Derelict brewhouse

click photo to enlarge
Obsessive tidiness can be as much an eyesore as can casual mess. I was pondering this a few days ago when I came across some hedges that had been "cut" perfectly level and made narrower by a farmer who had spent some considerable time tidying the perimeter of his land. I say "cut" because in fact the poor hedge had been battered and smashed by a rotary cutter fixed to a tractor's power take-off, and consequently the end of each branch had been frayed to the point where it looked like a paintbrush. To make matters worse the roadside grass had been cut - perhaps using the same tool - so short that it was left looking like yellow, parched stubble, a bright and sorry contrast to the deep green of the flourishing verges nearby.

There is sometimes a pleasure to be had in untidiness, be it a wanton hedgerow, a stony river bed full of flood debris, or a derelict building that has been untouched for years. I was inside one of the latter recently, a former brewhouse at Calke Abbey, Derbyshire, which is a stately home in the care of the National Trust. What distinguishes this property from many owned by the Trust is that they received it when it was in a state of decay and dereliction and many of the rooms and buildings have not yet been restored. It is advertised, quite rightly, as an "un-stately home", and the contrast between the restored and the derelict is interesting to see. Today's photograph shows the vats, barrels, and implements of the brewhouse. I've wanted to produce a sepia toned photograph for a while and this subject seemed just right for that purpose.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 12mm (24mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f4.0
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:6400
Exposure Compensation: 0
Image Stabilisation: On

Moribund buildings

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During my many years working in education I was involved with a few building extensions. The process of design generally involved educational managers of one kind or another (including me) discussing the brief with the architect. Subsequently proposals would be presented for discussion and amendment, and after these had been batted back and forth a few times, the final form of the building would be agreed. In the fullness of time the extension would be built, but during construction further changes would be agreed or imposed, often for cost reasons. This was a fairly reasonable and rational way of extending an existing educational building. The aim was to provide something that would effectively and efficiently meet the current needs of the users, and, very importantly, be sufficiently flexible to accommodate future requirements.

However, much building in the past, and still sometimes today, didn't and doesn't involve consultations of this sort. Buildings as disparate as schools, town halls, railway stations, factories, houses, churches and art galleries were built based solely on the advice of an architect, the orders of the provider of the funds, or the whim of an influential individual. Such an approach sometimes resulted in a wonderful building that received the approbation of contemporaries and future generations because individual vision or genius was given free rein, and the sometimes stultifying hand of "design by committee" was avoided. But, more often I think, it resulted buildings that met the specific needs of a specific time, that didn't lend themselves to adaptation to meet future needs. Such buildings are commonplace, often neglected, frequently in terminal decline as they are passed from one temporary use to another.

This derelict farm building at Haceby, Lincolnshire, prompted these thoughts. What was its original purpose? It's small but not cheaply built, with stone walls and a good tile roof. It was obviously wanted and valued by whoever commissioned it, perhaps a hundred or more years ago. But today, despite being in a small wood next to a road, it is of no use, except as a slightly melancholic subject for this passing photographer. Saplings, ivy and moss are colonising it. The doors seem to be long gone. It is a dying building, but one that could perhaps be resuscitated. Whether it will or not depends on it finding a contemporary purpose that the builders probably never foresaw.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 30mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/25 sec
ISO: 160
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Derelict farms and regional food

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The Guardian tells me that in a public poll to mark the start of British Food Fortnight the county of Lincolnshire was "revealed" (see my earlier post about the use of this word) to be "the UK's favourite food spot." The article went on to quote Rachel Green, farmer and chef, as saying that "the heritage food of this county really is the pig." To that I say, well, yes, up to a point.

Whilst pigs have long been a food animal of this eastern county, and are prominent today, other foodstuffs have also played a significant part in its agriculture. The importance of sheep in the medieval agriculture of Lincolnshire remains written across its villages and towns in the form of the county's magnificent medieval churches. And, though it was their wool that provided the source of most of the income that funded these buildings, the economy then, as now, used every part of an animal and mutton was a food that figured large in Lincolnshire. Today cereals and vegetables are undoubtedly the main agricultural produce of the county, especially on the fertile Fenlands, and are what it is best known for.

Let's not forget that cattle too were once more widespread in Lincolnshire than they are today, being raised for beef, milk and by-products such as hide. The many roads called "droves" remind us of this, as do some of the derelict farms. I photographed the abandoned buildings above on one recent sunlit evening, and what caught my eye was the raised platform by the barn doors on the left of the picture. It was surely the place where churns full of milk from the farm's herd were placed for daily collection. Today, in the milk producing areas of the country a tanker carries out this task, but when I was a child in the Yorkshire Dales such platforms were commonplace and in regular use. There are few - if any - milk herds on the Fens today, but on the Wolds and in other parts of Lincolnshire they are still to be found.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 40mm
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/60
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Derelict windmills

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A tall, well-maintained tower windmill, its white sails slowly turning against a deep blue sky is one of the finest sights that England, especially Eastern England, can offer. Whether the main structure is unadorned brick or coated in black bitumen, whether the cap be ogee-form or something plainer, and regardless of the presence or otherwise of ancilliary buildings, to approach one of these half-building/half machines is always a joy. And it is, perhaps, knowing what a restored, working windmill can be that makes the sight of a derelict example such a sad, forlorn prospect.

Anyone who keeps up with this blog on a regular basis, particularly if they are not based in England, may be under the impression that our countryside is dotted with beautifully maintained, working windmills. The unfortunate fact is that derelict mills where only the tower remains, or the stump of a tower, or a tower and a couple of sail shafts, far outnumber the complete examples. Some of these "lost" windmills have been converted into desirable, up-market houses, usually by making use of adjoining buildings, or with the addition of a newly built extension. But most simply languish in neglected corners of farmyards or out in the fields, slowly succumbing to age and the weather. It's not surprising that this should be so, the time of the windmill is long past, and the number of people willing to expend their money and energy on restoration is limited.

Today's photograph shows the derelict tower windmill at Shepeau Stow, Lincolnshire. The "keystoned" segmental arches over the doorway and windows suggest that it dates from the late 1700s or early 1800s. The small red brick building must have been associated with the mill, though it appears to be of a later date. The bricks look like they were once bituminised. At the very top of the tower is a row of dogtooth brickwork, so all that is missing from above this level is the cap, sails and fantail. Apparently the collapsed floors still have, buried beneath them, the original millstones and machinery. The records show that it lost its sails in the early 1920s and was engine-powered for a number of years - the two, very odd looking, external wheels were probably installed at this time to receive drive belts. In1935 it was reported to be capless, and today it is the wreck that my photograph shows.

I suppose that I should have photographed this windmill under a heavy, cloudy sky, and converted my image to black and white: that might be seen as better suiting the subject. But, photography is as much about representing and recording the world as we see it, as it is about imposing our feelings on a subject, and on the day I passed by the February light was bright, the afternoon sky a fine, strong blue, and all the colours deeply saturated.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 28mm
F No: 7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On 

Rusty relics

click photo to enlarge

In a recent post I was pondering the attraction of decay, and the reasons why photographers are often drawn to scenes of dilapidation and dereliction. Look at any online galleries by enthusiast photographers and you will usually find examples of this genre. Moreover, if you look carefully you will also see photographs that constitute a subset of the category, namely the abandoned vehicle. Photographers in the United States seem drawn to shooting rusting cars and trucks abandoned in rural areas, vehicles thirty, forty, fifty years old and more, that are gradually succumbing to the weather and the weeds. Such images are certainly taken by people in the U.K., but I get the feeling that they are relatively far fewer, and I have sometimes wondered why this should be.

It's probably to do with land area and the density of population. In our small, crowded islands, space is at a premium, and waste ground where it does exist, tends to be put to a fresh use quite quickly. Many farmers (though by no means all) are obsessively tidy and dispose of old vehicles fairly promptly. Then there's the scrap metal price that attaches to such things. I've always thought that these are the reasons for fewer abandoned vehicles and hence fewer photographs: the luxury of unused open space of the sort that exists in the United States simply militates against it.

This open shed, stuffed with the gleanings of decades, shows what happens to a few old vehicles: they get put to one side, collected with other odds and ends that might be useful or that could be renovated in years to come. The two old tractors and the small car tucked away at the back appear to be about sixty or so years old. Those wheels on the right look like they might be from traction engines. And the old lawn mower appears to have been stored with the intention of being repaired, and then forgotten. Whatever the reason for the collection I thought it might make an interesting photograph to pore over.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/15
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

The attraction of decay

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The attractive qualities that are sometimes ascribed to ruins and scenes of dereliction and decay has its roots in the Romanticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This movement was a reaction against the dominant social and political values of the Age of Enlightenment, and the scientific rationalization of nature. It elevated strong emotion and the "sublime", proclaiming them worthy feelings capable of standing alongside reason.

Today painters and photographers generally eschew the ancient classical and Gothic ruins that feature in the works of Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner, preferring the post-industrial scenes of our urban areas. Derelict buildings, graffiti, abandoned factories and dilapidated warehouses in inner-city wastelands have taken the place of the roofless churches, collapsed columns and decaying statues in arcadia or on precipitous heights. But, in finding such things attractive and worthy of recording in paint or with a camera, is there more than the late stirrings of Romanticism at work. Perhaps our latterday scenes that evoke feelings of repulsion and sublimity work at a visceral level reminding us of the transient nature of our society, and the fact that all we now value and revere has the potential to fall apart and be cast aside. For some that is a terrifying thought that undermines the contract that materialism offers us. For others it is a visual admonition of a truth that our culture tries to make us forget. And maybe that is what determines whether or not you like such images.

Today's photograph is not an example of urban decay and dereliction, but rather is its rural counterpart. I don't know what the original purpose of these abandoned units was: perhaps they housed pigs or some other livestock. But today they sit empty and forlorn at Monksthorpe in Lincolnshire, their asbestos panels slowly succumbing to the ravages of the wind, weeds growing up around them, a glimpse of someone's failed or superseded enterprise. As I walked past them one evening, the sun low in the sky, its light illuminating the underside of a bank of low, dark clouds, the buildings' abandoned character appealed to me, and I took this photograph.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 8.8mm (41mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.2
Shutter Speed: 1/500
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.66 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Picturesque pile or wretched wreck?

click photo to enlarge
What word would you use to describe this derelict Fenland cottage? Bucolic? Enchanting? Decrepit? Quaint? Crumbling? Is it a picturesque pile or a wretched wreck? Structures such as this usually provoke very polarised views. There are those who see them as a dangerous eye-sore that, at any moment, may fall on a passer-by, their appearance regarded as a blot on the local landscape, and an affront to surrounding buildings. Others find the dilapidation picturesque, a reminder of times past, a counterpoint to neat lawns, mathematically precise brickwork and gleaming plastic window frames. The fact is, such a building will usually be one or other of those things to most people. But, there are a few who will see it as both those things, getting enjoyment from it whilst regretting its demise, and also recognising the need for it tbe restored or replaced.

Those who see something to admire in decay and dereliction are often infected, to a greater or lesser extent, by Romanticism as that term came to be used in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Frequently they will have an artistic bent, liking poetry, literature, painting, photography, etc. And many will have an appreciation of history and place. Of course, the photographic or painted image often adds its own veneer to a depiction of a ruin, and the selective, edited image frequently betters the reality. My wife suggested today's photograph is an example of that phenomenon, when she remarked as she looked over my shoulder at the image on my computer screen - "That looks more picturesque than it does in real life."

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 7.4mm (35mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f3.5
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Bass Maltings, Sleaford

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In 1892 a borehole was drilled on the edge of the Lincolnshire town of Sleaford. It was 180 feet deep, and proved that a good supply of water was available to allow the establishment of a brewery maltings. Sleaford was chosen because it was in the area where much of th English malting barley grew, the required labour was available, the railway was nearby, and it was cheaper to build a new site than transport the barley to the Bass company's existing facilities. In 1901 a site of over 13 acres was acquired and the architect, H.A. Couchman was appointed to design the most up-to-date of maltings. By 1907 the water tower, engine house and boiler house had been built in the centre of the site, as well as 8 large malthouses on a frontage 1,000 feet long, and sundry railway sidings, blocks of offices and staff facilities. The scale of the undertaking must have been impressive at the time, and is impressive still.

Malting was carried out at Sleaford until 1959 when new processes made the site redundant. Over the subsequent decades some small workshops and businesses made use of parts of the site, but maintenance of the buildings was not carried out as required. In 1973 the complex's architectural and social importance was recognised through Listed Building status (Grade 2*). However, three fires and the ravages of weather and time took their toll on the maltings, and this marvellous piece of our industrial heritage looked as though it might be demolished. Fortunately, a developer now has plans to incorporate sympathetic renovation with the conversion of the site to 204 residential dwellings, healthcare and community facilities, retail, restaurant and office space, with associated open space and car parking. Let's hope that the economic downturn doesn't get in the way of this bold vision.

My photograph shows six of the eight malthouses (two are off to the left). Also visible are the chimney of the main power plant, the water tower, and, in the foreground with pairs of joined pitched roofs, offices. An indication of the size of the maltings can be gained from the windows and from the new, modern houses just visible on the left. I was blessed with a good sky for my photograph which compensated for the light falling on the scene from almost behind me.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 22mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/640 seconds
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Chimneys and the picturesque

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This derelict Lincolnshire cottage has four chimney stacks, some of them leaning quite alarmingly. Four! That probably equates to an open fire in every room. It looks like a nineteenth century structure, so for much of its life coal and wood would have burned merrily in its fireplaces, offering the inhabitants visual cheer and limited warmth.

The earliest houses had a hole in the ceiling for smoke to exit, but as building skills developed a chimney to confine the smoke and make it leave the building in a controlled way became firstly desirable, then mandatory. Houses made of wood frequently had a chimney made of bricks or stone for safety reasons, and these can still be seen on such houses built during the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Fireplace and chimney breasts were often a focus for decoration - arches, pilasters, brackets and mythical figures are common, as are mantelpieces for the display of family artefacts. The chimney stack above the roofline was also often embellished too: a clay pot on a stepped brick cornice for the humble dwelling; spirals, castellation, and more for the well-to-do residence.

Today, ever fewer buildings have chimneys. Indeed the day is coming when new buildings will not require, or be permitted, a source of heat that requires combustion. Consequently chimneys will probably, in time, disappear and with them the focal point of the fireplace and the finial-like finish to the top of houses. Am I alone in thinking that the photograph above would be much less interesting, less picturesque, without the chimneys? Perhaps it's an age thing - maybe younger folk don't see things that way? However, I certainly wouldn't have photographed this scene had there been no chimneys on this building, regardless of the allure of the sun breaking through the cold, foggy, autumn morning.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 13mm (26mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On