Museum names and obfuscation

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You'd think that one of the primary aims in giving a building a name would be to supply part of a unique address, to identify it to people passing and searching for it, and to indicate its purpose. The latter is not always required but in certain instances it is. There's little point in giving a town hall any other name other than the words town hall preceded by the placename: to do anything else would cause confusion and waste people's time. Similarly with art galleries. Yet in their naming the sound principle just described in relation to town halls is often ignored. What would you expect to see at the Wallace Collection in London? A collection of what? It happens to be fine and decorative arts, but you wouldn't know that from its name.

A public building in Lincoln has a similarly confusing name. It styles itself simply, "The Collection". Perhaps those naming it were influenced by the London example I just mentioned. Yet in Lincoln The Collection is a museum. There seems to be something of an acknowledgement that people won't necessarily guess what the building is about because some of its printed literature describes it as The Collection Museum. But, of course, a museum is a collection, so this awkward construction has built in redundancy: it is somewhat tautological. It seems to me that it is a confusion that should have been seen and then avoided. What is wrong with the name, Lincoln Museum?

We're back, it seems, to yesterday's theme of daft names. And like that post we are discussing a building that is better than the average for the city of Lincoln, despite its unfortunate name. I like the way that stone (is it artificial?) has been used in strongly horizontal lines with randomly disposed holes. I enjoy too the way one enters into a relatively dark foyer then passes into a beautifully lit "Orientation Hall" before entering the main exhibition spaces. The materials of wall, roof and floor have been well chosen and well put together. The exterior is also attractive, its avowedly modern lines fitting in well with the older buildings on its hillside site.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Camera: Nikon D5300
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 18mm (27mm - 35mm equiv.)
F No: f8
Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec
ISO:100
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Image Stabilisation: On

Osbournby church

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There's no easier way to announce yourself as an outsider to this area of Lincolnshire than by pronouncing the name of the village of Osbournby phonetically, just as it's written i.e. "Ozbornbi". For reasons that I'm sure few, if any know, the local pronunciation is "Ozzenbi". In an attempt to get to the bottom of why this is so I delved into the derivation of the placename.

The Domesday Book of 1086 gives two spellings - Esbernbi and Osbernedebi. Also used in the eleventh century was Osbernebi. It is thought that these come from the combining of an anglicisation of an Old Danish personal name - Aesbiorn (changed to Osbeorn) - with the Old Danish "by" meaning farmstead or village. So, the settlement was named after this person who founded it or was of importance within it. All very interesting, but as far as the current local pronunciation goes, not a great deal of help. The elision, contraction or slurring of the "bourn" part and its replacement by a "zz" sound is the interesting change that needs explaining. In fact, Osbournby is not alone in being subjected to this particular corruption. Just over five miles south, down the A15, is the village of Aslackby where the "zz" sound replaces "lack" to give the local pronunciation, "Azelbi" (as in Hazel where the "h" isn't sounded). I'll have to do a bit more digging if I'm to come up with an explanation for all this.

We passed Osbournby's church the other day as a light wind was blowing the chestnut and beech leaves of the churchyard trees on to the closely cut grass. This particular building, that dates mainly from the fourteenth century, is quite hard to photograph in summer from the south east with sunlight on it because of those tall trees. Their shadows fall across much of the aisle, nave and chancel. However, on this autumn afternoon the trees had shed enough leaves for light to filter through and give the scene both illumination and interest, so I took my shot.

For a photograph of the fine medieval bench ends that the church is famous for see here.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Canon
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 24mm
F No: f6.3
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Gosberton, Lincolnshire

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The recent hot spell has given way to pleasant summer temperatures and the unremitting blue skies to soft broken clouds. Just the weather, we thought, for a morning cycle ride through the golden wheat and green vegetables of the late July Fenland landscape. Our route took us to Gosberton, a village whose medieval church has a prominent spire that acts as a lighthouse to cyclists navigating their way through the complex web of lanes north of the settlement.

We had no particular destination in mind as we cycled along, but the sight of the spire set me to thinking what I'd recently read about the name of the village. The Domesday Book of 1086 apparently calls it by two slight variations of the same name - Gosebertcherche and Gosebertchirche. In 1177 this had become Goseberdechirche, and in 1180 Goseberchirche. All these variations, it seems, derive from the joining together of the Germanic personal name Gosbert and the Old English word cirice, "a church". By the 1200s the Old Norse kirkja ( also meaning "a church") had replaced the second part of the name and Gosseberdkyrk, Goseberdkirke and Gosberkirke are found. Right through to the eighteenth century a name ending in the word "church" in one form or another was used to describe the village. Yet, in 1487 the first use of the suffix -ton is found in Gosburton. The ending -tun, with slightly different pronunciations, is Old English and Old Norse for enclosure, farmstead, village or estate.  The current spelling of the village name dates from around the seventeenth century. Such changes in the name of a settlement are not unusual in England. What I found interesting in this instance is that the "church" part of the name should disappear when the parish church of St Peter and St Paul has, for centuries, remained the largest and most prominent building in the village, and the one that still, to a large extent, defines it.

I took my photograph as we cycled in from the north east, and it captures the way the pinnacled tower with its elegant spire dominates the surrounding houses and trees.

photograph and text (c) T. Boughen

Camera: Olympus E510
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 45mm (90mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f6.3
Shutter Speed: 1/800
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.7 EV
Image Stabilisation: On