Messy and tidy churches

click photo to enlarge
I recently went into a medieval church that proudly proclaimed itself to be a "Messy Church". And it was. One afternoon each week it held an informal meeting for families that included art and craft activities. It presumably subscribed to the "Messy Church" credo. I have no problem with that. However, this church was messy in the more widely understood meaning of that word - it was a tip! Surfaces and walls were littered with pieces of paper, furniture was spread about almost randomly, the underlying architectural order of the various parts of the building and its furnishings was undermined by signs, "displays", artwork and much else. It needed someone with an eye and a tidy mind to get a grip of the interior and show people how it was perfectly possible to have a "messy church" that was tidy, clean and looked cared for: one that showed the congregation and visitors the best of the church's past as well as present.

After the disappointment of that experience it was refreshing to step inside Sutterton church. The signs were good even before I entered the porch because I passed someone digging over one of the churchyard flower beds. Inside was an object lesson in how a church can meet the needs of today without obscuring the building's history. It was tidy, obviously well-cared for, had well arranged evidence of regular and wide-ranging activities, and for this visitor, a real pleasure to see. Of course, a dark November afternoon isn't the best for showing off a medieval church interior. But, such a day brings its own charms in the form of pools of light and areas of deep shadow. Both are shown in my photograph that is taken from the chancel looking towards the nave, font and west window. Incidentally, the leaning verticals are a result of time and the foundations, not my tilted camera.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (36mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:2500
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Cottages orné

click photo to enlarge

I suppose the opposite of a blot on the landscape is an ornament on the landscape: something that is designed to beautify a location. The well-to-do have sought such things down the centuries in various forms including tree planting, artificial lakes, eye-catcher follies and monuments, and country houses in what they consider to be the best of taste.

But what is a wealthy landowner or lord to do beyond these in order to elevate his surroundings above those of his neighbours? Well, he could build a complete village of decorative houses, or if that would stretch his purse too far, he could control the entry to his grounds by building a lodge or two in the style known as cottage orné. These buildings, ornamental, artful, rustic, often asymmetrical, arose in England out of the eighteenth century cult of the Picturesque and continued to be built well into the nineteenth century. Often they were gatekeeper's lodges, sometimes simply the cottages of farm or other labourers who worked on the estate. In some cases, however, they were built on a grander scale and were designed for "rustic" living by the wealthy. The early nineteenth century example in today's photograph was a lodge at the entry to the long gone home of the Beridge family, Algarkirk Park, in Lincolnshire. It is painted brick with a conical tile roof and a centrally placed chimney stack. A small wing extends out of the main circular structure. The windows are pointed, and nearby is the remains of the old limestone wall that formed part of the entrance to the country house grounds.

When I first saw this building, several years ago, I imagined it was either a cottage orné or a toll house for a turnpike road (these sometimes had fanciful designs too). I've photographed the building a few times but without much success. What appealed to me on this occasion was the wispy clouds overhead. I adjusted my position to let one of them introduce a note of asymmetry to my symmetrical composition.

N.B. Man masters machine "triumph of the day"
Having ignored diacritical marks (accents) in the blog thus far, today I was minded to put them in: hence the acute on the e of orné. I remember learning how to do this with the ALT key and numerical codes years ago, but I just never got round to putting it into practice here. The problem is, now that I've done it once, I'll have to do it always henceforth!

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

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

Apophenia and remembrance

click photo to enlarge

Tomorrow is the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 2011. Some people seem to be making a lot of that even though repetitious dates are reasonably common. Yes, the date is palindromic, but then quite a few years have visual, numerical and other oddities associated with them. The first such occurrence I recall was 1961. Why? Well, if you look at it upside down it still reads the same. I know this because I remember that anomaly being made much of on the cover of a "Dandy" comic (or was it "Beano") in - you've guessed it - 1961.

The press have been making quite a bit of the coming date. I've seen it described as the "corduroy" date (vertical lines!). Yuri Geller - remember him and his spoon bending - has been quoted as saying "11.11 is the pre-encoded trigger and the key to the mysteries of the universe and beyond." Who'd have thought it! The numerical coincidence of the date is, for reasons that completely escape me, felt to be reason enough for choosing it as an auspicious date on which to get married. Apparently the small Scottish town of Gretna Green near the border with England will host over fifty weddings on that day. This compares with fewer than a dozen on any other Friday in November. Seeing meaningful patterns in random numbers or data is known as apophenia, and 11.11.11 certainly seems to have brought the apopheniacs out in force.

For much of the rest of the population the date is merely an interesting coincidence that in no way overshadows the fact that it is Armistice Day - the day that commemorates the end of the first world war. And it's with that in mind that I post today's photograph. It shows part of the memorial in Sutterton church, Lincolnshire, that records the men of the parish who died in what came to be called The Great War. This simple plaque, lovingly cared for down the years, caught my eye because overlaying the list of names were the colours of the nearby British Legion flag that was reflected on its surface.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 88mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 3200
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Clouds over Sutterton

click photo to enlarge
If you were to invent a "Forces of Nature Scale", somewhat analagous to the Beaufort Scale of wind speed, where 0 equals Calm and 12 equals Hurricane, with ever rising numbers and speed between, what would you place at 12? A volcano? An earthquake? A tsunami? It would probably be one of those, though if we extended the scale beyond 12 (as the Beaufort Scale has been in China and elsewhere to take account of tropical cyclones), then a meteor impact on earth would probably equate to the highest number.

In between would be blizzard, flood, lightning and various other manifestations of the power of nature. Somewhere near the bottom of the list would be clouds. These can, of course, bring precipitation, but often they just blank out the sun, or fill the sky with wonderful, fleeting shapes like an invasion of benign, diaphanous alien craft. A few days ago, as we walked in the vicinity of the Lincolnshire villages of Algarkirk and Sutterton, the bright, sunny afternoon gave way to the onset of evening rather quicker than might have been expected with the appearance of a bank of grey cloud. It rolled in across the flat Fenland landscape with a malevolent look in its eye. But it proved to be a sheep in wolf's clothing, and produced no rain to mar our enjoyment of a walk in the autumn countryside.

photograph & text (c ) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 58mm (116mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/250
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On