Reproduction & original in art: why the former can never replace the latter

Bords d'une rivière (Riverbanks) 1904-05

It is a fair question to ask, “How far is it possible to write meaningfully about works of art that you have only seen in reproduction?” To which my reply would be, that it is possible to write a great deal – with the provision that the colours are well reproduced (in paintings, or as applied to ‘constructivist’ sculpture). How though is it possible to judge that the colours of paintings you have not seen are reproduced accurately? There are, I think, two methods of coming to a reasonable conclusion about this: 1 If you are already thoroughly familiar with the ‘colour language’ of a particular painter – as, say, Cézanne: Yellow ochre, green, and blue; and 2 If there is coherency of colour across the picture plane. However, some paintings seem to resist – for whatever reason – qualitative reproduction. And one such is Van Gogh’s Prisoners Exercising [after a print by Dore]. The reproduction to the right is one that I scanned from

Van Gogh, Prisoners Exercising

Pierre Cabanne’s Van Gogh, Thames and Hudson World of Art series, 1963. I read this in 1980, and do not remember seeing any other reproductions of Prisoners Exercising – such as might have made me think what a great painting it was. The painting is in the Pushkin Museum, Moscow and, sometime in the mid 1980s, they lent a selection of their paintings to the National Gallery for a special exhibition. Among these was Prisoners Exercising, and I remember being utterly amazed and delighted by the richness, depth, and subtlety of the colours. I would go so far as to describe it as a hymn to yellow ochre and blue. I have never since seen – nor ever expect to see – a reproduction that could elicit such a reaction. Only by being in the presence a great work of art is it possible to experience the kind of transcendence that I felt that day in the National Gallery.   

But what does it mean to talk of transcendence in this context? To me there is nothing spiritual involved, nothing religious. Quite the contrary. It has to do with the effect of being in the presence of something, the sheer materiality of which floods the imagination. To give a deeper idea of what I am discussing, here are some passages from James Elkins tour de force, What Painting Is:

Less interesting painters [than Elkins’ example, Rembrandt] do not know what to do with the choice between substance and illusion. Poor painting does not push the equivocation as far as it can go, until the paint teeters on the edge of transcendence. (p187)

When painting is compelling, it is uncanny: it hovers on the brink of impossibility, as if nothing that close to incorporeality could exist . . . paint can reach a pitch of unnaturalness where it seems that it might lose every connection with the tubes and palettes where it began. That is the state that counts, and not the choice between fictive space and canvas, or between illusion and paint. It’s not the choice, but the narrowness of the gap: the incredible tension generated by something so infinitely close to perfection. (p188)

So it is that the argument between abstract and figurative painting is irrelevant. A hundred or a million brushstrokes are neither here nor there: how they are placed and the manner of their placing, whether with painstaking care or with some kind of near–attack on the canvas, is all that matters (provided that the artist knows what she is doing). Between paint and the painter there is an intimate relationship; and if the tussle between these – a human being and the potentially transcendent stuff squeezed from tubes – is pushed to the limits, then may a work of genius come into being. All sense of the smell of oil paint and turpentine will

have dissipated in the finished work on the gallery wall. But the process involves hours, days, and even weeks, of mixing colours, washing brushes, and scraping the palette clean (of that smeared mess of strange compounds colours, the like of which you could never reproduce, and so may fold into kitchen foil for possible use the next day). And then: “Who has not experienced the gray feeling of the ‘morning after’ when having to face the work done on the day before? Suddenly the ignored gaps and fragmentation and the apparent chaos of undifferentiation push into consciousness. Part of the creative capacity is the strength to resist an almost anal disgust that would make us sweep the whole mess into the waste–paper basket.” (1)  Not that this is the whole story: “. . .  the painter has all the joys of immediate creation, his picture, like Adam, coming to life under his hand.” (2) And what do we see in the galleries? That some people give a painting about three minutes attention, while others might as well be a troop of monkeys!

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(1) The Hidden Order of Art, Anton Ehreenzweig. University of California Press, 1967 (p103)

(2) The Painter’s Eye, Maurice Grosser. Holt, Rinehart and Winston 1951. Paperback edition, Mentor (p167)

James Elkins’ What Painting Is, was first published by Routledge in 2001

A short blog on reading, & coping with hooligans – or worse

From the right, Scruffy, Roddy, Millie, the three small bears, and a mouse dressed for a ball. A S Byatt is my wife’s reading. Definitely not my cup of tea!

It seems almost a mantra to some people – no matter what level their intelligence: “I haven’t got time to read.” But I am never remotely convinced of the truth of this. It suggests two things to me: a reluctance to make the effort to engage, and a fear encountering uncomfortable or unsettling ideas. Yet the loss of stimulation to the imagination seems to me to be a very heavy price to pay. Good literature (fiction) can, I think, teach you some of the best lessons you are ever likely to get. The consequences of people’s actions unfold before your eyes – through the medium of words – and you learn about societies and places of which – often – you have had no experience. All this, you may say, is vicarious. Be this as it may, the impact is nowise diminished; and what you can learn from the safety of your chair or the library can inform the experiments you make in your life. “The journey is safer for the map”, writes Emerson. And so it is – no matter what level of risk you decide is right for you.

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Newspaper articles can be useful too – from the point of view of direct advice. I remember some years ago a columnist advising what to do if you found yourself in a railway carriage full of drunken football fans who suddenly decide to direct their attention to you. The worst thing is to freeze. The best thing is to join in:

“How are you doing lads? Got any spare larger? I’m dying for a drink!”

“Who do you support, then?”

“Peasmarsh Wanderers.”

“Never ’eard of ’em.”

“Not surprised, mate, they’re rubbish! But I couldn’t ’elp where I was born!”

Of course, a different kind of reaction is required in a truly menacing situation. The poet Louis MacNeice, confronted by some youths carrying flick–knives outside a tube station late at night, simply stood where he was and spouted complete nonsense. His would–be assailants melted away . . .

George Melly adopted a similar strategy on leaving the back door of a theatre late at night, and encountering some youths with broken bottles in their hands. He pretended to be completely mad, and the youths fled!

The brother of one regular reader of this blog, on being approached by a man with a knife in a South American city, adopted a karate pose. The man backed off and walked away, but my friend’s brother knew nothing whatsoever about martial arts! 

Artists copying artists: Cézanne & Millet

Artists have always copied the works of other artists. And the primary purpose of this exercise – when carried out with serious intent – has always been to learn: to look closely, not at the technique, but at the discernible intentions and thought processes of the artist whose work is being studied. So it is that ‘copying’ is an unhappy word to describe what is – at its best – a creative process; and ‘creative process’ has also been diminished by its loose application to ‘workshops’ and courses promising to ‘unleash your creative potential.’ It has almost become a portmanteau word for anything that is new, quite regardless of its actually having intrinsic worth – though I agree that ‘intrinsic worth’ is thornily subjective, and bound to remain so.

Millet. The Reaper. c. 1852. Black
chalk. Private collection

However this latter problem need not concern us about the two drawings I am going to compare, both of which are subtle, strong, and instinct with life: Millet’s The Reaper and Cézanne’s study after this drawing.

Millet’s Reaper is drawn in black chalk, and Cézanne’s study in pencil. And the use of the different mediums is perhaps what strikes us most immediately. Millet’s black chalk does not allow of preliminary, explorative, or tentative lines; as with watercolour, if you do not get it right first time you are lost. From this point of view it is surprising that the visible hand of the reaper in Millet’s drawing is such a seemingly inconsequential jumble of lines. However, this would certainly not be intentional, and I think that it represents some trials that were abandoned in the interest of the dynamics of the figure as a whole. After all, Millet’s drawing was a study too, and to have started over on account of this unresolved area would hardly have made sense. 

Cézanne. Study after a Millet
drawing: The Reaper. Pencil

However, there is a sense in which Millet’s drawing is more ‘finished’ than that of Cézanne. Millet has paid considerable attention to light and shade, and to the tucks and folds of the reaper’s shirt. Cézanne, by contrast, has scarcely concerned himself with these details, and has reduced them to a minimum: three or four at most. And in this respect has made a more modern drawing. Attractive as they are, many of Millet’s firmly drawn creases serve little purpose in indicating the angle of the reaper’s torso. Cezanne, we may say, has seized upon the essentials, and breathed a liveliness into his drawing that Millet has not achieved. He has done this by concentrating on the essentials, and making a wholeness of the figure that eluded Millet. For example, the belt of Millet’s reaper may be said to have effectively made of the torso an element separate from the rest of his body. Not so Cézanne! Just look at the wonderful contrast between the angle of the rounded buttocks and the angle of the shoulders; and at the rounded line between the buttocks and the curved crease that Cézanne has emphasised on the shirt: taken

Cézanne. Study after a Millet
drawing: The Reaper. Pencil.
Detail

together, they form an elongated and flattened s–shape, providing a coherent continuity to the figure. And, in shifting the centre of gravity from the right to the left leg, Cézanne has given greater coherence to the labourer's figure: everything contributing to its forward muscular movement. Millet’s drawing does not lack movement, but in contrast to Cézanne’s it is static.        

St Matthew's, Warehorne: a delightful unrestored church

The ‘unrestored of the title refers to Victorian restoration

Romney Marsh: the southernmost area of Kent

Please note that there are unaccountable spaces at the end of this blog, so please do not give up until the notes at the end!

Warehorne and Kenardington on the edge of
the Low Weald: degraded sea cliffs at
Romney Marsh boundary

I noted in my previous blog, on St Marys, East Guldeford, that Romney Marsh is a generic name used for the area covered by Romney Marsh, Walland Marsh, and Denge Marsh. References to ‘the Marsh’ also cover the entire area. When the area marked Romney Marsh on the maps is being referred to it is called ‘Romney Marsh proper’.

I am very grateful to my friend, Adrian Barlow, for reading this piece before I posted it, and correcting me on several key points relating to church architecture (and a couple of key misspellings which almost verged on schoolboy howlers!). Any other errors will be attributable to my own misreadings, and I would be grateful to readers if they would bring these to my attention.

‘The Parish of Warehorne lies upon the clay-hills [of the Low Weald], near the western boundaries of them, an unhealthy, as well as unpleasant situation, partaking of the gross atmosphere of the Marsh ... The church stands on the edge of the hill, overlooking the Marsh, which is at the foot of it.’

So wrote Edward Hasted in Volume 8 of his exhaustive The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (Canterbury, 1799). It may stand as a fair description  of St Mathew’s church and its adjacent village as it is today, but with two exceptions. 1 It is likely           that Hasted’s description of “the gross atmosphere of the Marsh” is due to the prevalence of what was then called ague or Marsh fever, a form of malaria most likely caused by the mosquito species Anopheles atroparvus; and the strain most probably responsible for this “debilitating disease” was Plasmodium vivax. It is said that the mortality rate on the Marsh  was twice that of the villages well removed from the levels.  2 I would imagine that Hasted’s “unpleasant situation” relates to Warehorne’s openness to the prevailing winds. But central heating, double–glazing, and Gor Tex were of course unknown at the time; and, as there is a direct correlation between cold weather and respiratory diseases, it seems likely that Marsh and open hillside were confounded in Hasted’s History. It is true that the gentle slope from St Matthews’ churchyard to the levels of the Marsh has a certain scrubbiness about it. But our taste has shifted far from the Sublime of the Romantics, and we now find pleasure in the smallest of topographical changes in the countryside.

St Matthew’s is approximately 27 metres above mean sea level; and the Marsh area of Warehorne County Parish – which falls entirely within Romney Marsh proper – is uniformly 2 metres (3 metres would be an approximate average for the entire Marsh). The church is built of Kentish ragstone, (the only significant source of hard limestone to be found in south east England), has a tiled roof, a brick tower (“Big bleak” – John Newman in the Pevsner Guide), and a brick porch with a compass gable.

‘The Tower, originally of stone, was struck by lightning in 1770, and by 1777 it had been rebuilt in brick. In those days a parish rate could be levied for the repair of a Parish Church, and brick was presumably used as an economy.’ (Church guide)

The tower is supported by two offset angle buttresses; while the church has only two small adjacent buttresses to the western corner of the south aisle, suggesting that ragstone is indeed a strong building material. The destruction of the original tower is something of a tragedy, because smooth near–utilitarian brick on such large a scale is hardly complementary to the softer grey–browns of the ragstone. However it is impossible to say what shape or proportions the original tower took, ¹ and if the existing tower was removed the building would certainly be diminished for lack of contrast, and as a focal point when seen from the distance.

‘The Domesday Book states that there was a Church here then, but no visible remains of an early Saxon or Norman building survive. The oldest part of the building is the nave, c 1200, to which were added the successively the chancel, with Choir and Sanctuary (at the East end), the aisles ... and the original stone tower, the whole probably completed by 1450–1500 ... The north aisle was probably the Lady Chapel [dedicated to the Virgin Mary]... the south aisle originally contained the Chapel of St Catherine, who was regarded as the patron saint of Wool Merchants. The Chapel was convenient for prayer on their journey as they rested themselves and their train of pack–ponies at the Woolpack Inn [currently closed for refurbishment, due to reopen spring 2015] opposite the Church – spiritual and bodily refreshment.’ (Church guide)

The chancel is particularly spacious and airy, and there is a pleasant greenness to the light which is caused by the greenish glass windows: almost certainly a product of their time rather than the result of any staining process.  The King posts (vertical timbers) are original.












2

The plan of St Matthews – in common with most Early Gothic English churches is comparatively simple. Nevertheless, for the sake of clarity it’s useful to map out the principle areas, so that the details can be related to them.  

Exterior, north chancel

The tracery of the two eastern and western chancel windows is delightfully cusped (c 1500), and the design a fine example of the beauty that can be achieved by making subtle changes within a highly defined style (Gothic, in this case).

“In the right aesthetic climate, even unimaginative repetition, imitation and rigid clichés need not act as straightjackets inhibiting the play of the imagination. Artistic traditions which bind the artist both in content and in form can give him more freedom than the forced over–originality of our time ... In the Byzantium Museum in Athens one can see the same icon repeated in many examples, one looking like an almost exact copy of another. Yet what differences in power!” Anton Ehrenzweig, The Hidden order of Art (California, 1971) 

The fine double chamfered arches of the nave, supported by piers of Sussex Marble  (a local marble from Bethersden, Kent: cretaceous, and tens of millions of years old – as with the Wealden clay: predating the Book of Genesis by unconscionable aeons!) Box pews. ³

                        Sussex Marble piers

The nave roof: four crown posts, on moulded Tie Beams, with quatrefoil pierced knee braces (struts fixed diagonally as a reinforcement between two parts of a structure that meet at right angles: SOD).

Flemish north porch.

John Newman in the Pevsner Guide – West Kent and the Weald – refers to ‘... small red–brick n porch with compass gable’. However, no reference to such a gable is anywhere to be found.

Endnotes:

I have not tried to provide a complete guide to St Matthews, but have concentrated on such aspects of this fine church that particularly struck me.

¹  (Note from Adrian Barlow) Not entirely impossible: the surviving tower arch gives the best indication of its width - and therefore of its footprint. The original nave roof is quite high, so the tower would necessarily have been high too. The angled buttresses of course give the impression that the wall dimensions seem wider than they really are.

² ‘Sanctuary and Chancel (east). There is no chancel arch separating nave and chancel, but there was formerly a Pre-reformation Rood Screen.’

³ (Note from Adrian Barlow) Box pews: probably late 18th C, with their distinctively Georgian rectangular panels. Victorian restorers disliked box pews of any kind - and as you have pointed out, the Victorians themselves left this church unrestored.

Rethinking the policy of “taking no prisoners” (a blog in two halves)

Part 1/ For most of my lifetime, I failed to understand what people meant when they said that they would “take no prisoners.” Its meaning only became fully clear to me when, in 2002, on a Prospect holiday to the Hill Towns of Umbria, it was used by our guide. She had never been to either Oxford or Cambridge, but nevertheless had an Oxbridge knowledge of her subject (fine to her fingertips); and in stating (without the least degree of unpleasantness) that she would “take no prisoners”, she of course meant that if any of us were not prepared to pay full attention to what she had to say, she would not spoon–feed us. It is rather like teaching: if a pupil makes an effort to understand the subject being taught, then all help will be given to them. But if they cannot be bothered, then — to put it bluntly to get off their butt – what use is there in troubling about them? (Not that this applies remotely to the abused or traumatised child, for whom intensive counselling and compassion is absolutely required.)

It is true to say that there are too many imponderables to lay down definite rules: gentle coaxing may be in order – it is in order – in the early stages of trying to help someone; but there sometimes comes a stage when our willingness to help meets with a resistance that is impossible to overcome: and at that point – if we are to  preserve our energy – we must finally and drastically drop our project. Is this a hard counsel? You will not think so when you have the courage to adopt it. The same obtains with friends: it takes a very long time to get to know someone, and sometimes – in a flash of lightening – a friendship can be vitiated. I have suffered too long in silence from slights (and near–ridicule dressed as humour). But never again. From now on steel will be met with steel. It seems to be a characteristic of those who wound never to apologise: rather, such people continue to preen themselves. Ah me, how short our life, and how soon we will be forgotten! We should be kind to one another while we are here, should we not?

With the exception of ‘white’ or ‘kind’ lies, I have made a resolution to tell the truth when asked about any aspect of my behaviour. I am not a great one for religion, yet I cannot but agree with St Thomas A ‘Kempis when he writes: “I had rather feel compunction than understand the definition thereof.”   

Part 2/ I’m find myself having to rethink the bold – if not, rash – assumption that ‘taking no prisoners’ is wise counsel. This in the light of the following response:

“I think of ‘taking no prisoners’ as meaning, not being prepared to make allowances under any circumstances (as with your Umbria guide). Sometimes I find people whom I would describe as taking no prisoners aggressively forthright, or domineering, but perhaps they are, more colloquially, simply ‘on a mission’, ‘shooting from the hip’ or ‘getting their retaliation in first’.”

I see what my correspondent means, because most of the definitions I can find of the phrase, term, or idiom “taking no prisoners” suggest a highly aggressive stance, which is not at all what I mean; or think remotely desirable. Further, our Umbria guide was not at all aggressive; nor did she wear her scholarship on her sleeve, for all to see and admire. She was, in fact, one of those rare guides who are truly learned, enthusiastic, inspiring, and personable. And it is not too much to say that she made, and immeasurably enriched, our holiday. So how to square this with her saying that she took no prisoners? It should be said that this was a comment made some time during the holiday, and not a ‘mission statement’ made when she first met us. And, from the way in which she expressed the sentiment, I understood no more than that – given her time constraints – she would not trouble herself about anyone who was not prepared to enter into the spirit of her thoroughly well–prepared programme. And should she have? Why drag the unwilling behind you? They are so much dead weight, are they not? This is the true Hellenistic approach: attend only to those who are willing, and do not shackle yourself to those who wail, weep, and would flagellate themselves to all eternity, for all the good it would do them.

Those of you of a certain age will remember the pre–corner shop neighbours who would call and ask if they could “borrow a cup of sugar”, or flour, or whatever. A petty annoyance, it must be agreed. But had they no ability to go without, or use their imagination and do something else? Worse annoyers are those people who, on learning that you are going to Paris or some other place not on their immediate doorstep, ask: “While you are there can you get me such and such a perfume?” – or something else of a presumed exotic nature without which life is, shall we say, on the brink of the insufferably dull. No! Go without, or wait, or find something else.

W. N. P Barbellion wrote, in his Diary of a Disappointed Man, that – after reading Nietzsche he felt like a mastiff. Well, I think that a dose of Emerson is needed at this point.

Leave this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame, unmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be flattered but to be schooled. I wish not to concede anything to them, but to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out of them. The worst of charity is, that the lives you are asked to preserve are not worth preserving. Masses! the calamity is the masses. I do not wish any mass at all, but honest men only, lovely, sweet, accomplished women only, and no shovel-handed, narrow-brained, gin-drinking million stockingers or lazzaroni at all. If government knew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply the population.  

Shami Chakrabarti would be appalled by Emerson’s sentiment; but then she would not understand the context. But, a few paragraphs later, Emerson balances this paragraph:

Meantime, this spawning productivity is not noxious or needless. You would say, this rabble of nations might be spared. But no, they are all counted and depended on. Fate keeps everything alive so long as the smallest thread of public necessity holds it on to the tree. The coxcomb and bully and thief class are allowed as proletaries, every one of their vices being the excess or acridity of a virtue. The mass are animal, in pupilage, and near chimpanzee. But the units, whereof this mass is composed are neuters, every one of which may be grown to a queen-bee. The rule is, we are used as brute atoms, until we think: then, we use all the rest. Nature turns all malfeasance to good. Nature provided for real needs. No sane man at last distrusts himself. His existence is a perfect answer to all sentimental cavils. If he is, he is wanted, and has the precise properties that are required. That we are here, is proof we ought to be here. We have as good right, and the same sort of right to be here, as Cape Cod or Sandy Hook have to be there.

Well, I have strayed too far, but will not after all advocate the policy of ‘taking no prisoners’ except under the precise terms I have outlined above. (And is it true to say that “Nature turns all malfeasance to good.”? I would like to think so, but I somehow doubt it. sometimes Emerson’s optimism gets the better of him, and we mere mortals find ourselves suspended in the ether, our legs dangling in a vain attempt to find firm ground.)

St Mary church, East Guldeford: The gem of Walland Marsh (Romney Marsh 1)

Prefatory notes and maps showing the situation of Romney Marsh in Kent (within which is incorporated Walland and Denge Marshes)

Romney Marsh: southernmost part of Kent

Romney Marsh is the generic name for the unique, and geologically very recent, levels which form the southernmost corner of Kent. It comprises: to the north east, Romney Marsh proper; to the south west, Walland Marsh; to the south east, Denge Marsh and the shingle promontory of Dungeness; and, to the west of Rye and the river Rother, Pett Level, which lies in the county of Sussex. Guldeford Level is incorporated into Walland marsh, and lies on its south western edge, east of Rye and north of Camber.

Click on map to see the three divisions of the Marsh clearly
This is a land drainage map of 1984 

Romney Marsh was once a salt marsh, but has been reclaimed from the sea by gradual degrees over the centuries. Exactly who reclaimed, or ‘inned’ which sections and when is not entirely clear, but it is certain that Dutch expertise played a very significant part. The word ‘marsh’ is misleading: see term below

Inning is a term which may be taken quite literally to refer to the infill of an area which has been banked or shored against the influx of the sea.

Guldeford is pronounced as Guildford

Guldeford Marsh C 1752. The Rother as estuary

Guldeford Level. Ordnance Survey 1813–1819. Cassini reprint. The river Tillingham, seen on the far left no longer reaches the sea at Pier Head (which no longer exists as a place name), but has controlled outlet through the Rother, centre. From Rye harbour to the sea, the Rother flows through an artificial and comparatively narrow channel, which is ‘vertically walled’. Sea water is prevented from contaminating the marsh by a sluice at Scots Float approximately 2 miles inland. Consequently, as the tide turns, the Rother flows out with such swiftness that its bed is scoured, and the build up of silt prevented. This had been a major problem over the centuries. The Rother, historically sluggish, has meandered at different times in history eastward across Romney Marsh and exited to the sea – as far as can be ascertained from geological evidence – both at New Romney and at Hythe.   

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St Mary, East Guldeford, cannot be classed as a work of notable architectural beauty – as we normally understand that description – yet it is a uniquely charming church, and one that is strikingly situated. It is probably one of the least adorned churches in the British Isles: it stands ‘four square’ and isolated (even from its eponymous and tiny hamlet) on the western side of the marsh levels, some fifteen miles from the definitive, cliff–boundary of Hythe at the easternmost edge of the levels. (Pett Levels, to the east of Rye, constitute the westernmost ‘section’ of Romney Marsh, even though the river Rother  forms a definitive divide in the Marsh, with the first bridging point at Rye.) 

It has stood here since its consecration in 1505 by Richard Fitzjames, bishop of Chichester, in whose diocese the church stood (in which diocese it still stands: there being no cathedral city in East Sussex). And if it further seems strange that East Guldeford is in Sussex, given that Romney Marsh is situated almost entirely in Kent, then that is because the easternmost county boundary of East Sussex has thrown a little hook into Romney Marsh and netted East Guldeford and Camber; and the apparent inconsequentiality of this boundary – on an area that was beneath the sea at time of the Book of Doomsday, 1086 – may well prove beyond explanation.

The building of a church in this seemingly most unlikely of places would not have been possible (or occurred) had not “the abbot of Robertsbridge granted Sir Richard Guldeford, by royal licence, 1,500 acres of salt marsh to hold of the king [Henry VII] by fealty at a rent of 12d [twelve pence] a year.” [ ¹ Lutton] The salt marsh was to the east of Rye and the river Rother; and during the 1490s was reclaimed, to form the Guldeford Inning. Once freed of salinity, the rich alluvial soil produced fine quality grazing for the famous Romney or Kent sheep. On this reclaimed land, Sir Richard Guldeford was granted faculty to build a church, which he carried out at his own expense. The Guldeford family were pious: in particular, Richard’s father, Sir John, who “expressed a strong interest in those Wealden parishes where he had greatest interest. He stipulated that his ‘out berying to be made not pomposely’ and bequeathed 4d to every poor household in Tenterden to pray for his soul. This he extended to four neighbouring parishes . . .” [Lutton]

So it is that of the fourteen surviving churches on Romney marsh, East Guldeford is the only one in Sussex, and the only one to be built entirely of brick. This latter fact caused me considerable confusion when I first visited the church in the 1980s. I of course noticed the brick buttresses (as well as an unsightly patchwork of rendering elsewhere) and assumed these  to be late nineteenth or early twentieth century attempts to shore and patch up the church. Further the brickwork was so badly eroded by the prevailing south–easterly gales from the English Channel – which meet with no resistance from the westerly Pett Levels – that I feared for the entire structure. How, I wondered, could or would funds be found to prevent it from becoming a ruin? How, in the future could we evoke its memory but through such fine graphic renderings as those of John Piper? Romney Marsh, King Penguin, 1950.

Imagine my delight then, on finding (this November, 2014) that St Mary had been thoroughly repaired and renovated (principally by Carden and Godfrey in 2009). It now looks splendid, and would seem to have an assured future (with financial assistance from The Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust).

The Exterior  

Prefatory note

After first posting this blog, I contacted Carden and Godfrey, asking if they could kindly give me some information about their restoration of East Guldeford, and was sent a very full account by Richard Andrews (the architect primarily responsible for this work). I am very grateful for to Mr Andrews for his response – which gave me more details than I could possibly have wished for – and which I thought at first of appending to my blog (in abbreviated form). However, for the sake of continuity, I’ve decided to include a short paraphrased introduction, followed by direct quotation of Richard’s communication.

I think it fair to say that, before the involvement of Carden and Godfrey, the badly eroded fabric of East Guldeford had received what might best be described as piecemeal repair, resulting in a hotchpotch scarcely deserving the name of restoration. When Carden and Godfrey became involved (in 2012), “the north side was crumbling brickwork, the east wall was a mixture of render and brickwork, and the west wall was similar but with less render While there was clear evidence of render on the west and east walls, there was none on the north wall, and as a result some internal consideration of whether it was right to render the lot - was it always rendered? In the end pragmatism ruled, and I decided simply to consolidate the north wall brickwork, replacing only the worst bricks. The new bricks were made behind Hastings using local clays, and matched the old in thinness and colour and moulding. The east wall had its later buttresses (with bigger bricks) either side of the east window removed in the 1970s I think, leaving patches of lined-out render below, indicating that this wall was rendered before the buttresses were added in the 18th C (?); that having been said the lining-out of the render is hardly a 15thC feature, so was not considered to be original. In the end we put stainless steel expanded metal over the lot and rendered over, keeping the side buttresses exposed in repaired brickwork. The more protected west wall was basically repaired as found. The south wall pebbledash started coming off a couple of years ago so the opportunity was taken to replaster the lot on expanded metal using the same render and the same contractor as for the east wall -a benefit of this is that the arguably over-restored south wall buttresses are less demanding than before.

All of this has been possible through the small band of dedicated parishioners supported by the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust – a great benefit of being among those Kent churches!”

Note: the following was written before I had further information from Carden and Godfrey, but I do not think that it will cause any confusion if I leave the text unchanged. 

The bricks are “of varying colours and textures . . . laid in English Bond Figure 2.3 (i.e. one course laid as ‘headers’ and the next course as ‘stretchers’ and so on alternately” to a depth of three feet.” [ ² Steer]). The diagonal sections of brick incorporated into the two buttresses either side of the doorway on the windowless west wall are examples of brick tumbling [ ³ Barlow]: whether, in this instance, it also strengthens the structures I do not know. And quite what purpose is served by the (70º) diagonal courses of buttress–brick adjacent to the south wall and aligned to the outer buttress–edges, it is hard to say.

I quoted Steer above on the “varying colours and textures” of the bricks. And truly those of the south wall are a delight. The predominant colour is perhaps yellow ochre – particularly of the bricks surrounding the doorway. Otherwise, the bricks are red ochre, offset by whitish–grey lichen patches, the green of such plants as have managed to gain purchase, the blackish wood of the door, and the white space between the door and the chamfered or two–sided arch. 

The outlines formed by the hipped (four–sloped) roof, the pyramidal bellcote, and the south and north buttresses form a very satisfying ‘origami’ pattern of brick and tile. Almost, from this angle, the church looks like some kind of grand fortified barn. Yet no barn ever had bellcote, as far as I am aware, and the building is unmistakably ecclesiastical. However, Lutton writes that “it most resembles the barns that scatter the marshland landscape and so translates local vernacular style into self conscious pious statement.”

The number of buttresses supporting the church has changed over the centuries. Steer writes that “extra buttresses were added to the east and west walls in the 18th century . . . to combat the thrust of a wide building on marshy ground.” This was probably the only change made to the total of the buttresses since 1505. The current – and no doubt permanent – total is four to the north and south, and two to the east and west. The condition of the church as it was before at least 1973, and as it is today can be clearly seen by comparing the photographs below.

         Photograph from Steer (source not given). View from the south–west

The interior

As a result of one of those unaccountable oddities that occasionally assail me, I did not try the church door to see if it was open. It just gave the look of being firmly closed – as might appear from a glance at the photograph of the west front above. Yet in fact it is never closed! (It contains no valuables, so why should it be?) However, photographs show the interior to be pleasingly light – the walls being painted in pale cream. It has no structural division between the nave and the chancel. Above and between the eastern windows is a painted frieze of angels. But these are of inferior quality, and are thought to be late Victorian. There is no evidence of any earlier decoration. There are box pews and a double decker pulpit, but otherwise a gratifying absence of the dark Victorian wood which tends to cast a somewhat gloomy pall over so many church interiors. (Excessive embellishment or ornamentation of churches – or cathedrals – although often of great beauty, hardly reflects the teachings of Christ. Rather, they tend to be reflections of a Christology with which Christ – as he is presented in the gospels – would have been profoundly impatient.)

East Guldeford from the north

I do not know of any other church that has such an unusual history – even though I am sure that such abound. It can hardly be seen from the road or the Marshlink railway line. Like some treasure in a provincial museum or art gallery you may have it all to yourself – probably for several hours, if not an entire weekday. The Marsh footpaths are difficult to follow, and its ravelled waterways may only too easily block your way if you do not read your map very carefully. Further the eastward path, towards Appledore station, looks very uninviting. So it is that few venture that way – or across the Marsh at any point. Its atmosphere percolates very slowly into the soul, and if there is any fauna that represent St. Mary, East Guldeford, then it is the heron, that solitary watcher of the dykes. The only difference being that St. Mary has stood sentinel for five hundred years.  

The (apparently) uninviting autumn path towards Appledore station

Endnote:

There is more to say about East Guldeford church; as indeed about Sir Richard Guldeford, who embarked from Rye on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1506. This I shall write about in my next blog, which will probably be the first of 2015.   

¹  Rob Lutton (Lecturer in the Faculty of Arts, University of Nottingham), Richard Guildford’s Pilgrimage: Piety and Cultural Change in Late Fifteenth– and Early Sixteenth–Century England. From The Journal of the Historical Association, Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2013     

² Francis W. Speer, Guide to the Church of St. Mary, East Guldeford. The East Guldeford Parochial Church Council. 1972  

³ I am grateful to my friend Adrian Barlow for shedding light on this. In an email he makes this comment “the angled brickwork on the buttresses is technically called 'tumbling-in work': it's more often seen on gable ends. From your very clear photograph, this looks a particularly interesting and complex example.” It seemed a further curiosity that Steer gives the dimensions of the bricks as “approximately 9¼ by 2 inches.” I found it hard to imagine that I’d ever seen a brick of so thin – except perhaps on a Tudor building – and yet when I measured the Cambridge Whites on our garden wall I found them to be 9 by 2¾; and those on the walls of our 1888 terraced house 9 by 3 inches. Still, looking at the close–up photograph of the East Guldeford buttress, the bricks do appear to be approximately 3 inches in depth. Brick slips – used to fill spaces where standard bricks will not fit – could be 2 inches thick, or less – but these are not used for entire courses of brickwork. (I now understand that the west wall buttress bricks are atypical to East Guldeford, and that the bricks of the walls are indeed thinner. As referenced in the email from Richard Andrews, quoted above.)

Colour photographs copyright the author

The Rother today as a managed river