It was a great workshop last night as we began to bring the Locality-led project to a close. We began with Chris handing over our articles of incorporation to Christine (company secretary) and quickly moved into a discussion about the Urban Village Hall project. We are now ready for an Awards for All bid on this which we will discuss and decide at the next meeting.We then discussed the History Library/Digital Archive project which is running just behind the Village Hall one. Both are being developed by separate sub-groups. Finally, Chris led an entertaining ‘skills audit’ where we all confessed to what we could do. It was a good turnout with two new members.
Thanks to a donation from the Edgar Wood Society, the Lecture Room pillaster caps have been fixed with new flashings to stop water ingress. We also have a problem with the Ladies Room bay parapet which is letting in water too. Geoff has done a quick fix while we try to find some more money.
It’s a brand new idea… CHAMPING… i.e. camping in old churches! Last night, architectural photographer and Edgar Wood Society member Andy Marshall and I tried it out for the Churches Conservation Trust. I have to say that it is good, in fact its very good!
St. Cyriac, Swaffam – at first light in the rain!
We set out from Manchester on a brisk mid March morning (16th March) for a day photographing in Suffolk and then at our champing desination, the exotically named St. Cyriac & St. Julitta church near Cambridge. This is one half of the Swaffam Prior pair – two churches sharing the same church yard. St. Cyriac’s church was completely rebuilt in 1806 (bar the tower) by the colourful Cambridge architect, developer and mayor, Charles Humfrey. In contrast, it’s neighbour, St. Mary, was sensitvely conserved by Sir Arthur Blomfield, mentor to the Arts & Crafts designers, Reginald Blomfield (his nephew) and Walter Cave, as well as the writer Thomas Hardy.
St. Mary, Swaffam – a little later.
The two churches complement one another. Humphrey’s church was ahead of its time, a compact building with a single wide space inside. It’s rational ‘Enlightenment’ Gothic gets straight to the point (sorry!) with an advanced almost mill-like construction where the arcade columns (plastered iron pillars?) rise straight up to a wide (probably) iron beam supporting the roof. Pugin would have hated it but its inherent simplicity and directness won me over.
A quiet and peaceful night ensued with just the sounds of wildlife outside, including a howling fox early in the morning. Yes, it was quite cold, it’s March after all, but the secret to champing in Spring is to sleep off the floor on a camp bed or two pews pushed together and wrap up well.
Setting up the shoot.
Andy, who was more organised than me, had brought ground coffee for our morning ‘wake-up’ after which we set up the church for the morning’s shoot.
It’s fascinating seeing a professional photographer at work. Most of the shots he had worked out even before we set off from Manchester and he improvised others very quickly.
Champing is a great idea for combining history and architecture with simple relaxation. Whatever type of church you stay in, it will be a lot more comfortable than being outside in the rain under canvas! The church had a kitchenette, washbasin and toilet – just the minimum.
In case you missed this on TV, Tony Robinson examines the life and work of legendary Arts & Crafts architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, and joins the restoration of one of his iconic buildings, Castle Drogo. You can see it here.
Our Arts and Crafts awakening meeting went extremely well this evening, 4th March. We learnt from Chris that The Arts & Crafts Trust was now fully incorporated. We have achieved our first objective!
We decided to create two sub-groups – the Lettings Group are moving ahead with the Urban Village Hall plan and will be meeting on Monday, while a Heritage Study Centre will meet tomorrow to make progress on that aspect.
After the meeting, we photographed the celebratory tablet which was made by James Smithies for the Middleton & Tonge Co-operative Building Society in 1928. We hope to have a special post on Smithies shortly.
Edgar Wood is connected to the Staithes Group artists’ colony through his friendship with the Middleton born Staithes artists James W. Booth and, especially, Fred Jackson. In fact, the famous photograph of Fred Jackson with Laura Knight most likely shows Edgar Wood next to Jackson – wearing his trademark hat!
Recent research by several people has brought to light a previously unknown Edgar Wood designed house, The Croft at Hinderwell, near Staithes, built for Henry Silkstone Hopwood. Hopwood was a founder member of the Staithes Art Club of painters, becoming its chairman in 1902 when the house was built: a flat roofed outbuilding next to the house is thought to have originally served as artists’ studios used by club members.
English Heritage has now listed the building for its special historic interest and has now been published on the National Heritage List for England. Below are the details we have been sent.
John Rumsby gave a great lecture on Edgar Wood’s wonderful Yorkshire buildings at the Arts & Crafts Church on Saturday afternoon (21st Feb).
It was Edgar’s mother’s family, the Sykes’ of Lindley, who welcomed the young architect to West Yorkshire. He eventually became its principal Arts & Crafts architect, inspiring many others to copy him. It is as though Wood lived a parallel architectural life there, his robust stone buildings being quite different to those in the Manchester area.
The audience were so impressed with the talk that the Edgar Wood Society is now planning a Yorkshire trip for the summer!
This was the first event in the 2015 Edgar Wood Society calendar. This year is dedicated to Edgar Wood and the Arts & Crafts Movement in the heritage Lottery Fund’s THI programme for Middleton.
Friday (20th Feb) saw around 30 surveying and property management students from Salford University visit the Arts & Crafts Church, led by Simon McLean, Lecturer in Building Surveying. Conservation surveyor Rupert Hilton, who set up the trip, explained to students the repair and conservation issues being tackled, Christine Grime took them on a walking tour of other Edgar Wood buildings, while David Morris showed them around the Long Street Methodist church and school. The format worked very well and in the words of Simon, “it really was brilliant, the students are buzzing“.
The Arts and Crafts Awakening project is now working on using the former Long Street School hall as a place for community events and activities – an urban village hall. With Lindsey and Chris from Locality, we are planning to submit a Lottery ‘Awards for All’ scheme to get things off the ground this year.
Middleton is short of community space, so there is a real need for this. Community activities will also complement our longer terms plans for commercial uses. The meeting (on Tuesday 17th Feb) was very successful with the largest attendance so far. We also began setting up a local history archive and study area in two of the classrooms.
The next meeting is set for 6pm Wednesday 4th March. Don’t miss it!
We had a good Edgar Wood Society committee meeting on Thursday (12th Feb). One of the things we decided was to set up a research group to look at the key historical figures around Edgar Wood and Long Street Methodist Church.
Much of what we put together with be incorporated into the planned ‘Romantic Middleton and the Modern Era’ film being organised by the Middleton Heritage Film Group.
The group will research the following…
Long Street Methodist Church – history, people and activities before 1950
LSM – history, people and activities after 1950
Artists Fred Jackson, James W. Booth, (William) Edward Stott of Rochdale, William Stott of Oldham
Craft workers associated with Edgar Wood and Northern Art Workers Guild
Clients of Edgar Wood buildings
Julia Schwabe of Rhodes
If you have access to any material, please email to let us know!
There was a happy atmosphere as Arts & Crafts Awakening created a new company called The Arts & Crafts Trust yesterday evening (11th Feb). Seven people signed up as directors, with Christine taking on the role of company Secretary.
This feels just the right number and allows a good number to remain as members and supporters of the project. Chris and Lindsey guided us through the evening and the signing of forms etc. Chris will now submit our application to Companies House.
Our next meeting will be 6pm next Tuesday where Chris and Lindsey will help us think through our Middleton and Arts & Crafts heritage offer. We will also discuss the details of our planned Awards for All Grant to help set up community facilities at the Long Street School.
It was a cold start to the meeting as David forgot to switch on the boiler! However, we soon got going with Lindsey and Chris guiding us through the evening’s training. At one point we took a vote on whether to go for incorporation listed by guarantee – the support was unanimous. We also decided to submit a Lottery Awards for All grant to support the community events role of the school hall. Lindsey and Chris were a great help and will act on our behalf with regard to both. For your diary, Chris will come next Wednesday, 11th February, to take our details for incorporation (more on this later).
The grant application for the church roof repair was submitted on Friday 30th January to the Church Care Roof Repair Fund. Many thanks to all those who have contributed! We are keeping our fingers crossed. If we win the grant, we will have to fund raise up to £8,500 between now and July as our contribution. If you have any ideas on this, please let us know by emailing me at middletonheritage@gmail.com .
Celebrated architectural photographer, Andy Marshall, is offering his support for our church roof repair bid to the Church Care Roof Repair Fund. Andy invited me over to discuss the project and how he can help (and to admire his cat).
A former roofer, Andy enthused about the church roof. It is the finest Victorian vernacular stone roof in the North-West of England and probably the last of any substantial size as the nation moved to standardized Welsh slate and tile. Graduated stone roofs, like at the church, use diminishing courses. Constructing them involves great skill and they are highly efficient in the use of stone – ever smaller pieces, which otherwise would be thrown away, are gradually introduced towards the ridge of the roof.
Photo by Alan Gardner Associates
We also discussed how Long Street Church and School encompassed ten years of Edgar Wood’s architectural development and how the last part to be built, the 1902 abstract cubic sculpture over the gateway, announced his shift to modernism. We compared it to contemporary work in Vienna, like architect Josef Hoffmann’s 1902 square relief over an entrance at the 14th Vienna Secession Exhibition . It is just one of the many stylistic connections between Wood and the Secession architects.
Andy will support us with a social media campaign and lend us a specialised time-lapse camera to record the roof repair.
It was a great tidy-up on Saturday, where volunteers from the Edgar Wood Society had a major sort out and tidy up, filling a skip and two van loads of rubbish for disposal and metal items for recycling. Thanks to all involved.
We had another double bill yesterday, 15th January, when at 5pm Arts & Crafts Awakening and Locality got together to work through the draft business plan for the Arts & Crafts Church. We and Greater Manchester Building Preservation Trust are presenting it to the Edgar Wood Townscape Heritage Initiative Board on 20th January. Over the last few weeks we’ve made great strides in finding new uses, as well as putting together a restoration scheme, also with the Trust.
At 7.30pm, it was the turn of the Edgar Wood Society committee (some pictured) which ‘set to’ with a raft of ideas for 2015 from purchasing an H. D. Chorlton watercolour to the planning of this year’s events, research and practical support for the Arts & Crafts Church. Watch this space!
The Edgar Wood Society is liaising with Ediciones Polígrafa, a prestigious publishing house based in Barcelona specializing in books on Art, Architecture and Design, printed in English and Spanish. Here is their web site.
Ediciones Polígrafa are currently working on, The World Atlas of Art Nouveau Architecture, edited by Ivan Bercedo and Jorge Mestre. It will have specialized contributions from all over the globe. Edgar Wood buildings will be included in the United Kingdom section, including Long Street Methodist Church. We are currently helping them out with photographs of Wood’s principal buildings.
Thursday evening could not have gone better for organisers Emma and Nick of the Edgar Wood and Middleton THI team. Not only did forty to fifty people visit the candle-lit church but one of those visitors was Middleton’s MP, Liz McInnes.
Liz came to express her support for the THI project and conserving Middleton’s heritage. It was a great boost for everyone. She was given a tour of the buildings before joining visitors at Ye Olde Boar’s Head for a concert of Christmas music by Middleton Band.
There was complementary seasonal food and drink as well as an exhibition about the heritage grants for the Edgar Wood buildings of the conservation area.
Yesterday, 17th December, I travelled up to Glasgow to see the Mackintosh Architecture exhibition at the Hunterian Art Gallery, before it closes on 4th January 2015.
The exhibition is the result of a research project into Mackintosh’s buildings and the practice that he worked for, Honeyman and Keppie, later Honeyman, Keppie and Mackintosh. Elsewhere at the Hunterian, you can visit the internal recreation of Mackintosh’s house and see his travel sketches and paintings.
There are no new major discoveries. Instead, the exhibition tries to rebalance the myths – the doomed romantic, Scottish nationalist, pioneer modernist etc. – simply by showing his drawings and the networks of professionals and patrons in which he worked. Through this everyday evidence you see another Mackintosh emerging, a team player and an exemplary professional working for one of Glasgow’s major architectural practices.
All of the famous drawings are exhibited and what immediately surprises is how large they are, much bigger than the prints in books. You can see his immaculate draughtsmanship, by which he stood out from his contemporaries. The work of Honeyman and Keppie is also shown. They were fine architects working in the styles of the day rather than Mackintosh’s Art Nouveau. There was quite a lot of collaboration between all three designers and Mackintosh could work just as well in the traditional styles, if he needed to.
Mackintosh’s four large houses are highlighted. In these, his architectural progression is the reverse of other progressive designers, running from the almost abstract Windyhill to the highly expressive Hill House, to the Jacobean Auchinibert (featured drawing above) and finally to the vernacular Mossyde. You can see him absorbing ideas from the English Arts & Crafts movement, initially at Auchinibert, partly through the preference of the client. Mackintosh’s final house, Mossyde, shows him fully resolved as a vernacular Arts & Crafts designer – an astonishing change from Hill House of only a few years earlier. Mackintosh was an architect who could develop and embrace new ideas. It is a shame that architectural work dried up after 1910 then stopping completely in the First World War. Who knows what he may have otherwise produced?
The stripping away of the myths allows Mackintosh’s true genius to come to the fore – that of a professional architect and designer of the highest calibre who buildings inspired many of his own generation and many more in subsequent generations.
Our final Locality workshop, let by Lindsey and Chris, was a lively and good humoured discussion about how best to develop the potential at the Long Street School. Building on the previous two sessions, we agreed a dual approach where some of the buildings, principally the main hall, would be best used for commercial functions to generate income. However, other parts would be best developed for community uses and activities, like an ‘urban village hall’ which could assist community engagement. This part would also embrace the heritage centre idea. We also discussed applying for an Awards for All Scheme to get such a ‘village hall’ moving. We retained the nursery idea as a ‘Plan B’ for the main hall.
We covered a lot of detail and how the timeframes for each might work in 2015 and 2016, and the likely timing of the conservation grant scheme.
We set a tentative date for our first meeting of 2016 as January 15th, 5-7pm.
