Organ pipes and case

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In September 2009 I took a photograph of an organist at the console of the instrument in the church of St Wulfram in Grantham, Lincolnshire. She sat in the warm glow of a light before no less than four keyboards, dozens of stops, a mirror and her music. Above her head, in wood, hinting at the splendours even higher, is Gothic-style fretwork, two gilded shields and a line of text in Latin - Laudate eum in chordis et organo - "Praise him with strings and pipes", a quotation from Psalm 150 in the Bible.

On my recent visit I concentrated my attention above the console, on the pipes and the magnificent case that Sir Walter Tapper RA designed for the instrument in 1902. This woodwork, combined with the re-gilding of 1972 makes a most impressive sight. The lighting and the painted wood ceiling give this area of the church a rich and opulent feel. We had a cup of tea and some cake in the church's cafe, but unfortunately on this occasion there was no organ recital taking place, something that we have enjoyed on a previous visit.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14mm (28mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/8 sec
ISO:1600
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Death and slate

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I was reading a piece recently wherein a writer was arguing that all mankind's actions are motivated, in some way or other, by the knowledge that we will all die. That this characteristic, one that distinguishes us from all other living beings, lies behind all that we do. Every action, no matter how important or trivial seeks to divert us from the thought of death, convince ourselves that we can transcend death, or prompts us to leave a record of ourselves that will last beyond the act of dying. I paraphrase rather crudely, but that was the gist of it.

That article came to mind when I was checking up on the progress of the repair of the spire at St Wulfram, Grantham. The usual entrance through the west door is not available due to scaffolding and a temporary path leads round to a door on the south side. This takes you through an area of the graveyard that surrounds the church where slate memorials predominate. Green Swithland slate, purple-tinged slate, grey slate and slate with a hint of blue can all be seen. Oolitic limestone is also present, but it is slate that catches the eye. The gravestones made of this material date from around 1760 through to the second half of the nineteenth century. And, the fact that they are made of slate means that they can still be easily read, the incisions almost as sharp as the day they were cut two hundred and fifty years ago. I've said elsewhere in this blog, and I'll repeat it again: if you want a tangible memorial to tell the world of your existence then it's hard to do better than a piece of inscribed slate placed somewhere that will not be disturbed.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 116mm (232mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:200
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Repairing Grantham church's spire

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On a recent visit to Grantham we went to see the parish church of St Wulfram where renovation work is being undertaken on its marvellous spire that sits on top of its beautiful tower. It is 282 feet from the ground to the tip of the octagonal stone needle, not the tallest such structure in the land, but by common consent, one of the best.When the finest parish church spires are being considered the Lincolnshire trio of Louth, Grantham and Brant Broughton are rarely absent, along with Nottinghamshire's Newark.

This spire dates from the medieval period. However, like most spires, it has undergone repairs on a number of occasions since it was first built. The inescapable fact is that every church spire is open to the full force of the weather. Wind, cold, heat and rain all take their toll of the stonework. In the case of St Wulfram's major rebuilding and restoration occurred in 1664, 1797, 1883 and 1945-7. It is now happening again. I read that the use of cast iron in the repairs of 1797 is one of the reasons that work needs doing now. Iron rusts and where it isn't separated from the stone by molten lead it can easily damage the stonework. £600,000 is being spent to take off the top 40 feet of the tower and repair it. That isn't going to be a quick job.

On our visit I looked up at the steel scaffolding on the west face of the tower and encasing the spire, at the nylon ropes, clamps, wooden planks and steel cables, aluminium ladders and reflected for a few moments. I'd recently read Ken Follett's "World Without End", a story about the fictitious town of Kingsbridge during the period of the Black Death. One of the main characters is engaged in building a tower and spire on a priory church, and the description of his labours on this task came back to me. As I looked at the scaffolding above I imagined all the metal replaced by wood, the nylon by hemp and further reflected that the means of working on such a structure today isn't too far removed from the methods of six or seven hundred years ago.

Incidentally, if you enlarge and look at the smaller photograph you'll see, on the left, the Beehive pub. In the tree nearby you'll also see the working beehive that makes this pub much visited by pub enthusiasts and unique among British public houses.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 140mm (210mm - 35mm equiv.) - cropped
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Hatchments

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"His means of death, his obscure funeral -
No trophy, sword nor hatchment o'er his bones"
said by Laertes in "Hamlet" (Act 4, Scene 5) by William Shakespeare

For the layman the sight of hatchments hanging inside a church, on the wall of the nave or on inner east face of the west tower, is something of a puzzle. They are heraldic, like the commonly seen royal coats of arms, and like them are painted on a square board that is placed point upwards. But whose coats of arms do they show and why are they found in churches?

"Hatchment" is an Anglicization of the French, "achievement", and therein lies the clue to what they are. Medieval noblemen had their armour, weapons and heraldic colours displayed in church on their tomb during their funeral. In later centuries this was formalised in the custom of the family coat of arms being painted on a square board that was hung, lozenge-wise over the main entrance to the family home during the period of mourning. After the funeral the board, now called a hatchment, was often moved to the church and displayed there on a longer-term basis. Some of these have survived and adorn our churches still.

By the eighteenth century many conventions had grown up around hatchments. For example, if the wife lived on after the passing of her husband then the sinister side of the background (left from the point of view of someone holding it like a shield but right as we view it) would be painted white (see top example above), with the reverse (dexter side) indicating that the husband was the survivor. The status of women as unmarried or married was marked by the former's arms being decorated by gold cord and the latter with a golden, winged, cherub head. The last of a family line was indicated by a skull and cross bones painted under the coat of arms. It's regrettable that names and dates were never put on hatchments (though they are on royal coats of arms) and that considerable detective work has been necessary to work out who it is that they commemorate.

The parish church of St Wulfram in Grantham, Lincolnshire has six fine hatchments and two royal coats of arms (one dated 1586, the other some time before 1701). In recent years these have been grouped for display purposes and they make a fine sight spot-lit against the stone of the ancient walls.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12.3mm (33mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5
Shutter Speed: 1/40 sec
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Chandeliers, electroliers and names

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On a couple of occasions I've reflected on the way that words pass out of daily use and acquire the status of "archaic" in the dictionary. Today's photograph prompted me to wander down that path again.

I took the shot near the west door of the church of St Wulfram at Grantham, Lincolnshire. The faceted glass or perspex is the top of the new internal porch which, on the dull day of our visit had its light turned on. Above is the Victorian glass of the west window. Appearing to float in the darkness nearby, like a spaceship in Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey", is a ... well, what shall I call it? Like many such examples of branched church lighting this one dates from the early 1800s and started life as a chandelier - a hanging ornamental light fitting that held candles. It would have been lit and replenished by someone standing on steps or by the whole light being lowered using a chain or rope. Both these methods of servicing this kind of light were inconvenient. Consequently it is no surprise that when electricity became widely available churches frequently converted their chandeliers from candles to light bulbs. The flick of a wall switch was much easier than struggling to light 18 or so candles with a flickering taper. But with this change-over came the problem of nomenclature.

The first "chandeliers" that were purposely made for electric light bulbs were named, quite sensibly, "electroliers" (the first instance of use cited in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is 1882). It was a good marketing tactic and it better described the new take on an old idea. Moreover, the gas versions that preceded them were called "gaseliers". But immediately a problem arose: what do you call an old chandelier that is converted from candles to electric light bulbs? Do you stick with the name that indicates what it was originally or do you use the newfangled "electrolier" to show how progressive you are and to more accurately describe the updated light? There was no great debate on this matter, usage alone determined the course of what happened. The newly made electric chandeliers, for a few decades, often (though not always) were described as electroliers. Conversions generally (though not always) stuck with chandelier. Then, over time, the use of the word electrolier declined and chandelier re-asserted itself to describe the electric versions, which had become the dominant type, as well as those versions continuing to use candles. Today the word "electrolier" is mainly restricted to describing the early "electric chandeliers" that would have had that name applied when they were first made. The OED doesn't yet describe "electrolier" as archaic, but it can only be a matter of time.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 50mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/20
ISO: 1250
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Louth steeple

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"That Louth parish church is one of the most majestic of English parish churches need hardly be said. It is what it is thanks to its steeple, which has good claims to be considered the most perfect of Perp (Perpendicular period) steeples." Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983) German-born British historian of art and architecture

The spired steeples of Lincolnshire's medieval churches individually and collectively surpass those of the churches of any other English county. From the austere beauty of the early broach spires of Sleaford and Frampton, to the fifteenth century magnificence of Grantham and Louth, with a host of others between, they are without parallel. Only a very few, such as Newark in Nottinghamshire, come close to matching the splendours on display in Lincolnshire.

When one considers this subject from the perspective of architectural history, and one looks at proportion, innovation in design and decoration, and the relationship between the rest of the church and the spired steeple then, despite Pevsner's praise of Louth, I think it's quite a close call between that church and Grantham. However, a spired steeple is more than a piece of architecture. It is also a major vertical accent in a town, and the way in which it contributes to views and vistas from near and far needs to be considered too. An example of a spired steeple that makes much less impact on its surroundings than might be imagined is that of Norwich Cathedral. When one considers Louth and Grantham, both in towns with hills, both without any real competition as far as tall buildings go, then it is Louth that clearly makes the greater impact.

Today's photographs were taken on the same, very changeable day. The darker shot is a view from Bridge Street, the sunlit one shows the church seen from Westgate, a fine street of distinguished, mainly Georgian, buildings. Both try to show something of the way this tower and spire are often framed by the surrounding buildings. This is something that happens very little at Grantham. Nor does Grantham's fine church advertise its presence from miles away over rolling hills as does that at Louth. Perhaps that's the next photograph of this building that I'll try to take.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Photo 1
Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 48mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Photographing in dark churches

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This is the third of my shots taken on a recent visit to the church of St Wulfram, Grantham, in Lincolnshire. The interior of this particular building is a challenge to the photographer who wants to capture images without the use of a tripod because of the large number of windows that are filled with stained glass. They have the effect of making the inside quite dark.

In the past in these circumstances I've been happy enough to use a tripod to achieve the images I require. But, since the advent of image stabilisation technology, I've found it liberating and less tiring to dispense with a tripod and to hand-hold my shots. However, the particular camera I use, though it is small and portable, and therefore gets more use than I would give to the bigger, heavier models of other manufacturers, doesn't have the best high ISO performance, and I'm reluctant to shoot above 800. Consequently the darker churches and the dim corners of those that are more brightly lit are still off-limits to hand-held shots. You might wonder why I don't use flash. Well, in churches with lots of visitors, or those that have a service in progress, flash is very intrusive. And in empty churches it too often seems to detract from the atmosphere of the place: those attractive dark corners, when filled with light, lose the air of mystery that the builders sought.

Fortunately, on the early September morning of this shot, sun was streaming through the south-facing fourteenth century windows of the Lady Chapel, and not even the dense Victorian glass (and certainly not the lighter twentieth century examples) could dim it to a level that prevented me shooting. Furthermore, when I saw my wife looking up at a piece of architecture, and providing not only a foreground subject, but a silhouette with slight haloes, I knew an image was required. Perhaps it's a family album snapshot as much as anything, but I think the light and shade, and the glow from the glass give it a little more than that.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -1.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Church organs

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"Laudate eum in chordis et organo"
(Praise him with strings and pipes),
from The Bible (Psalm 150)

The sound of a church pipe organ is probably my second favourite organ sound (after the Hammond B3). However, whilst it's something I see a lot of during my visits to churches I remain fairly ignorant of the instrument. What I do know is that, as far as English church music goes, it is a relative newcomer. The unaccompanied plainsong of earlier times was superseded, in parish churches and elsewhere, by a consort, ensemble or small orchestra of instrumentalists. These players on their fiddle, crumhorn, flute, hurdy gurdy, shawm and other early instruments, accompanied the hymns of the medieval church and continued through into the nineteenth century, when their playing - on more recognisable oboes, trumpets, flutes, violins and so on - often took place from a gallery at the west end of the nave. A number of churches kept, and now display, the instruments of these earlier accompanists.

From the seventeenth century onwards organs started to make an appearance in churches, often cased in wood beautifully carved by the likes of Grinling Gibbons. The first instruments were hand-powered with bellows pumped by a boy hidden away behind the keyboard. In the twentieth century an electric pump replaced this method of raising wind, though the original hand levers often remain. The Victorians installed many beautiful (and often very large) church organs, bequeathing not only a magnificent instrument on the parish and future ages, but also the attendant large bills for maintenance, repair and restoration. These costs became too much for the declining church memberships of the second half of the twentieth century, and quite a few parishes substituted a cheaper electric or electronic instrument.

St Wulfram's church at Grantham, Lincolnshire, received its first organ in 1640, but it was destroyed in the Civil War in 1643. In 1736 a three manual organ manufactured by Byfield was installed. It was extensively rebuilt in the 1860s but was described as "quite worn out" by 1904 - a testament, perhaps, to the religious and musical enthusiasm of the intervening years! In 1906 it was rebuilt and enlarged with a beautiful case designed by Sir Walter Tapper RA. Further overhauls and rebuilds occurred in 1972 and 1993/4. Interestingly some of the original pipes of 1736 continue in use today.

I took my photograph of the keyboard of the organ during a visit to the church. It was being played by someone who was practising their craft, and its thunderous sound was the perfect accompaniment for our architectural exploration.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 800
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Converging verticals

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One of the problems in photographing tall buildings is converging verticals. If you want to include most or all of a tall structure you have to point the camera upwards causing the verticals to converge on a "vanishing point". In the days of film, and still today, photographers used "tilt-shift" lenses that can be adjusted to correct this effect. However, they are prohibitively expensive for most of us, and are largely confined to professional architectural photographers. But, the advent of digital imaging allows anyone to correct verticals in software with varying degrees of success.

Today's photograph shows my attempt to secure an image of the west elevation of the the 282 feet high medieval Gothic church of St Wulfram at Grantham in Lincolnshire. A gateway into the churchyard, nearby buildings and trees prevent the photographer moving back far enough to photograph the building without tilting the camera upwards. So, I took a shot from as far back as I could, knowing that I wanted to "process" it back to vertical. Back home at the computer it was easy enough to correct the verticals, but that resulted in a very vertically compressed image in need of elongating with bicubic interpolation. The width of the church is 79 feet, so to get the proportions right I had to stretch the building until it was 3.6 times as tall as it was wide. But, because I'd tilted the camera the relative sizes of parts of the structure, particularly the spire, were wrong in the original shot, and stayed wrong in the "corrected" version: even though it was "right" it looked wrong. Consequently I compromised with this version that understates the height of the church but looks more correct. In fact, in my photograph St Wulfram's is 2.6 times as tall as it is wide, and though it makes for a reasonable picture, it is a definite failure in architectural photographic terms.

This example of the problem of "converging verticals" is quite extreme: most photographs that need correction are able to be amended without the problems encountered here. Why was I doing it? Well, many consider this spire, the third tallest on a medieval parish church after Louth and St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, to be the finest example in Britain. Though it has much to admire I wouldn't go that far, preferring the broach spires of the fourteenth century to later examples such as this one. However, I thought that if I could see it without the distortion that you experiences during a visit as you look up, and as you see it in an uncorrected photograph, perhaps my appreciation of its architecture would change. So far it hasn't.

photograph & text (c) T.Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 11mm (22mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On