Flats by the Regent's Canal, London

click photo to enlarge
Britain once styled itself a "nation of house owners". This was by way of contrast with other European countries where flat (apartment) dwelling was much more common. It was always something of an overstatement, because major UK cities, in particular, always had a lot of flats, and so too did some large towns. However, there was some truth to it. But, no longer. The increasing cost of housing, the rapidly growing population, the tendency for people to live in smaller family units (or singly), and the pressure on spare land on our relatively small island have produced a real change in the past thirty or forty years. Flats have sprung up everywhere.

Even small towns have flats now, and large cities have ever increasing numbers, either newly built or converted from commercial, business or industrial premises. Nowhere is this more noticeable than in London. Today's photograph shows some of the balconies on a block of flats built on land by the Regent's Canal in Islington, London. They are unexceptional as flats go. What prompted my photograph was the way that each balcony, in some small way, appeared to tell something of the owner. I was interested in what the owners had chosen to put there out of either desire or necessity - table and chairs, bicycle, pot plants, barbecue, washing, nothing.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo Title: Flats by the Regent's Canal, Islington, London
Camera: Olympus E-M10
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 52mm (104mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f5.5
Shutter Speed: 1/125 sec
ISO:400
Exposure Compensation: -0.3 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

King's Lynn passage

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What to call a narrow way to a house behind other houses? In Yorkshire such a route might be called a "ginnel" though that is a little more like an "alley" than the entrance depicted in today's photograph. Passage seems a suitable adjective.

There are a number of such places in King's Lynn. Many are on the original streets of houses that grew up  along the waterside. They became necessary because when the river was embanked more land was made available behind each house. Extensions to existing houses and warehouses were built on the newly reclaimed land, and extra houses grew out of, or next to these. And all needed access from the main street.

The passage shown above was visible from the street; I simply pointed my camera down it to capture this picture of the collection of objects that the householder had gathered outside the dwelling's door. The bicycle with basket and "sit up and beg" handlebars made the shot and formed a nice silhouette against the sunlit yard beyond the passage.

© Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 38mm (57mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/100 sec
ISO:100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Social climbing and The Old Custom House

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When Margaret "there is no such thing as society" Thatcher was prime minister the Conservative Party came up with a wheeze to increase the number of people who voted for them. The idea was to sell off local authority housing at a very generous discount to the tenants who currently rented them. The theory was that once such people became property owners they would transfer their political allegiance from Labour to the Conservatives and, if they didn't currently vote, they would begin doing so, favouring the Conservatives out of gratitude and because they now saw themselves as one of "our people". Forgetting the political ramifications for now, the policy had  a number of unintended consequences, one of which was to change the visual appearance of local authority housing.

Britain's local councils were given permission to build housing for rent in the early part of the twentieth century because the low cost housing erected by the private sector was so indaequate in almost every respect. Councils often hired socially aware architects and built some of the better properties in this sector of the market. They were, for their time, well designed and relatively spacious. The building density was reasonable and the layout was well considered. A downside that some people saw was that individual developments tended to be quite uniform in appearance. Others thought this often gave areas a better appearance than if deliberate differences had been incorporated. However, when from the 1980s onwards, they were sold to tenants one of the first steps some new home owners took was to replace the front door with something different that signified their possession of the property. It seemed that intuitively people knew of the importance of the front door in making a statement about a building, and a proclamation of the change of ownership was needed. Over the years windows were replaced, porches and extensions - all different - were added, as were fences, hedges and much else. The result was that the modest but agreeable style of the individual house was usually lost, and so too was the visually satisfying homogeneity of the area. In an attempt to elevate the building, quite often the reverse resulted produced by a jarring heterogeneity.

I was thinking about this after I'd photographed The Old Custom House in Aldeburgh recently. This building from the early nineteenth century is essentially the same as many of the other small, gault brick and pantiled residential houses that line the town's older roads. However, in order to make it imposing and more distinctive, to stress its status as an office of the government's Customs, and to impress upon the seamen visitors that they are dealing with an institution and people of importance, the main door and offices were located on the first floor and reached by a really quite ridiculous, overblown, flight of stone faced stairs. One wonders if, on seeing it for the first time, a ship's skipper smiled at the pretentiousness of it, as I did. Today it is a residential building, probably quite an interesting dwelling to inhabit, and one that poses a few questions to an observer of its exterior. For example: when was the ground floor door to the right of the steps inserted, at what level is the ground floor ceiling/first floor floor, and what happens behind that main door? Is it a narrow corridor, are there further steps? I can't imagine.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 32mm
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/640 sec
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation:  -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Snow and colour

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It will come as no surprise to most people to hear that my usual way of feeding this blog is to build up a sequence of posts several days ahead, and then spend a few days when I don't prepare anything. Photographs, with me, tend to come in bursts. Quite often, in a single day, I'll gather three or four shots that I think are good enough to post. On other occasions it's just one shot that makes the cut from a day's photography, and sometimes it's none. When I've got a group of images I can write three posts in an evening, a couple the next night, line them up for posting, and leave the computer to do the rest.

The recent fall of snow in Lincolnshire has provided me with several images that I'll be posting in the near future. However, snow does present one drawback when it comes to a sequence of photographs - all the shots tend to be a touch "samey", fairly monochrome, dominated by black, white and blue. So, strong colours to go with these three must be actively sought. "What about holly berries and robins?" I hear someone cry from the wings. Well, I've done the robin, but not yet the berries. However, on an afternoon walk through snow-covered fields and lanes I was pleased to come upon a subject that I've posted two images of previously (here and here), that does feature strong colours. These modern houses on the edge of the small village of Bicker were positively glowing against the wintry backdrop, and invited another shot. A step or two into the edge of a field gave me some grassy foregound interest, and the bright houses against a dark, lowering sky completed the image.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 9.3mm (44mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/1000
ISO: 80
Exposure Compensation: 0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Housing, tradition and innovation

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The current economic recession has put a damper on the UK housing market, and not before time. Prices were grossly inflated, and people had begun to see houses firstly as investments and only secondly as somewhere to live. But it's not that aspect of housing that concerns me here. Rather, it's the nature of the homes to which many aspire.

It seems to me that the British are infatuated with old houses. Original thatched cottages, stone-built eighteenth century terraces, half-timbered dwellings, Victorian villas, converted barns - all are seen as so desirable that in recent years new versions of these traditional forms have been erected across the country to meet the demand. Sad, but true! And where more obviously modern houses have been erected, too often these have been tricked out with tile-hanging, roof cresting, faux timber, artisan-mannerist brickwork, or other decorative additions to give a hint of the past to the structure. Modern mass-market housing that lacks these embellishments and that unashamedly proclaims its date as the early twenty-first century is regrettably difficult to find, and generally only exists in cities and at the top of the price scale in architect-designed individual buildings.

However, now and again, an enterprising developer tries something different. These houses at Bicker, Lincolnshire, were designed in the UK and manufactured in Sweden. They are a system-built, modular, low-energy design. As far as the UK goes they are quite innovative in terms of their wooden frame and the energy requirements (though these elements are becoming more common). However, they are very innovative in terms of colour, especially in a rural location! Most UK housing is brick coloured. White or cream render is found, and the occasional maverick individual uses a brighter colour. Sometimes very old buildings display a range of tints. It's not common, however, to find a group of new buildings displaying colours such as these. Some don't like it, but I'd like to see more bright, bold new designs being erected - buildings for today that are of today!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 150mm (300mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -1.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Roofs, walls and windows

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A couple of weeks ago I spent a few days cycling around Rutland, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire. I was looking at church architecture, travelling from village to village on quiet country roads. That corner of England has many stone-built churches and houses, and the wonderful architectural legacy that they represent is the product of local builders and architects, and of the quarrymen of Barnack, Collyweston and Ancaster.

The churches date from the 1100s to the present day, but most of the houses go back no further than 1600. Cycling through a village one notices how the style of these buildings changes over the centuries, moving from "mud and stud", to rubble walls, cut stone, and locally made brick. There is a fair sprinkling of thatched roofs, many of split stone tiles, orange clay pantiles, and from the nineteenth century onwards, Welsh slate. Humble homes have low-ceilinged rooms, rough stone and mortar walls, small windows, and dormers poking up through the roof. Grander buildings use cut stone (ashlar), have columned and pedimented doorways, tall windows, string courses and carved classical ornament. The history of the development of the settlements can be read through their architecture. However, one development that was slightly depressing was the number of "cod-old" (sorry "traditional") buildings that were being erected. These were traditional only in the sense that they borrowed the details of the original houses and stuck them on a twenty first century frame. One large house I saw under construction was made of concrete blocks, steel girders and timber, but a veneer of thin stone slabs, stone mullioned and transomed windows, and a cornice was being carefully applied to the outside by a "builder of traditional homes". No doubt the columned doorway was stored somewhere, ready to complete the transformation. I'd much rather have seen modern, imaginative buildings of today, that respect their context being built, structures that add to the story of the village rather than plunder and mock it as these sham-old properties do.

Today's photograph shows part of a street in Stamford, Lincolnshire. I liked the way that the buildings clearly show the styles and incremental additions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as well as the variety of materials and the pleasant jumble of the roofs, walls and windows.

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 51mm macro (102mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/400
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On

Courtyard living

click photo to enlarge

Courtyard living got a bad name in the nineteenth century. Cheap housing was thrown up around narrow, badly lit courtyards. Their purpose was strictly utilitarian - to let in light and air, with little thought given to proper planning. These were torn down in the slum clearances of the twentieth century, often to be replaced by equally poor public housing in the form of open-plan estates or tower blocks. But courtyards hadn't always been so reviled.

In the eighteenth century individual dwellings were often grouped in this way. In the big cities and provincial towns the higher densities that this type of building allows was put to good use, with proper space between front doors, and attractive shared spaces where neighbours could meet and children could play, detached from the busy bustle of the nearby street. Furthermore, courtyard developments were built for all classes of buyer, not just the poor, so there was no stigma attached to the arrangement.

Spain Court in Boston, Lincolnshire (above), dates from the late eighteenth century. It was never high cost housing, but the two-storey terraces facing each other across the cobbles offer a modest, relatively quiet, private space, with no immediate passers-by, near the heart of the town. The development has been sensitively refurbished, with proper regard for the uniformity of the dwellings, and "chinoiserie" fretwork, a motif favoured in the eighteenth century, in the arch at the end of the vista. Is there a place for this kind of development today? Or is the desire to own your own bricks and mortar inextricably linked to owning the space around it too?

The choice with a photograph of a place like Spain Court is to either stand to one side and emphasise one elevation more than the other, or go for symmetry. And, in the interests of injecting a little more "unpopular" symmetry into photography, I did the latter!

photograph & text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 16mm (32mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f7.1
Shutter Speed: 1/320
ISO: 400
Exposure Compensation: -2.0 EV
Image Stabilisation: Off