Awkward Reverence

"From where I stand, the roof looks almost new - 
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't..."
                                                                          Philip Larkin

For those who like church architecture and figuring out all the many phases of a building, St Margaret's offers plenty to get their teeth into. Even I, with my own modest knowledge, can spot the rounded romanesque arches of the nave leading to what I suspect are later gothic arches up in the chancel. Or so I thought but a little learning is a dangerous thing. It turns out the nave was rebuilt in the 1740s (after a spire fell onto it from the north tower!) at the same time as the chancel was also rebuilt; the arches, it turns out, are smoothed off gothic arches! (Who knew such things existed? My ignorance seems to expand with everything I learn...) This place has been altered and extended many times over the years from its origins in 1095 and you can still see bits of the original Norman building at the base of the southern tower (see yesterday's post). All this is all very well but our good friend Sir Gilbert Scott has been here at some point, restored the nave and lowered the floor level which had been raised in the 1740s rebuild. As I say the place has history in spades and I can't do it justice here. If you want more I recommend visiting the church or reading this most informative and richly illustrated guide to the church here.

The Flemish style reredos is by Bodley and dates from 1899.

Some brass and stuff up at the holy end ...

The font dates from the time of Gilbert Scott.

Here's part of the Lynn motif again this time it's the pelican in her piety atop the font cover.

I'm told this is a Henseatic trunk and has not been renovated by Gilbert Scott.

The arms of Charles II hang high above the nave. During the civil war Lynn had been held by Parliamentary forces and thwarted a siege by royalists to take it; had they done so the king may well have kept his head. Funnily enough the forces went off to try to capture Hull and failed. Maybe these arms are a reminder not to be disloyal again.

The organ in the transept dates from 1754

A fairly modern statue, colourful but a bit anodyne.

St Nicholas Chapel of Ease

Approaching King's Lynn along the A17 you know you're nearly there when you can see the spire of St Nicholas chapel and the twin towers of St Margaret's on the horizon. (There's also a old concrete silo but that's not quite so attractive). St Nicholas chapel was built as a chapel of ease for the rich merchants and fisher folk of north Lynn as St Margaret's was too small to hold everybody and a bit of walk across town and you don't want to get your Sunday best dirtied by medieval squalor now do you? The building is mainly 15th century with some earlier bits. The lead spire dates from 1869 and is by our good friend Sir Gilbert Scott replacing a wooden one destroyed in the 18th century. (Sir Gilbert seems to have renovated every old church in the country) St Nick's is open to the public but we got there too early so we'll have to come back here later to see a surprising literary connection with Hull and angelic musicians.

Salisbury Street

Read any description of the Avenues area of Hull and sooner or later you'll come across mention of George Gilbert Scott Jr and his Queen Anne revival style residences on Salisbury Street. Now when it comes to the Gilbert Scotts of this world it's Sir George père (Albert memorial, Midland Hotel at St Pancras station etc) and Sir Giles petit-fils (Liverpool Cathedral and red telephone boxes) that are remembered in the architectural world. George junior's works in the Queen Anne revival style have been overlooked for the most part, perhaps not without reason. These buildings on Salisbury Street with their concrete and brick construction are mind numbingly symmetrical and twee. They have some interesting external decoration but they're not really my cup of tea. They are Grade 2 listed buildings and have I suppose some historical interest in architectural terms.

Last year some brave soul proposed to build a block of flats in the gardens behind two of these buildings. Fat chance! Cue a whole brigade of angry locals and the Hull Civic Society (see here from page 9) all fired up and the Council (which a few years ago subsidised the renovation of these buildings), of course, refused it. 

I wouldn't want you to go away thinking all of Salisbury Street is like this. There are, thankfully,  only eight of these buildings the rest of the street is more typical Victorian middle class terrace, with garrets for house servants, of course.

Salisbury and Park

Here's the intersection of Salisbury Street and Park Avenue showing the somewhat quaint Queen Anne style fronts designed by George Gilbert Scott. Did the Council really have to put that road sign just there; I mean it wasn't there a few years back. Are drivers really so thick they need to be told to go round a roundabout? (Don't answer that.) There are mermaids too but doesn't every street have mermaids?

I had to change the title of this post as I had the avenue  before the street and that is a big no-no with our American friends who tell us how to live, who we should get our technology from, who our friends should be, who should be our Prime Minister, how we should write our own language, and which way we should pee in the morning (For this relief much thanks ...) We're touched by your presence, no really, we are, touched.

Arc-boutant

Arcs-boutants also known as a flying buttresses; these devices transmit the force of the ceiling through the wall to a counterweight outside the building. It means the walls can be thinner and allows more space inside the building. They were extensively used in mediaeval ecclesiastical buildings. However the ones you see here, at St Mary's, Beverley, were put up in the 1850s in a restoration job by Augustus Welby Pugin, his son E Welby Pugin, and Sir Gilbert Scott.
They fit in well and do look pretty cool with the light shining through. 

All Saints' Day

A church tower is a beacon to direct the faithful to the house of God; it is a badge of ecclesiastical authority, and it is the place from whence the heralds of the solemnities of the church, the bells, send forth the summons. Let no one imagine that a tower is a superfluous expense, it forms an essential part of the building, and should always be provided in the plan of a parochial church.

Augustus Welby Pugin

I thought there had to be a reason for these things that pepper the countryside, there I was thinking they built them for the view. But then again this is Pugin speaking and he was a distinctly odd fellow. Here's the tower of All Saints church in Driffield built around 1450. As I mentioned earlier the church was revamped by Gilbert Scott in the 1880's when eight additions were made to the tower, not to everyone's delight. The church's own website says of them "The eight pinnacles at the top, 110 feet from the ground, also elaborately panelled, are somewhat unsatisfactory and heavy in appearance:...which gave them a distinctly debased type of crocket decoration". Still it's an impressive pile of stones for all that.

Today, the feast of All Saints (somehow I don't think that'll ever include me), is also City Daily Photo's theme day with the subject 'Heights'. See what others have got up to here.

Things ancient and modern

Here you might be surprised the ancient or rather slightly older thing is Doncaster's station not the gothic church that would like to dominate the skyline of this ancient town. The station was built in 1848, some five years later the 12th century church of St George burnt down completely and had to be rebuilt by, well who else could do the job, none other than our old friend Sir George Gilbert Scott. I'm told that the bill for rebuilding came to £43,126 4shillings and 5 pence and even Queen Victoria raided her piggy bank and gave £100. It's Grade1 listed and has interesting things in it you would love if you could see 'em (try here).

A new shopping centre/bus station/railway interchange thing has sprung up since I was last in these parts. I think it's called Frenchgate, something like that, anyway new to me.

Doncaster station is still as busy as I remember it. This is where the suits get off, taking their loud conversations with them, and head for the mainline London train ...

Now Doncaster or Donny as the train conductors and locals call it is only here because the Romans needed a place to cross the river Don and move on up North to York and civilisation. They fortified the place and, because they knew no better, they named it Danum, the natives called it Don - ceaster, the roman fort on the river Don, sensible eh?. Not wishing to flow against the tide of history this is us doing just that crossing the Don and moving on ... next stop Sheffield which is also on the river Don but named after a different river altogether.

The one and only

I have posted before of George Gilbert Scott Jr and his Queen Anne revival style residences on Salisbury Street. However I overlooked this odd thing that I can only assume was one of a pair of gateposts. Now a twelve or fourteen foot high multi-layered obelisk topped gatepost may seem a tad over the top these days but if you were going to get into the full Queen Anne revival style this must have been de rigueur. To me it would more fitting in a cemetery than at the end of a drive way but to each their own ... Thankfully there is only one, well, that I could find.

Gargoyles

Driffield's ancient All Saints Church has a fine selection of small family friendly gargoyles. Here's a couple of the cutest. These look to be in remarkably good condition and I suspect they may be modern (when I say modern I mean Victorian) replacements as the church was extensively restored by Gilbert Scott in the late 1870's. 

John, Luke, Mark and Matthew

Somehow this massive 18^th century carved oak door survived the ravages of the Gilbert Scott's 'restoration' of Beverley Minster. The door depicts from right to left the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John with their respective symbols. A family of craftsmen by the name of Thornton is responsible for this door and the baptismal font cover which I'll show some time soon. The same Thorntons also saved the North transept from collapsing.

In reality the door is a very dark brown  but my camera failed me (or I failed it) and underexposed it; so to make an anywhere decent image I've had to play around ending up with this black and white image, it's a bit clearer if you click on it for the bigger version. Below shows the impressive door surround (they did like their statues back then) and the base of the West window which I'll show tomorrow.

The Weekend in Black and White is here.

A tale of two towers

I'm keeping out of the city of culture for a few days; they have taken to dancing in an old graveyard while stuffing their faces all the name of culture and it's not a pretty sight. So I return to Bridlington Priory and its two odd towers. It's looks on the face of it like it's the real deal; an old Gothic building with a perpendicular tower. Well partly. The church as it stands is the vestige of Bridlington monastery which would have looked a bit like this in the early 16th century. As you all know if you were still awake in history classes the monasteries in England were dissolved by HenryVIII. Now the Prior of this place decided to take part in the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rising in Yorkshire against Henry VIII which did not end well. The monastery quickly lost all its valuables and gradually fell into disrepair until only the nave remained standing and that in no good condition.  The pictures below show it in 1786 and 1842. Note there are no towers by the front entrance. So enter our old friend and saviour of fallen churches Sir Gilbert Scott and his passion for the Gothic revival and up rises one perpendicular Gothic tower in the 1870's and one stump of a tower as a permanent reminder not to trust planners ...

The rear view, those buttresses are all Victorian.

I came across this helpful little site on my travels

Goths, Vandals and so on

Strange how the term Gothic was originally one of abuse and denigration (and has become so again when applied to the youthful urge to wear black and look as if  death would be a blessed relief from the toils of the world!). This was, as Vasari commented, a barbarous German style of building. Christopher Wren, no doubt with a view to his own line of business, also piled on the bad vibes. This was the style of the Goths who had, it was supposed, destroyed all that was good in classical Rome. Well, hmmm. If you're trying to sell a new product you don't exactly want to praise the old competition now do you?
This top view is through the canopy of the Percy Tomb in Beverley Minster. I'm guessing it would, when new, have been brightly painted and gilded. It's thought to be no later than around 1340 in construction and was one of the last pieces of original building in the Minster. After this the building gradually decayed, it survived the dissolution of the monasteries because it was a parish church otherwise we would now be looking at a picturesque ruin (that would cost a whole lot less to maintain). The North transept almost collapsed in the 18th century and was saved and repaired. However much of what we see now in here has been cleaned up, marble floors and columns polished and walls scrubbed by George Gilbert Scott (yup him again) one of those Victorian Gothic revivalist maniacs. He did such a thorough job that the place now looks like a giant shiny polished museum, sterile, pickled and most definitely dead, others call it a Gothic masterpiece.