UP NEWTOWN CREEK

 

We rowed across to a point of land..

Newtown Creek is on the north side of the Isle of Wight.  It is a favourite stopping place for sailors is in need of a bit of a rest and some wonderful things on which to gaze. It was another wonderful warm September day when we set off from Lymington, under the orders of Skipper Pat and First Mate Jill. 

We sped across the Solent into Newtown Creek, strictly speaking Newtown Estuary. 

We soon tied up on a visitors’ mooring and rowed across to a point of land. A walk round a sheltered, low, headland was a good way to work up an appetite for lunch. 

The sky was deepest blue and the sun high. I’d been here several times before and remembered the place does dry out at low water: I recalled waking up during an overnight stay and finding boat at the steepest of angles. Getting out of one's bank was a precarious operation even when sober. 

See Sailing Round the Solent  - blog post July 28 2012 Link to story

Newtown has now been National Trussed up. And as you can walk around Newtown itself, there is evidence of its earlier importance; a salt works and old oyster beds. Little else now remains except some lovely views, trees bowed by prevailing winds and the recurrent songs of estuary birds; surely a place to tarry for a while.

Newtown Isle of Wight 

ST ANDREWS - THE WRAP ‘N’ PACK CHURCH

Each week I discover more exciting churches in High Wycombe. On busy Hatters Lane we find St Andrew's Church. The building is low, red brick confection, with a cross fixed to one wall. A skinny spire coyly protrudes from the roof (well they had include one). It was amusing to photograph St Andrew's through the traffic and paint it later in the studio.

St Andrew's Wrap and Pack   28 x 40 cm

 

Poking around, as I invariably do, I discovered that St Andrews built in 1967 and extended in 1986.

 

Now it seems that even more space is wanted, bigger foyer, kitchen, offices on site and meetings rooms and the flexibility to be able to use at least 4 large self-contained areas at the same time.  There will be real multi-dimensional spirituality with four large services happening concurrently.  

‘The answer has been to wrap it (the church) around with new rooms and facilities’ say JBKSArchitects and add

 

‘We are praying for the Lord to provide Planning Application favour and success, and finance. The bible says, “And my God shall supply all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” Philippians 4:19.’

 

I bet.

 

Exciting visuals for the wrapper can be found here.

 

INGLESHAM - A TREASURE BY THE THAMES

 Cousin Wendy who knows Oxfordshire and surrounding counties like the back of her hand can always be counted on for a good recommendation for a jaunt. She suggested a visit, to the church of Saint John the Baptist Inglesham and which is actually in Wiltshire. Only five minutes walk from the river Thames 

 

We met in Lechlade and walked across the fields, by the river, to the church. 

 

At first sight, the church is very small and a tad unprepossessing. However like all things real beauty is found when we look closer, including bell cot facing westwards and a lovely cross, freestanding, just to the east of the church amongst tipsy looking gravestones.

TIPSEY GRAVE STONES 

Inglesham village is now completely gone, submerge somewhere under fields and fences. However the church lives on in the kind and careful conservation of The Churches Conservation Trust.

Unusual for a church it is open daily and absolutely covered in wall paintings.

An overcast sky threw a grey light over this lovely Cotswold stone and once we went inside again that grey was fused with occasional sunshine, lighting up the whole place up. What you are enjoying at is the 13th century church that stands just above the water meadows near the Thames

There are within the church layer upon layer of paintings from the 13th to the 17thC, one painted over the other. It is a real puzzle trying to figure out one image from the next. This is, arguably, the way of all good art.

The completely free of Victorian artifice; William Morris himself, who lived down the road at Kelmscott, supervised the restoration of St John’s so the place is free of nasty ornament.

INSIDE: FREE OF ORNAMENT

In this church you do not have to figure out what is ancient and what is modern. It is all early and beautifully cared for. As The Churches Conservation Trust website (Link) says what we are looking here is a church, as it would’ve been seen in Oliver Cromwell’s time.  Essentially what you see is Saxon and later there are 17th century and 18th century pulpit and box pews throughout the entire church. 

 

And surprises: What caught my eye was a harmonium made in Chicago imported by an organ maker in Oxford.

Arguably this is one of the most exciting churches that I have ever visited. I would not have missed it for the world and would recommend it highly. I will enclose links with this post to give you more detail however if you are ever in the Lechlade area please do visit the church of Saint John the Baptist at Inglesham and bung a donation in the box.

ST BIRINUS: BASH AND BUILD

 

Ancient 

Modern

I have been exploring local churches, those built recently. And I kept the ‘survey’ local to the High Wycombe area; and discovered houses of God in all shapes and sizes and materials.

 

On the Geograph* website I noticed a picture of St Birinus Church in High Wycombe. Link

 

Excitedly I wrote to the person who took and contributed the picture, for his permission to making a painting from it. He gave permission and a couple of days later I sent him a jpeg of the finished piece.  He then pointed out that having been onto Google Street View the church was not there now. It had replaced by another. 

 

I cycled to the place, grid reference SU8491 and discovered the Church of Christ the Servant King. A sketch was made on the spot.

 

Intrigued I wrote to the church administrator to understand this nifty substitution; explaining that I am always most interested in why one church is built and then is replaced another.

 

The reply:

“The current church has been built on the foundations of the St Birinus church which was demolished in 2011 with the new building being opened in 2013 The old church, built in the 60s was poorly constructed and not suitable for extending or reconfiguring so it was decided to demolish and rebuild, changing the name as well!”

 

For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:11

 

A REMARKABLE RESOURCE https://www.geograph.org.uk

 

*The Geograph® Britain and Ireland project aims to collect geographically representative photographs and information for every square kilometre of Great Britain and Ireland,

THE ELBE: AND LOVE AMONG THE RUINS*

 

Mysterious  Factory? Offices?  Wittenberge in the district of Prignitz, Brandenburg 

A garage on main street   Wittenberg - along the River Elbe in eastern Germany 

Going through some snaps the other day I came across a series taken in May 2017. That year, with friends, I travelled along the River Elbe.  Extract

This great river was the border with the former DDR. It bore exciting some points of interest, especially sites of ruins and abandoned places.  

I am glad I took photographs.

 

Recently, reading of Jonathan Meades’ Museum Without Walls published by Unbound Books, has provided a damascene understand of why we (well some us) find the neglected so alluring.

 

A telling two extracts from the book here:

 

‘Everything is fantastical if you stare at it for long enough, everything is interesting. There is no such thing as a boring place.

 

And

 

‘Ultimately they are expressions of an incurable topophilic, of a love of places, which are what you find when you’re on the way to somewhere else.

 

Taken from Museum Without Walls published by Unbound Books 2012  All copyrights and ownerships acknowledged.

 

 

* Love Among the Ruins: A Romance of the Near Future is a 1953 novel by Evelyn Waugh.

THE TRINITY SQUARE MASSACRE

Concrete that provided the means to a sculptural ends

 THE TRINITY SQUARE MASSACRE

It was sometime ago when the crushers, cranes and bulldozers moved in to demolish Trinity Square Gateshead. I discovered this tragedy through my studies into architecture known as Brutalism (think Barbican, Royal Festival Hall).

 

This period of architecture, roughly 1954 – 1970, was when Britain wanted buildings fast and cheap. Well, it was concrete that provided the means to a sculptural end. With rabid Thatcher-tastes and admittedly, some tower block collapses, Brutalism is well behind us. 

 

The term ‘brutalism’ comes from the Fr. bêton brut translated meaning concrete raw. It is not a judgmental term merely descriptive.

 

Trinity Square was multi-storey car park and shopping complex originally opened in 1967 by Rodney Gordon. The car park starred in the 1971 film Get Carter, Michael Cain had the lead male role.

 

Bish, bash, bosh, down came Trinity Square in 2010. And in 2013 a new Trinity Square home to one of the largest Tesco Extra stores in the country AND a nine screen fully digital Vue cinema.

 

Are our councils and town planners prone to a Primark condition? ‘Lets just replace perfectly good buildings because we can afford to and we don’t like the style of what we got now.  Other examples of this ailment include most of Bracknell and in Birmingham, the destruction of Birmingham City Library replaced recently by something akin to a set of assorted paper doilies.

THE THOROUGHLY MODERN CHURCH

Having spent the last twenty years exploring churches built between 900 and 1900, I decided to give those built after 1945 a go. And I kept the ‘survey’ local, the High Wycombe area.  What I discovered, sketched and subsequently painted was a confection of all shapes and sizes, in range of materials.

 

Once upon a time the layout and character of a church was pretty much fixed. Arguably during the centuries of its cultural and moral centrality the church was an unmatched architectural force.

 

Now? Well anything goes, and characterised in the writings of my favourite polemicist, Jonathan Meades:

 

‘Churches started to come in all shapes. There were bunkers and ships. There were churches that looked like silos… churches with swervy roofs and hyperbolic paraboloid roofs. The faithful must have had to work hard to convince themselves they were attending church at all.’

 

Museum without Walls by Jonathan Meades 2013 Published by Unbound Books 

St Thomas  Holtspur

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

The Pastures Church