The tide of green paint

click photo to enlarge
Over the past twenty years a tide of green paint has lapped over our villages and towns, initially affecting the more well-to-do areas, then extending into less prosperous regions. It started out as almost exclusively sage green, then branched out into other shades of muted green, sometimes with a hint of blue, often leaning more towards grey. If you search out this range of colours you'll find them offered by suppliers of "heritage" paints. However, such is their popularity, some mainstream paint companies now stock them. Is this simply fashion or are there deeper influences at work? The change in the colours of doors, windows, fences and other exterior woodwork from white and strong colours to these more earthy hues is not something that has been widely noted or much commented upon, so here are some of my thoughts on the subject.

The increasing search for authenticity in heritage projects and building restoration during the last quarter of the twentieth century prompted interest and research into the use of paint from the seventeenth century through to the present day. By scrutiny of primary records - job specifications, contractors' estimates and bills, buyers' and visitors' diaries etc, as well as microscopic analysis of the layers of of paint on old surfaces - a revised view of the composition and colours of paint used in the past was formulated. A range of muted greens were found to be popular during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. So too were colours in the off-white, brown, mauve/peach, orange, blue, grey and stone ranges. None of these, especially when used outdoors, were strident colours, though stronger colours were used indoors. For reasons difficult to determine, the range of greens became much more popular than the other muted colours. That's not to say the others weren't used, they were, especially for external render, but also for woodwork. But, the greens were much more widely used. Perhaps their popularity grew as a result of the increase in membership of organisations who first used these colours - bodies such as the National Trust and English Heritage. People visiting houses that were restored using the new thinking about paint may well have been influenced to adopt the new colours too, especially if they lived in a period property.

Today the greens described above are used fairly indiscriminately on buildings old and new. I recently passed some very new flats (styled in a modern way) in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, that had windows and doors painted sage green and walls that were clad in hardwood. As I've travelled around the country I've also detected that this kind of green paint seems to be used as a badge of belonging by people of a certain class and outlook. This struck me most forcibly when I was recently in Tewkesbury, a town that more than most has succumbed to this fashion.

Today's photograph shows two such doors in Ely, Cambridgeshire. That the tide of green paint continues unabated is clear when you compare the colour of the rightmost house on Google Street View with that of today. As I took my photograph, drawn to the scene by the overlay of tree shadows on the yellow brick walls, I wondered what colour the painter was going to use when he had finished preparing the wood.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Built to last?

click photo to enlarge

Everything associated with a railway seems made to last - the buildings, the track, the rolling stock - everything. Yesterday I was looking at a steam engine that was built in the 1880s. Some of the metal-work was dented, some was worn, and some seemed as fresh as the day it was made. Parts of the structure will have been replaced during a renovation, but a couple of the steps up to the coal tender were clearly the originals, and though they showed signs of wear, they probably had a couple more centuries of use in them!

What a contrast with, say, the modern motor car. Use one carefully, spend a fortune on maintenance, repairs and replacement parts, and it might, at a push, give you a mere twenty years of regular use. I suppose the argument can be made that newer, safer, and more efficient technology will come along in that time, so building a car to last longer is counter productive and wasteful. And there are those who will say that the steam engine I admired was "over-built" because its parts didn't need to be made to last so long. Maybe, but isn't one of the world's problems that we keep using up resources to make things, then we throw them away! Perhaps there's a lesson to be learned from our Victorian forbears, namely that we can make things to last and we should. I've often waxed lyrical about the idea of an open-source, modular car, with the essential components built to a standard, interchangeable, and as easy to put together and upgrade as a PC. I'm sure there's a market for such a vehicle.

I don't know how old this railway carriage is. When I came across it the wheels had been removed and it was waiting to be renovated. Its steel frame, and the covering of wood and glass, looked in pretty good condition considering it's probably seventy or eighty (or more) years old. Many of these carriages ended up, years ago, as cheap summer houses and garden sheds. It looks as though this one might return to its original life on the rails, carrying passengers, albeit on a heritage line.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 42mm (84mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/100
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On