A Visit

Naturally, as a Brit, I have been to this place before.

The Tower of London beneath the City – I rather like the contrast.

It is a famous historical place nowadays dwarfed beneath the glass and steel of the City. Yes, you’ve probably guessed it is The Tower of London – those Ravens are a bit of a giveaway.

Left, walking along the battlements towards the Lanthorn Tower rebuilt by the Victorians. Right, view of the Shard from the Lanthorn Tower.

Many of us visit the Tower of London as part of a school trip or, as in my case, are taken by the parents.

And the four things I remember from my childhood visit are; it was a big, proper castle, the ravens were big too, the Crown Jewels were, well, crowns with big jewels and I was utterly bored by the seemingly endless display of armour in the White Tower.

Left, horse armour on display in the White Tower. Right, the White Tower. Early medieval building completed 1100 AD.

This time, as an ageing adult, I went to the Tower with a purpose. I wanted to walk through the space that Thomas Cromwell had known. I really should have done my research BEFORE this overpriced visit. The Royal Apartments, including the Great Hall, that were the backdrop to the ‘Tudor’ events at the Tower were originally rebuilt by Henry III in the 1220s and 1230s, but are now all long gone.

Most of the Tudor palace of the 16th century was demolished during an extensive remodelling in the 1660s and any remaining parts that had been incorporated into other buildings were lost during the 18th and 19th centuries when more rebuilding was carried out. However, there are still random sections of old wall extant. These would have formed part of the rooms where Katharine of Aragon stayed on the night before her coronation procession with Henry VIII in 1509.

From Traitors’ Gate, up the steps towards the Bloody Tower passing through the arch towards the White Tower. A section of old wall, part of the ruins of the Tudor Royal Apartments, is just visible in the bottom photograph.

These would be the same rooms where later in 1535 Thomas Cromwell would interrogate Thomas More, and where a year later Anne Boleyn would be held before her execution on 19th May 1536. And then later still, those same rooms would be where Thomas Cromwell would spend his last hours before he was beheaded on Tower Hill (outside the boundary of the Tower) on 28th July 1540.

Stone building to the left is the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula.

Interestingly, the bodies of Thomas More, Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell were all buried in the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula, the parish church of the Tower. Their graves had no markers until the Victorians, undertaking renovations in 1876, found human remains. These remains were re-buried and marked with marble slabs (no photography is permitted in the church).

Both Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell were imprisoned during the time of Henry VIII and endured relatively short stays in the Tower unlike those incarcerated during the reign of Elizabeth I. The leading Catholic peer, Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel was imprisoned in the Beauchamp Tower for 10 years. Many of the ‘long stay’ prisoners left their mark as graffiti carving signs and symbols into the stone walls.

Graffiti attributed to Thomas Peverel 1570 including arms, shield of the Peverel family (a skull, damaged) and a cross with heart.

On the day of my visit I arrived just after the Tower had opened and their were no queues. I stayed over two hours and by the time I left it was very busy despite the pouring rain. I didn’t bother to queue to see the crown jewels again, but I did walk up (all 247 steps) and through the White Tower and traipsed past all the armour again (still boring). However, there were one or two gems like the first official guidebook to the Tower by John Hewitt printed in 1854.

The Tower: Its History, Armouries and Antiquities. John Hewitt. 1854.

And, down in the basement there was a rather delightful video installation featuring significant historical events with ravens flying through and across the centuries.

Stills from video installation in the White Tower.

The ravens in the video are luckier than the Tower’s resident living ones as they have their wings clipped to stop them flying away and spend most of their days caged.

Tribe at the Festival (not Glastonbury)

There are festivals and festivals. The Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts has been going since 1948 and is a music festival, but one without camping. It was founded in 1948 by Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears and the writer and producer Eric Crozier.

Before the evening concert at Snape Maltings from across the River Alde.

The first festival was held from 5th to 13th June 1948 with a varied programme of choral, orchestral and chamber concerts, recitals, exhibitions and lectures and three performances of Britten’s opera Albert Herring.

The Maltings through the grasses and reeds, 21 June 2022.

Over the following 20 years the festival’s increasing international reputation for excellence and its subsequent expanding audiences led to Britten and Pears realising the need for a dedicated festival concert hall. The disused maltings at Snape were selected for redevelopment. According to Kenneth Powell of the ’20th Century Society, “Britten was a demanding client: he wanted a 1000 seat hall, costing no more than £50,000, and completed in time for the 1966 Festival. The concert hall eventually cost £127,000 and seated 830”. It was opened by the Queen on 2 June 1967, the first day of the 20th Aldeburgh Festival.  

However, just two years later on 7th June 1969 the concert hall was destroyed by fire. The hall we see today is the replica rebuilt, as requested by Britten, to be “just as it was”. The Queen came again in 1970 to open the hall, as she had done in 1967, and is reported as saying that she hoped not to be asked to come back a third time. The Queen may not have been back to the Maltings, but with the exception of the two years for Covid cancellations, the Aldeburgh Festival has returned every year since.

So what of the ‘tribe‘ at the festival? It is an artwork. It is these fine bronze men striding out towards the reeds. ‘Tribe’ by Laurence Edwards is part of a a three-year creative collaboration between Britten Pears Arts and Messums Wiltshire for 2022, 2024 and 2025.

‘Tribe’, Laurence Edwards, 2019-21. Bronze. Walking Figure 1, 238.8 x 134.6 x 83.8 cm, Walking Figure 2, 240 x 142.2 x 81.3 cm, Walking Figure 3, 238.8 x 124.5 x 88.9 cm.

The bronzes are currently on display as part of the Aldeburgh Festival at the Maltings site. They will then feature as part of Laurence Edwards’ solo exhibition ‘Tribes and Thresholds’ at Messums Wiltshire from 6 August – 16 October 2022. And, then next year they will travel to the other side of the world to Australia to be installed at the Orange Regional Museum in New South Wales.

It is difficult to appreciate from a photograph the compelling presence of these bronze men not least their imposing size.

Five men.

As a group of three there is an intensity and solid quality to the ‘Walking Men’, but also, for a static sculpture, a strong sense of movement. And, then, when you look up and into their faces expecting purpose and resolve instead there is a questioning hesitancy coupled with a hint of resignation or perhaps even loss. Altogether a captivating work.

A Queen of France in Suffolk

This is St Mary’s in Bury St Edmunds and until the Reformation it was known as the Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

St Mary’s Church, Honey Hill, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.

It is a large parish church and has the second longest nave of any parish church in England. It was originally part of a monastic complex, the medieval Abbey of St Edmund.

The Abbey was once one of the richest and most powerful Benedictine monasteries in England. From 903 AD it held the relics of the martyred Anglo-Saxon king St Edmund and pilgrims visited the shrine from across Europe.

Visualisation of the medieval Abbey of St Edmund before the Reformation by Victorian artist, W K Hardy. 1883

With the arrival of the Reformation the Abbey was surrendered to King Henry VIII in 1539. Since then over the centuries the valuable building materials of the Abbey have been removed for reuse elsewhere. Interestingly, St Mary’s survived and today we see the largest West Window installed in a parish church in England. It is measures 35ft 6in by 8ft 6in.

The long nave and the large West Window of St Mary’s.

On a sunny day the interior of the church is patterned with rainbow-like light from the large south facing windows. It is a pity that all the medieval stained glass is long gone, but there’s still some fine, high-quality Victorian stained glass filling the windows. The West Window is a particularly elegant creation, and was designed and made by the London firm Heaton, Butler & Bayne. The window was installed in 1859 having been paid for by local landowners as a thanksgiving for the bumper harvest of 1854.

The West Window. Heaton, Butler & Bayne, c.1859

And what is that positioned directly beneath the centre of the window ?

Royal Coat of Arms beneath the West Window.

Yes, you might have recognised it. It is the coat of arms for the British Royal family. And, you don’t get to erect those on any old building even a fine church unless . . . there is a state or royal connection. And, here in the parish church of a Suffolk town it is a royal connection in the form of the tomb of Mary Tudor, Queen of France.

Mary Tudor was the favourite sister of King Henry VIII and for political alliances in 1514 was married to the much older King Louis XII of France. Louis died in 1515 at 52 years old leaving Mary a widow at 17 years old. Letters between Mary and Henry indicate she had agreed to marry Louis only on condition that if she survived him, she should marry whom she liked. Six weeks later in Paris she secretly married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who had been sent to France by Henry to escort Mary back to England.

 Mary Tudor and Charles Brandon. Wedding portrait by Jan de Mabuse. c. 1516

In Tudor times to marry a royal princess without the permission of the king was treason and Charles Brandon could have been executed. However, thanks to the eloquent and effective negotiating skills of another Suffolk man, Thomas Wolsey, the King was persuaded to fine the couple £24,000 instead.

Mary Tudor was the Duchess of Suffolk until her death at Westhorpe Hall, Suffolk, on 25 June 1533 at the age of 37. She is now buried in the corner of the sanctuary of St Mary’s Church.

In the corner close to the alter is the tomb of the once Queen of France and latterly the Duchess of Suffolk, Mary Tudor, favourite sister of Henry VIII.

It is obviously strange to see a Duchess of that period, let alone a Royal Tudor princess, buried in such a plain fashion. Of course, originally as King Henry’s sister and the Dowager, Queen of France she was buried in state in the crypt of the magnificent Abbey Church on 21 July 1533. Then five years later at the time of the Dissolution her body was the only one permitted to be removed and reburied in the nearby parish church of St Mary’s.

It is unclear whether there was a funerary monument erected at the time of her reinterment but a couple of centuries later, in 1758, a tablet was laid above her remains.

Fast forward just under another 150 years and at the suggestion of Edward VII, who visited the church in 1904, a marble kerb was placed to surround the grave tablet and prevent the clergy walking over Mary’s tomb. I agree with and leave the last word to one of the church’s Vergers who at some point remarked on the ‘ugliness of the kerb’.

Christmas Trees at the Mansion

The other week, before Omicron arrived, I popped into Christchurch Mansion to catch up on the latest ‘Creating Constable’ exhibition. The gallery is only a 15 minute walk from where I live and I always enjoy walking through the Mansion’s park on my visits, particularly at dusk.

A winter sun setting as seen through the old glazing.

As I said I went to see the art, but I was distracted by the fine sunset and then the Christmas Trees on display. And, as this is my last post before Christmas this year, I thought we might make a toast or two in the Servants’ Hall.

In 1923 this room was fitted with panelling and an overmantle taken from The Old House, 32 Carr St, Ipswich.

The servants’ hall was first recorded as such in the 1840s, although it was probably used in this way much earlier. The space was conveniently situated near to the kitchen, to the servants’ staircase to the attic bedrooms and to the service wing of the mansion where the work of running the house was carried out.

That’s the butler perhaps.

All the servants ate together in the hall, but it was expected that the butler and the housekeeper would retire to take wine and a dessert. These formal meals provided an opportunity for junior servants to learn how to serve by waiting on the older servants.

Yes, that is a red hat on top of the tree.

The furniture now on display is not typical of a usual servants’ hall, but represents the sort of pieces that might be found in a large farmhouse kitchen or country inn. I think the idea is to give the visitor an essence of Victorian life rather than historical accuracy. Also, I am not sure how many servants would have been offered a serving of the rather fancy apples à la Parisienne!

Pommes à la Parisienne

And, as for those toasts

The Very Old and the Very New

Sometimes the mixing of old and new can work well and the result can be quite beautiful, both enhancing the past and showcasing the new. One example of this is the south porch of St Peter’s Church in Ipswich. It has a 21st-century metal grille door set within a 15th-century stone and flint arch complete with Tudor roses.

The gates of gilded steel were made in 2008 by Paul Richardson (1967-). The work was commissioned by the Ipswich Hospital Band, when the church was deconsecrated and became a concert venue. If you look carefully you can see the two musical angels are partially constructed using metalwork from musical instruments. They also wear gowns patterned with the Tudor rose motif.
I particular liked the golden fish weaving through the scrollwork waves, referencing St Peter as a fisherman and also the proximity to the nearby Ipswich Waterfront.

St Peter’s Gate -Paul Richardson. Gilded steel, 2008.

Sadly though not all the local medieval treasures of Ipswich have fared so well where redevelopment of the harbour waterside has seen a mushrooming of tall residential tower blocks. The new blocks have replaced drab, utilitarian warehouses, but the trouble with these new blocks is that they are much taller buildings and they dwarf the Old Customs House and the medieval churches nearby.

Quay Place Heritage and Well-being Centre. The repurposed, redundant medieval church, St Mary at the Quay dwarfed by the newly opened Winerack (the tall, white residential block).

However, although the site of Quay Place from the north is no doubt nothing like the look and feel of its original 15th-century setting, the view from the east, as it lines up with St Peter’s is very pleasing. And, despite the fact that Key Street is now part of a busy one-way system, this is is one of my favourite views in Ipswich. (Sadly, my photograph doesn’t do it justice.)

The Hold

Back in July of this year the builders of ‘The Hold’ completed their part of the project and handed over the keys to Paul West, the Suffolk County Councillor with responsibility for heritage. On receiving the keys Mr West commented, “We can get on with fitting out and that’s a two to three month project. Then we’ll have a sort of phased opening over the autumn. We hope to have an exhibition in November.” Well, as we all know November 2020 brought us another lockdown.

Architect’s model of The Hold. Photograph courtesy of the Suffolk Archive Foundation.

If you’re not from Ipswich or Suffolk, you are probably wondering what on earth is ‘The Hold’. The answer is, it is the new, purpose-built complex that will house the Suffolk County Archive.

I have followed this project with interest since 2017 when, firstly and sadly, I noticed some large trees were being chopped down. Then a smart black fence of boards was erected securing the site and carrying a display of information about the development.

Over the past 18 months I have been taking the odd photograph as the buildings started to take shape. The Hold is situated on the edge of the University of Suffolk complex and is close to the Ipswich Waterfront. It has been mostly erected on part of the university car park, it was a pity about the trees though.

July 2019 – The Hold’s the two main archive buildings have roofs.

July 2019 and the front of The Hold is beginning to take shape.

December 2019 – and all the brick walls are completed and all the glass has been installed.

July 2020 – It is half a year later and we are now in the midst of the Covid pandemic yet the builders have continued working and the hard landscaping is is nearly finished.

There’s even been planting of lavender. Sadly, this was the first lavender planting which all died. Although lavender is ideal for this position and it is a pretty drought-tolerant plant, it does need some watering when first planted, oops!

September 2020 – All looking good and the second planting of lavender is thriving.

September 2020 – The old and the new.

Originally this £20 million project was scheduled to open around Easter 2020 no doubt with a special, civic event, however that date passed in the middle of the first lockdown and ‘The Hold’ finally opened in October.

October 2020 – The Hold is open to the public and there is even a café with outside tables at the entrance.

December 2020 – The Hold is open again after lockdown 2.0 and operating under Tier 2 restrictions. However, the café has not reopened and the archive will not be accessible in person until completion of the move from the old Gatacre Road site is completed sometime early in 2021.

It may have taken an extra six months to complete, but the finished building looks interesting and inviting and I look forward to visiting in normal times.

Leiston Abbey Ruins

After living here in Suffolk at various times of my life and frequently visiting the county for over fifty years, I finally got round to making a trip to see Leiston Abbey. And, it was well worth the effort.

An arch, part of the South Transept of the Abbey Church, with the Lady Chapel in the background.

Most of what we see today is the remains of the 14th-century abbey of Premonstratensian canons. Premonstratensian canons, also known as the White Canons, was an order founded in 1120 by St Norbert of Xanten at Premontre in Picardy, France.

Main window arch of the North Transept.

According to English Heritage, Leiston Abbey is among Suffolk’s most impressive monastic ruins retaining some spectacular architectural features.

The remains of the Chancel of the Abbey Church.

The abbey church was built in the form of the cross with two chapels on either side of the chancel. The small, roofed chapel we today is the Lady Chapel and is occasionally used for services.

Looking across to the walls of the church’s tower.

As you can see from the photographs it is mostly constructed of flint with fine examples of knapped flint, which is known as flint flushwork. Naturally occurring stone in Suffolk is in short supply and it appears that some of the stonework of this church, for example the arches, was constructed from re-used stone from the Order’s earlier abbey buildings at Minsmere. The original abbey was founded in 1182 by Ranulf de Glanville (Lord Chief Justice to King Henry II), and was built on an island in the Minsmere marshes nearer the coast. In 1363, the monastery was relocated two miles further from the coast to the higher ground of the Leiston site.

Area of another chapel on the south side of the chancel looking across to the cloisters and refectory.

With the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, as one of the smaller houses in the country, Leiston was among the first wave surrendered to the king, then gifted to the dukes of Suffolk. But, even for a small house the commissioners inventory showed there were silver and copper candlesticks and an altar of carved alabaster.

Across the cloisters to Georgian farmhouse with renovations and additions made in the 1920s.

Dissolution might have been the beginning of the end of the abbey as a monastery, but part of the site became a farmhouse and eventually in 1928 the abbey ruins and farm were bought by Ellen Wrightson and used as a religious retreat until her death in 1946.

The Georgian farmhouse clearly incorporating walls of the original nave.

In 1977 the Pro Corda Trust, the National School for Young Chamber Music Players, a charity running chamber music courses for children, bought Leiston Abbey. It is pleasing that there is an arrangement with English Heritage for the care of the ruins and that free, public access is allowed.

A Double Delight

Back in February, just before the full extent of the Covid Crisis became obvious to all, I was in London and managed to visit the ‘Handel & Hendrix in London’ museum. It had been on my wish list for some while.

Portrait of George Frederick Handel (1685-1759) circa 1756-60.
After Thomas Hudson. Oil on canvas. 80.6 x 72.1 cm. On loan from the The Royal Collection.

It was truly a double delight for me. To be in the space, to walk the rooms and to experience the ambience of an 18th-century London house (annual rent in 1742 was £50) with such music credentials was very special. I am a fan both of the grand, ornate choral works of Handel and the explosive and intricate guitar solos of Hendrix. And, I prefer to visit the past homes of the exceptionally talented and able rather than residences simply gifted down to generation after generation of the same family.

Royal Music – Zadok the Priest. ‘Handel Coronation Anthems’, Arnold Edition published around 1760, part of the Gerard Byrne Collection.

We were lucky with the timing of our visit as in one room a volunteer was sat at the Kirckman harpsichord playing Handel’s ‘Air and Variations’ (The Harmonious Blacksmith). To hear Handel’s music played in his house was a breathtaking treat, sublime.

Kirckman Harpsichord made in 1745 being played by a volunteer. (Sadly I didn’t get his name.)

After experiencing the elegant Georgian rooms, it was, as you would guess, an utter change of gear as you step across from 25 Brook Street to the upper floors of 23 Brook Street and the Swinging Sixties of Jimi Hendrix.

The bedroom decoration has been reconstructed from surviving photographs of Hendrix when he lived at 23, Brook Street.

Original 1960s pieces have been sourced and some surviving originals such as this mirror recreate the classic 60s vibe.

Apart from the decorated bedroom there is a room of Hendrix memorabilia. The first guitar Jimi Hendrix ever played on British soil was Zoot Money’s Wandre ‘Blue Jean’ Model Guitar. It is still strung with the same strings that Jimi played on the day he made London his home in 1966.

Jimi arrived in London for the very first time when he stepped off a plane at Heathrow Airport with Chas Chandler on the morning of 24 September 1966. Jimi was taken straight from the airport to the West London Home of bandleader and keyboardist George Bruno ‘Zoot’ Money, a major figure on the Soho scene at the time. While looking for a guitar to play that evening, Jimi picked this instrument up and started playing it (apparently remarking it had a “nice easy action”), before Chas and Zoot managed to track down something more suitable for Jimi’s first public performance in London.

From the ‘Handel & Hendrix in London’ display.

The Wandre ‘Blue Jean’ Model Guitar

It is sad to note that it will be 50 years next month since Jimi Hendrix died at his Notting Hill home at the young age of 27. What a terrible loss to the world of music.

There is a little good news though, the ‘Handel & Hendrix in London’ museum is re-opening this Saturday, 22nd August 2020 – but, of course, now you have to book timed-tickets in advance.

St Edmund’s, Southwold. Revisiting Rood Screens – Suffolk II

At heart I am a visual culture purist. I say this to forewarn you about my comments regarding the rood screen and pulpit of St Edmund’s Church in Southwold.

St Edmund’s is a beautiful medieval church built in the Perpendicular style. It’s full name is ‘The Church of St Edmund, King and Martyr’. The building we see today (suggested date 1413 in the church’s guide, but circa 1430 in both Pevsner and Mortlock accounts) was built on the site of an earlier thirteen-century church, a smaller building that had been destroyed by fire. According to the church guide during 1758 the foundations of that original building were located underneath part of the present church.

The straight lines of the Perpendicular style have been emphasised at St Edmund’s by the luxury flushwork of flint and stone. The linear quality of the building is doubly emphasised by the striking effect of an inlaid chessboard decoration on the west tower that is repeated on the exterior walls of the south porch.

South porch with niche that would originally have held a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Edmund, king, saint and martyr. Statue by Andrew Swinley, 1989.

From the appearance of the grand, ornate exterior it is evident that St Edmund’s was built at a time when the parish of Southwold and its environs had generous wealthy donors. This is confirmed by the quality of the surviving medieval interior furnishings that include the rood screen, the pulpit and the font.

Of course, the splendid, painted and gilded rood screen alone is worth a visit to the church, but there is also a fine pre-Reformation pulpit and a beautifully decorated and adorned hammerbeam ceiling together with the original, though defaced font.

Now here is the issue. Between its glorious fifteenth-century heyday and today, St Edmund’s, along with many East Anglian medieval churches, has had some turbulent, destructive times, and equally, some impoverished, neglected and generally detrimental times. The visit of William Dowsing and the iconoclasts in 1643 brought the first and substantial destructive episode which included the defacing of the font.

SOUTHWOLD, APRIL the 8th. We break 
down 130 superstitious Pictures ; St. Andrew ; and 4 
Crosses on the four corners of the Vestry ; and gave 
order to take down 13 Cherubims; and take down 20 
Angels ; and to take down the Cover of the Font. 

Quote from 'The journal of William Dowsing of Stratford,
parliamentary visitor, appointed under a warrant from the
Earl of Manchester, for demolishing the superstitious 
pictures and ornaments of churches.' Journal commenced
1643, Sudbury, Suffolk.

After this deliberate, seventeenth-century image smashing came the long period of straightened times for Church of England buildings as the eighteenth century saw the rise of the Nonconformists and the subsequent fall in C of E congregation numbers. A neglected St Edmund’s functioned with a series of temporary curates as the chancel roof and wood of the east window slowly rotted away.

However, with the rise of the Evangelical movement across the course of the nineteenth century it was all change again. A widening interest in re-examining the medieval past combined with the Victorian’s obsession for progress, resulted in large funds being provided for extensive renovation schemes at St Edmund’s.

The attractively painted ceiling of the hammerbeam roof adorned with painted angels we see today is one such renovation scheme. The replacement ceiling is a fine example of nineteenth-century carpentry and decorative painting skills as well as an insight into how a previous generation reinterpreted our shared medieval past. The Victorians aimed for reconstructing a perfectly finished past whilst our twenty-first-century sensibility is all about the delicately preserved, authentic original however dilapidated and tatty it looks.

Painted roof angels – a Victorian interpretation of the medieval aesthetic.

Apparently, the colourful blue and painted details are very near to sketched records of the original medieval ceiling, but how fair a facsimile it is difficult to judge. That situation is brought acutely into focus when we turn to consider the ‘restoration’ of the medieval pulpit during the 1920s.

Original medieval trumpet-stemmed pulpit. Disappointingly over restored in 1928 under the guidance of F E Howard.

Along with providing designs for the reredos, the lectern and the font cover, an ‘inspired young church architect from Oxford’, F E Howard (1888-1934), oversaw the restoration and painting of the pulpit. Sadly, the once elegant original medieval trumpet-stemmed pulpit is almost obliterated beneath thick layers of overdone paintwork and gilding.

Part of the rood screen depicting the twelve Apostles. From the left St Matthew, St James the Less and St Thomas. Disappointingly a heavy piece of church furniture and a large floral display were obstructing a clear view of the north side of the rood screen.  Oil on gesso on a wood panel with gilding. 1480

Curiously, the writer of the church’s own guidebook gives special credit to F E Howard for making St Edmund’s interior the delight it is today. However, even the guide’s sympathetic author informs us that any desires by Howard to renovate the rood screen were not permitted.

The font cover (left) and a detail of the lectern (right) as envisioned by F E Howard (1888-1934) in a medieval style. Painted wood and gilding. 1928

Personally, I am very, very pleased he was stopped.

Part of the rood screen (the south side) at St Edmund’s, Southwold, Suffolk. From the left St Paul, St John, St James the Great, St Bartholomew, St Jude and St Simon. Oil on gesso on a wood panel with gilding. 1480

I have nothing against Victorian art and it is as much part of the history and culture of this church as the medieval art. Nevertheless from the our twenty-first-century viewpoint the Victorians’ well-meaning yet heavy-handed painting and renovations can border on vandalism. The repainting of the damaged saints’ faces by Sir George Richmond in 1874 are bad enough, but just think what Howard would have done in the 1920s to all that delicate gilding on the rood screen given half a chance.

As I mentioned at the beginning I am a visual culture purist and as such I appreciate seeing what is left of our medieval culture when it is gently conserved, but I do realise that a little active conservation is necessary. Of course, what we have left is still only an approximation of the reality of the past. Today’s impression for a visitor to St Edmund’s is nothing like the spectacle and mystery experienced by a medieval parishioner or even a Victorian church goer as all the medieval stained glass was blown from the windows by a bomb in 1943 during the Second World War.

Ancient and Modern

It’s a little hard to see from the photographs, but this is the rare, possibly unique, triangular tower of All Saints Church, Maldon, Essex. The top photograph shows two sides of the triangle as you stand looking up to the belfry from the third side.

 

It really is a proper three-sided, stone and flintwork tower supporting a hexagonal roof structure. In fact the three walls of the tower actually form an equilateral triangle and were constructed in the mid-thirteenth century from stone reclaimed from an earlier twelfth-century Norman built church.

It was interesting to find such a quirky tower enhancing a local parish church in what is an unremarkable, market town on the watery fringes of Essex, but .  .  .   there was more – striking mid-twentieth-century stained glass.

This stained glass was made by Frederick W Cole (1908-1998) working for Morris & Sons. Yes, that’s Morris & Sons which is not the famous Morris & Co founded by the William Morris. This stained glass company, Morris and Sons, was originally William Morris & Co of Westminster (also known as William Morris Studios). I can’t help but think that in our litigious times the chances of trading with such a similar name to a famous ‘brand’ would be nigh on impossible.

Generally, I am not a fan of twentieth-century figurative glass and I was surprised to find that this beautiful glass was installed in All Saints in 1950. Interestingly the style of the angels would not look out of place amongst late 1960s or early 1970s fashion illustrations yet perhaps Cole had been influenced by the earlier work of the Arts and Crafts stained glass master, Christopher Whall. For comparison some of Whall’s wonderful windows can be seen at Upton on Severn, Worcestershire.

Verdi: A Philanthropic Maestro

Last week I posted a piece about my recent visit to the Royal Opera House to see a rather passé production of Verdi’s ‘Rigoletto’. During the interval I recalled that last year my father and I had visited the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti in Milan. Also known as Casa Verdi, this is a home for retired opera singers and musicians, and it was set up by Verdi in 1896. It is also the place where both Verdi and his wife, the opera soprano Giuseppina, are buried.

Verdi commissioned this building to be a home for those musical people who, one way or another, had fallen on hard times during their latter years, often occurring when they could no longer perform for a living.

There is a small museum within the building displaying various paintings and objects that belonged to Verdi such as this spinet.

The home was open to residents on 10th October 1902 a couple of years after Verdi’s death and it was supported by bequeathed funds from the royalties received from Verdi’s operas. However, these royalties expired in the 1950s and the home is run now on income from Verdi’s property investments, donations and contributions from the residents. The residents, or guests, as Verdi preferred them to be known, each have their own room and some have views that overlook the inner courtyard, pictured above in the top photograph. The windows are those in the wings to the left and right side of the central complex which contains the communal rooms.

Verdi’s grand piano still played by some of the guests of the Casa di Riposo.

A recent (3 January 2018) social piece in the Financial Times written by Hannah Roberts interviews one of the guests, the 95 year old opera singer, Luisa Mandelli. From the piece I read that the current average age of guests is 89 years old. And, when I visited, we were shown the small but elegant concert hall where the guests could get together either to perform, or to listen to music, and then share musical discussions.

For the guests at Casa Verdi keeping up with their musical interests is seen as very important for maintaining robust cognitive abilities as well as offering a good quality of life. Verdi is recorded as saying that he thought his fame would only last about 30 years after his death. How wrong he was and it isn’t just his wonderful music, but also his thoughtful philanthropy that keeps his memory alive.