Category: Architecture

Big Bang Theory

I enjoyed sounding the gong to announce meals at Barmeath in my childhood. Under my grandmother’s instruction my technique improved from loud bashing (think Top Cat summoning the gang) to a subtler, gradually increasing crescendo, beating around the edge of the gong, culminating in a final stroke, fortissimo, to the centre.

Earl’s Court

What memories does the Earl’s Court exhibition centre hold for you? Andrew took me to the Royal Tournament, Richard was a regular attender at the Boat Show and, once, to an opera when he was feeling distinctly ill. I think it was Turandot. Well, it is no more.

An Admiral of the Blue

Bradford on Avon to Bath, along the K&A canal, is not far – maybe ten miles. Almost immediately on the outskirts of Bradford is a 14th century tithe barn, so over-restored that it looks like a (successful) stockbroker’s second home. I have read that the interior is worth seeing but it was not open early… Continue reading An Admiral of the Blue

Burton in Bradford on Avon

The overuse of superlatives is jolly annoying. So after praising the Norman church at Devizes to the skies I’m embarrassed to tell you that Bradford on Avon has a better one.

Roger le Poer, Pumping and Pele

Roger le Poer, better known maybe as Roger of Salisbury, is a Norman who rose from being a priest in a small chapel near Caen to being Bishop of Salisbury, Lord Chancellor and Lord Keeper of England in the reign of Henry I. This is (maybe) his effigy in Salisbury Cathedral.

Pevsner

I was foolish last week when I was walking in Derbyshire. Because, initially, the plan had been to carry our kit I travelled light and left something indispensable at home, namely Pevsner’s The Buildings of England DERBYSHIRE.

Limestone Way, Day Two

The Limestone Way is not an ancient footpath like, say, the Ridgeway or Peddars Way. It was created by the Derbyshire county council, I suppose to promote tourism. Originally it ran from Castleton to Matlock and this is the route, about twenty-eight miles, we are taking. Nobody can accuse us of being over ambitious. (Subsequently… Continue reading Limestone Way, Day Two

St Patrick in Soho

In London in the 18th century there was a concerted effort by rich Catholics and the Catholic Church to alleviate the poverty and misery of their less fortunate countrymen. The Benevolent Society of St Patrick (1783) and the older Irish Charitable Society (1704) are manifestations of this, (There’s a Welcome on the Mat), another is… Continue reading St Patrick in Soho

Norman Conquest

Whatever the UK electorate decides about staying in or leaving the EU, many of us in the British Isles feel a sense of identity with the Normans. Our genes, our language, our architecture, our laws can to a large extent be traced back to Norman roots.