight holes.

Brownlow House sits next to a road that follows the River Glen. I took my photograph from a parallel road on the other side of the river, and used the large conifer to balance the composition. The broken clouds that periodically admitted brief shafts of sunlight looked better converted to black and white than they did in colour, so that is how I present the image.

Another eighteenth century Fenland farmhouse can be seen here.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 6.3mm (30mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f4
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Surfleet Seas End

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It's not too difficult to find a place in Britain where time seems to have stood still. When I walk the barren uplands of the Pennines, the Lake District, or the North York Moors I often think that I'm looking at a scene that people saw in pretty much the same way 100, 500 or 1,000 years ago (the scream of RAF Typhoons, Tornados and Harriers permitting).

In towns and cities there are areas, corners, streets and views that have been sensitively preserved where people can project themselves backwards to the time of the Tudors, the Georgian era, Victorian times or the early C20. In and around our great medieval cathedrals "time travel" of a greater order is possible. The Lincolnshire town of Stamford is popular with film-makers because it's relatively easy to film actors in front of eighteenth century buildings without making very many changes to the structure's appearance - perhaps the removal of the odd telephone wire or electrical doorbell is all that is required. Of course, the nearer one comes to the present time, the easier it is step back. If you want to see a street that looks like it did in the 1930s or 1950s, you can find them with relative ease, though you might have to overlook the uPVC windows and doors, and the front gardens turned into car parking spaces.

On England's east coast it is still possible to come across little groups of modest, single-storey, wooden houses built in the inter-war and immediate post-WW2 years. Here one gets the feeling of being transported back to those austere days where pleasures were simpler and a holiday by the seaside involved ice-cream, catching fish, sailing a toy yacht, and fish and chips in a cliff-top cafe, rather than jetting off to some sun-drenched beach in the Mediterranean or even further afield. A few of these structures are permanently inhabited, but most are used for weekends and holidays. The area around Flamborough Head in Yorkshire has a good collection. These were much more numerous than now, but a lot have succumbed to the weather, to rot, neglect, and the desire for more exotic breaks. Others, however, have been restored with the aim of making them look like they did when first built. Many have been "updated", with brick replacing wood walls, and uPVC taking over elsewhere.

Today's photograph shows this type of recreational dwelling at an inland location. Surfleet Seas End in Lincolnshire, despite its name, is a few miles from coast, at the point where the River Glen (shown in the images) meets the River Welland before the latter empties into the North Sea via The Wash. A sluice prevents the ingress of tidal water, and keeps the river here at a stable level. This community of wooden structures, mainly used at weekends and holidays, has grown up to take advantage of the pleasant waterside location. My two images show it at different times of year. The first was taken yesterday as the sky cleared in the late afternoon after rain, a type of weather that I particularly like for photography. The second was taken on a hot summer morning for the colour, the reflection and the symmetry.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Image 1
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

Image 2
Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On