BUILDINGS – Page 3 – ROLLING HARBOUR GALLERY

THE STRANGE STONE CIRCLES OF SHAP ABBEY, CUMBRIA

Published on July 8, 2016July 8, 2016 by Rolling HarbourLeave a comment

Even on a wet day, the ruins of the remote Premonstratensian Abbey of Shap in Cumbria are impressive. Although not much that is vertical remains, the layout of the extensive Abbey buildings can clearly be seen, with clarification from the helpful information boards. There was one particular puzzle that we encountered: a number of neatly incised circles on the floor of the nave, on both sides.

The purpose of the two lines of circles – we found 5 very clear ones – turns out to be quite straightforward. The nave floor dates from the c15. At that time, each Sunday there would be a procession involving the senior clergy. They entered the Abbey through the now-ruined west door. The circles marked the positions to be taken by the Canons, who then stood in two files before the nave altar. So the circles are in fact place-markers.

SPARROW CHICKS IN DORSET

Published on June 14, 2016June 14, 2016 by Rolling Harbour3 Comments

Our house provides nesting opportunities for sparrows on all sides. Somewhat ramshackle, with plenty of holes in the thick walls and under the eaves, it is perfect for the communal sparrow lifestyle. Every year we think of filling the holes, and then to decide not to. The sparrows do no harm. We’d miss them. Here are some chicks in the most easily accessible hole for photography. It is used every year, usually twice. An iPhone is best for the purpose because the flash is right next to the lens.

JUMIEGES ABBEY: AN ELABORATE EARLY SUNDIAL

Published on June 1, 2016June 1, 2016 by Rolling HarbourLeave a comment

A picnic lunch at the Abbey of Jumièges, Normandy, has much to commend it – not least tranquility and a stunning view. As we sat enjoying the sunshine on our white bench, we both noticed something unusual on the nearest tower, something not mentioned in anything we had read about the Abbey. On the south wall below the 4 levels of arcaded towers you’ll see in the header image a small red item pointing down at 45º. A gnomon – and where there’s a gnomon, there’s a sundial (although the reverse is often not the case). So we went to investigate.

The Abbaye de Jumièges was a Benedictine monastery founded in 654AD. In the c9, the original abbey was burned down by Vikings, then rebuilt. A new and larger Abbey was consecrated in 1067, and it was further enlarged in the c13. Restoration work was carried out in the late c16. Subsequently, a vast sundial dated 1660 was crudely carved in the south face of the tower.

The primitive design and execution of the sundial is rather at odds with the architectural precision of the stonework and the daring of the conceit of building a hexagonal tower on two square ones, and topping it off with a circular tower… just because they could. The rustic sundial has more in common with the medieval Mass or Scratch sundials on churches, primitive devices that originally evolved simply to indicate the time of the next Mass, with the Priest moving a stick into the appropriate hole on the wall to mark the forthcoming canonical hour. From being an ‘event marker’, the addition of a gnomon and roughly scratched numerals placed higher on a church wall would later provide a community with a way to mark the hours – at least when the sun shone.

A rough medieval scratch dial above a church door near Epernay (sans gnomon)

Longburton Church, Dorset: a more sophisticated scratch dial high on the Ham stone south wall – ?c16

Returning to Jumièges, here is a closer look at the sundial, with embellishments that seem to have been carved freehand and endearingly ineptly for such a splendid and august building. Yet the time markers have clearly been carved with precision. My only negative comment on this exuberant and enjoyable timepiece is the modern gnomon that looks completely out of place to me. Maybe it’s the colour that’s the problem. Or the flat utilitarian blade of metal. Anyway, without glimpsing it from our picnic spot we would never have seen that side of the tower, and we would have missed an unusual treat.

All images: RH

ST MARY’S, MELBURY BUBB, DORSET: A “SINGLE-TREASURE” CHURCH

Published on May 25, 2016May 25, 2016 by Rolling Harbour1 Comment

St Mary’s Church in Melbury Bubb, Dorset stands on a hillside deep in Hardy Country. In The Woodlanders, the hamlet is called “Little Hintock”. The little-known church contains a particular pre-conquest treasure – a well-preserved c10 Anglo-Saxon font of great beauty and intricacy of carving. Simon Jenkins calls St Mary’s a “single treasure church” and praises its extaordinary “lack of pretension”. This remains one of the few un-electrified Dorset churches, with oil lamps for light and a coal-fired stove in the nave for warmth. The solitary church at nearby Hilfield is another.

The interior has a carved wood rood screen and wooden ‘waggon’ roof. The stove and oil lamps are visible.

THE FONT

A quick glance at the font reveals that it is in fact upside down. The theory is that it is carved from the upturned base of a Saxon cross, perhaps a “preaching cross” that presumably predated the original early church building as a place of congregation and worship. The carvings appear to depict – possibly – a lion, a wolf, a horse, a stag, a dolphin or porpoise, and a couple of smaller creatures. It takes a bit of a leap of imagination, and of course the beasts may even be mythical rather than representational. However, the helpful memorial frieze on the wall certainly makes tentative identifications easier without having to crick one’s neck unduly. I thought I’d detected a fish of some sort, but it turned out to be an upside-down animal haunch… I have included photos of the documents that are on the wall by the font, which give additional information and historical interpretations about the “single treasure”

Two c17 tombs in the churchyard

Credits: all photos RH; light-touch research from church documents and Simon Jenkins ‘Great English Churches’

MAPPERTON HOUSE, DORSET: FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

Published on May 18, 2015 by Rolling HarbourLeave a comment

Mapperton House in Dorset is not hard to find, but it is somewhat off the beaten track near Beaminster. In the recent film Far from the Madding Crowd the fine manor house, which dates from the c16, became the farm inherited by Bathsheba Everdene. We planned to see the film the weekend it came out, and spent the morning at Mapperton to get into a Hardyesque frame of mind. A form of ‘method’ film previewing, I suppose. It was a dull day, but here are some photos from our visit. And yes, we thought the film was wonderful, with ‘Bathsheba’ and ‘Gabriel’ excelling in particular…

The later west front of the house

The back of the house, from the gardens

The sunken garden

The sundial (base and column old, dial and gnomon new)

The orangery

The stables and yard, as seen from the house in the film; and as they are

Note Bathsheba’s modern carriage

An unusual double-stepped mounting block

The Chapel

St Ambrose, with his hive and bees – one of several very good pieces of stained glass

Yah, Troy here, yah, the thing is I’ve sort of fallen for this feisty farmer girl, ok?

Tom Sturridge films a scene for the movie Far from the Madding Crowd in Dorset Featuring: Tom Sturridge Where: Sherbourne, United Kingdom When: 22 Oct 2013 Credit: WENN.com — Tom Sturridge films a scene for the movie Far from the Madding Crowd in Dorset
Featuring: Tom Sturridge
Where: Sherbourne, United Kingdom
When: 22 Oct 2013
Credit: WENN.com

RAMSGATE HARBOUR, KENT

Published on February 22, 2015 by Rolling Harbour2 Comments

These photographs of Ramsgate Harbour were taken on a bright September day as we went on a 3-generational family seal boat trip, and on our return.

The photo below shows Pugin’s home The Grange, now a Landmark Trust property where we were staying for a family occasion. To the right is St Augustine’s, the church designed by Pugin and completed after his death by his son Edward. It has a nice walled garden, but overlooks the now-defunct ferry terminal, which slightly mars the charm…

THE ‘POMODORO SPHERE’, TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN

Published on November 24, 2014November 24, 2014 by Rolling Harbour2 Comments

A short trip to Dublin brought the chance to wander round Trinity College, always an enjoyable experience. I’d either failed to notice the strange sculpture on the Berkeley Library forecourt on previous visits, or it has only arrived fairly recently. On a grey rainy day, it looked unpromising from a distance. Pomodoro Sphere TCD 12

On closer inspection, it was fascinating. The large bonze was donated to TCD by the artist, Arnaldo Pomodoro. As the TCD website says, “other similar works exploring this spherical format are on display at locations such as the United Nations plaza in New York, the University of California at Berkeley, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tehran, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Rome, and the Cortile del Belvedere at The Vatican Museums. This sculpture underwent a major conservation project in 2008 which brought the surface of the piece back to its original condition while also restoring its complex sub-structure and pivot.”

Here are some photos taken as I walked round the work. I was struck both by the reflected ‘cityscapes’ – possibly post-apocalyptic – that seemed to appear, and by the complexity of the construction.

Arnaldo Pomodoro ‘Sfera con Sfera’ bronze (click here for artist’s biography, pdf)

Click here to read the poem ‘Six Ways of Looking at a Pomodoro’ by John Scattergood (pdf document)

Credits: TCD website for info & links; all photos RH

HOUSE SPARROW CHICKS IN THE NEST IN A HOUSE…

Published on June 5, 2014 by Rolling Harbour4 Comments

The gable end wall of our house is very old thick stone, and full of holes. Some are deep enough for sparrows to nest in, which they do every year. Mrs RH is quite keen to fill the holes; I enjoy the annual sparrow nesting routines in the holes, and in the gaps under the gable eaves. Last year I recorded the sounds emerging from the largest hole as the chicks grew. This year, I tried photography. The problems, without special equipment, were lighting and focus. I wasted a vast number of shots on useless photos before realising that I only had to wait until the evening sun was full on the wall. Here are some resulting photos. A few days later, they had flown!

Apart from the noise of the chicks awaiting food, nothing much to see here…

Half an hour later the sun has helpfully moved round Sparrow Nest Totnell 3

The ‘money shot’!

ST GEORGE, PORTLAND, DORSET: UNUSED BUT NOT UNLOVED

Published on April 29, 2014May 1, 2014 by Rolling Harbour2 Comments

St George, Portland stands high up on Portland, Dorset. Built from the famed local Portland stone in an unusual mish-mash of styles, it is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust, which will at least ensure its survival even if services are no longer regularly held there. Pevsner calls it “the most impressive c17 church in Dorset”.

The church and churchyard contain plenty of reminders of Portland’s past both as a significant stone quarrying area, and as a place of major nautical importance. There can’t be many churches with a memorial for those killed by a press gang.

The churchyard is rather wild in places and contains some large commemorative statues. We were intrigued by one quite tidy grave (below) and were left wondering about the design – the little roofed gateway, the raised apart in the top right corner. What does that indicate?

The thick grey walls of St George are typical of the local stone.

The unkempt churchyard is a good place for wildlife, with plenty of hunting perches for kestrels

“COMING IN TO LAND…” AERIAL LONDON

Published on February 3, 2014 by Rolling Harbour5 Comments

It’s always interesting to get a new viewpoint of a city, for example London. A plane is perfect for that, except that planes bound for Heathrow are generally flying too high for anyone to do more than spot the general layout and the main landmarks. Photos are unlikely to be worth bothering with, even if your have a window seat. However, London City Airport offers more opportunity. Flying in last week, I realised it might be worth getting the iPhone out to see what I could do with it through the mist and cloud. The answer was, take rather poor pictures. Then I thought about turning them black and white. Suddenly they took on a new look, both old-fashioned and rather intriguing. I thought so anyway, so here they are.

THE SHARD