BUS TRIP KING

 

Did my bus trip today. I think there is only time for one this trip. Took the no 32 heading for Newbury and got off at Kingsclere. The church was wonderful, deserves a separate post. I wanted to walk around the village a bit but needed a sit down and a toilet break so I treated myself to a latte and a goats cheese toastie. Good to get a feel for the locals also. Couple of nice dogs.

I always love an old oak-framed house with walls at crazy angles to the vertical. This one has the cantilevered upper floor also. What I know as "jettying" a term that spellcheck abhors.

By way of contrast a decidedly Georgian entrance porch. Well proportioned Tuscan columns and a shallow dentil course. Topped off with substantial lead flashings.

Finally, a house built in header bond with blue bricks. String course and quoins in soft red bricks and reverting to English Bond. The whole thing is unusual. You would expect the stronger brick on the corners and header bond is mostly found in curved walls. Nothing wrong here but it leaves me wondering if there was a rationale for these choices.

I couldn't see it.

 

St Mary's Kingsclere. I shared my first-pass massing model of this church a couple of weeks ago. It's still substantially Norman with a later chancel. I bumped into a a local guy while photographing the timber frame house posted yesterday. He suggested the church has been spoilt by later renovations.

I didn't quite understand this at first but having bought the relevant Pevsner guide on the way back, it starts to make sense. "The Flint-faced exterior is the result of ferocious restoration by Thomas Hellyer in 1848" Apparent old drawings show an ashlar exterior, similar to the interior finish.

The carved chevrons and crosses around the round entrance arches are original and typically Norman. The tower parapet is not. The Perpendicular window is from the South transept which has been arranged as a small chapel with modern seating. The stained glass is a nativity triptych.

So a very fruitful visit but many layers of this onion still await.

 

Interior views of St Mary, Kingsclere. The crossing is ashlar stone finish, but the nave walls are plastered. I'm guessing that the original finish in say 1150 was bare stone throughout.

The organ balcony must be fairly modern. The door up to this area was locked. Some might say that this whole wooden insertion is out of place but I quite enjoy the quirkyness of it in contrast to the cold, stark Norman geometry. Then there's the carpet, the heating system(s) and the electric lighting.

Imagine how many human beings have contributed to this building over the centuries, from monks and masons to 19th century architects and 20th century subbies. It's a complete hodge-podge in a way, but also quite magnificent as a living testament to English history and culture. Somehow a memory of the Norman era lives on here, and embellished at regular intervals en-route to modernity and beyond.

 

Wolverton was the last stop on my bus trip on Monday. It was a bit of a walk uphill from the bus stop, along a country lane and past a gate lodge to the high ground where the church is built. A very different location compared to Kingsclere. No sign of a village, no mower keeping the churchyard neatly cropped, no coffee shop across the street, no other humans in sight, no entry into the church interior.

It's an odd building. The tower is quite splendid but out of proportion to the rest of the church which has been very strangely altered by insensitive hands over the years. Once again Pevsner talks of the nave as a "re-casing" and implies this was done by a builder without architectural oversight. The tower is from 1717, so contemporary with Hawksmoor's London churches.

 

He talks of a medieval timber roof to the nave, so it seems this was a Gothic church. Perhaps there was no tower or maybe it collapsed. But I'm guessing this was the first element to acquire an English Baroque character, guided by a now forgotten architect. Then we are left to imagine the nave being recased some time later in matching brick, but without the architect's input and further modified in Victorian times.

From one corner of the graveyard you can glimpse the Georgian mansion through the trees, with rolling parkland all around in stark contrast to the neglected churchyard. I'm thinking of Mr and Mrs Pevsner towing their little caravan up the lane. She putting the kettle on while he roams the churchyard scribbling furiously in his notebook.

A far cry from my lone bus trip with Samsung Note in a shoulder bag. Or is it?