A London street in Lincolnshire

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Tucked away in an area of woodland in Kew Gardens there is a timber-framed brick cottage with a thatched roof. It was originally single storey but later had an upper floor added. It was built between 1754 and 1771 for Queen Charlotte, a cottage orné to serve as a destination for her rural walks, a place to rest and take tea; to experience what she imagined to be the bucolic lifestyle of a yeoman farmer without getting her hands dirty. The desire to build in old styles was a notable feature of the Georgian period. Alongside the styles that they invented they also built using features of Greek and Roman architecture, invented a style of Gothic architecture sufficiently different, yet like the original that it came to be called "Gothick".

The Victorians continued this trend emulating the Italianate villas of the Mediterranean in their suburban detached and semi-detached housing, and at the most extreme borrowing details from Egyptian, Saracenic and Indian architecture. They too plundered Gothic with abandon. However, like the Georgians they built much that owed little or nothing to past styles. And, unlike the Georgians they built it virtually anywhere, too often heedless of vernacular and local traditions. The twentieth century followed suit with, for example, watered down European "Moderne" influencing suburban houses of the 1930s, Georgian columns and bulls-eye windows favoured in the 1970s and Victorian tile-hanging, plinths, roof cresting and fake half-timbering being popular in the 1990s. The same style of house appeared on estates and streets the length and breadth of the country.

I was reflecting on this the other day when I was looking at Barkham Street in Wainfleet All Saints, Lincolnshire. The centre of this small country town is filled with modest brick buildings of the Georgian and Victorian periods, usually two storey, often with the door opening on to the pavement. Consequently to turn a corner and see a London street plonked down amongst the unassuming Lincolnshire housing is something of a surprise. And it is a London Street too. A plaque on the buildings notes: "Barkham Street. Built in 1847 for Bethlem Hospital according to the design of Sydney Smirke, their architect, and named after their benefactor. A number of similar terraces stood in Southwark near Bethlem hospital." Smirke is best known as the architect of the circular Reading Room of the British Museum. Both sides of his street have the same rather grand elevations with the main living storey slightly elevated by a basement and emphasised by steps to the front door and stone framed windows. The relative importance of the two floors above is signified by differing window treatments. The houses make a fine sight, though a very unusual one for this locality.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Sony RX100
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 14.1mm (38mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/50 sec
ISO:125
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bonby church 27 years later

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Anyone with an interest in English church architecture will be familiar with the main gazetteers and guides that document these buildings. All will know of the county volumes of the "Buildings of England" series by Nikolaus Pevsner (and others). Many will be familiar with John Betjeman's original or updated "Guide to English Parish Churches". And most will have an acquaintance with Simon Jenkins' "England's Thousand Best Churches". I have all these books and I list them here in order of preference, best first.

They all have their own take on listing and describing churches. Pevsner is completist and academic, Betjeman is brief, quirky and selective and Jenkins is more opinionated, historical, florid and his book has a more contentious title. Whose thousand best? Not mine, though he has many I would include. So how do I differ from Jenkins? Well, I have a liking for churches that have been knocked about a bit, that show their age, the ravages of time and the mark of successive builders. I can appreciate as much as the next man the big, richly ornamented, Grade 1 Listed, beautifully kept show-piece church. But, I can also appreciate the tumble-down, humble structure that needs a bit of maintenance, that can be found, with difficulty, surrounded by trees, at the end of a country lane: the sort of building that seems to grow out of the ground rather than look like it's been dropped in, scrubbed and polished, from on high.

Today's photograph shows a church that I liked the first time I saw it some time in the 1970s. It's a building that wouldn't even get on the long-list for Jenkins' best. St Andrew in the village of Bonby, Lincolnshire, is a mixture of work from the 1100s, 1200s and 1800s. The original stone has been replaced and reinforced by brick, and much of it shows its age. It must have always been a work in progress as people enlarged the church, made it smaller, renewed bits that fell down, patched walls, moved windows and blocked up doorways. After taking today's main photograph I searched out a shot of the church taken from a similar viewpoint that I remembered scanning from a slide last year. The original was taken in 1986 using an Olympus OM1n and a 135mm lens. I wanted to see if there had been any changes during the intervening 27 years. One jumped out at me immediately. The bottom two thirds of the east wall that was looking rough in 1986 is now rendered and painted white. But apart from that it was much the same low, squat, rustic building. Even the same dark red paint continues to be used on the drainpipes, gutters and door. I did notice one further difference: the churchyard grass is being kept a bit shorter!

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 35mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/250 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Nelson Street, King's Lynn

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Nelson Street, King's Lynn, shown in today's photograph, was formerly called Lath Street, a name recalled in Lath Mansions, a building that was a merchant's house and which is now divided into flats. Re-naming of the road took place after a British fleet under Horatio Nelson won a famous victory over a combined fleet of the French and Spanish navies at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Nelson was a Norfolk man who was born at Burnham Thorpe only twenty five miles north east of King's Lynn. For anyone interested in architectural history the story of the street's name, fascinating though it is, definitely comes second to the sequence of buildings that line each side.

Nelson Street is only 166 yards (150 metres) long yet it has a total of 26 buildings (either as individual structures or in groups) and a length of garden wall that have been Listed as being of architectural or historic importance. These span the years from the medieval period right up to the nineteenth century and include relatively humble dwellings as well as the fine Georgian town houses of wealthy merchants. Quite a few are buildings that have been modified as succeeding centuries tried to bring them up to date. The architectural historian, Nikolaus Pevsner describes the sequence of Nelson Street, St Margaret's Place and Queen Street as "one of the most satisfying Georgian promenades in England." He's right (though I'd add King Street to his sequence), and so, rather than describe the architectural riches at great length I invite you, courtesy of Google Street View, to take that "promenade" yourself. Don't forget to look left and right as well as up and down as you make your way through the narrow streets.

Google Street View - Nelson Street, St Margaret's Place, Queen Street, King Street.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 65mm
 F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.67 EV
Image Stabilisation: On