43 Portland Street, Cheltenham

My first thought on seeing 43 Portland Street, Cheltenham was "Why would you do such a thing?" Here we have a pleasant enough stone-faced villa in the classical style, dating from around 1830 or 1840, with a plain pediment above a three-bay front, four full-height Ionic pilasters, a central entrance and ground floor rustication. On to this carefully composed building someone, probably in the C19, added rendered wings that in no way complement the original building and succeed in making it look like it is being squashed from both sides. The perpetrator of this crime didn't even make it completely symmetrical - spot the first floor drip-mould on the left wing that is missing from the right wing. Amazing!

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon Z 5

Former Congregational Chapel, Monmouth

What to do with old buildings that no longer fulfill their original purpose has always been something of a problem. Something of an answer, more often than not, involves converting them to housing. I've seen windmills, water mills, factories, pubs, hospitals, prisons, maltings, breweries, warehouses, post offices, and many other kinds of building converted to single or multiple occupancy housing. The Congregational Chapel, Glendower Street, Monmouth, is an example of a religious building that has become housing (in 2002). It was built in the town's backstreets in 1843-4, in the classical style, by William Armstrong of Bristol. The facade has been sympathetically painted  and only the palms, the absence of an information board, the name-plate "Glendower House" and the blocked ground floor windows, give a hint that it is no longer a place of worship.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Voluted bracket, The Prospect, Ross on Wye

In 1700 John Kyrle, a benefactor of Ross on Wye, gave to the town two stone gateways that opened on to The Prospect, a public, park-like space with a view over the town, the valley of the River Wye and beyond as far as the Welsh mountains. These are both in the classical style, the one near the church having large voluted brackets that support the gateposts. As we passed them the other day I noted that ivy had grown on to the brackets adding real foliage to the the carved acanthus leaf foliage in the volutes. I presumed that the dead ivy indicated someone's earlier attempt to prevent the ivy from damaging the stonework and reflected that another, more concerted effort, will be needed very shortly.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Anthemion

When I was being taught about the history of art and architecture I learnt to to distinguish anthemion and palmette ornament on the basis that the former was derived from the honeysuckle flower and the latter from palm leaves. Today, it seems, that distinction no longer applies and the two types of Egyptian, classical and renaissance ornament are grouped as variations of a single form. That is an unusual trend: usually finer classifications prevail over a reduction in types. The anthemion design in today's photograph is part of the cast iron railings that formed part of the perimeter of Gloucester Docks and is presumably of the late Georgian or, more likely, Victorian period.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Classical churches

When classically inspired churches started to be built in Britain during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries many people saw a glaring incongruity. After all they said, the ancient Greek and Roman civilisations that produced these buildings with their columns, pediments and associated decorative motifs were not Christian but heathen. Gothic architecture with its spires and pointed windows was, they argued, much more authentically Christian, particularly in Northern Europe. However, it didn't take long for the classical to take hold and for many years it held its own against Gothic. The Roman Catholic church, with its origins in Italy, has always favoured the classical style more than the northern churches did. This example in the Greek Doric style is in Hereford. The church of St Fancis Xavier was built in 1839 by the architect Charles Day.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Victoria Place, Newport

Walking up the hill out of the centre of Newport, through unremarkable and past its best Victorian workers' housing, we came upon the surprise that is Victoria Place.This is two terraces of six houses that face each other across a short street. The builders levelled this site before building - there is the first surprise. Subsequent owners have treated both terraces as the unity they are and painted them with a single colour scheme - the second surprise. They date from 1844 and were built by Rennie Logan & Company, contractors for the Town Dock. Would that more such buildings were maintained with the sensitivity accorded to these rows.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100

Pediments and mistletoe

The pediment, the triangular shape above windows and doors that derives from ancient Greece, is common throughout Britain. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the popularity of the classical styles of Greece and Rome ensured that columns, capitals, balusters, and classical moulding of antique origin proliferated. This facade, in late afternoon sunlight at Ludlow, Shropshire, is quite typical of those years. What is less typical in this photograph is the balls of mistletoe visible in the leafless tree nearby. This is very common throughout the Marches but quite unusual elsewhere.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Olympus OMD E-M10