Wednesday Window

Still alive, just going through another bad patch.

In the meantime, here's the nineteenth-century skylight above the old reception area at the Castle about to be refurbished.

Wednesday Window - At Last! Something to See!

We saw the first glass beam for the new atrium at the Castle a few days ago.

Now at last the first four panes have been lifted into place.

They're only temporarily fixed for the moment as I've got a design meeting tomorrow morning to thrash out what we're doing with the Bigod Tower stair roof. Until that's built, the other half of the atrium glass has to sit in storage.

In the meantime, this should give you an impression of the new reception area.

The atrium is wider behind where I'm standing and it's about double the length of what you can see here. At the end of it will sit the glass bridge.

Before we started, this was just a dark and dingy corridor leading from a cramped entrance through to the rotunda at the centre of the old panopticon prison complex.

Now folk will be able to see the east wall of the Keep for the first time in quite a few hundred years.

This - by the bye - is probably the only photo we'll ever see of the atrium roof without birdshit all over it. There's a walkway to the right for a member of staff with a washy pole thing to keep it clean, but knowing the Castle team's past maintenance record, make the most of being able to see through it.

Wednesday Window - Make Up Your Mind

 Decorated Gothic today … Three examples of which sit together in the photo above,

There were three phases of Gothic window design in Plantagenet England, coming after the Romanesque Saxo-Norman style: first up was Early English Gothic (a very simple lancet arch) and last up was Perpendicular Gothic (huge, and not particularly subtle), which I'll probably post at some time.

In between came the most decorative of the three, the (duh) "Decorated" Gothic style (pictured above).

Looks like the client for Howden Church above couldn't decide which pattern to use so had one of each made up. It's not uncommon to find this as stonemasons liked to show off and Decorated Gothic gave them plenty of opportunity.

Decorated Gothic involved lots of ogees, trefoils and quatrefoils in organic, plant-like swirly patterns, like the drawing above.

The Victorians tried to revive it with Victorian Gothick but got it wrong is just about every way, as the Victorians were wont to do with everything. It would cause me physical pain to post some of their atrocities but I'll probably do it anyway.

Toodle pip!

Wednesday Window

The return of Wednesday Window (whether you like it or not).

Here be the remains of Panxworth St.Peter's church tower, somewhat the worse for wear.

Wednesday Window - Blue in the Face

Wednesday Window

When a dour and austere classicist building gets attacked by a parasitic growth.

A fine example of the bracket fungus Neo-Gothicus Cantabrigii.

Wednesday Window

 

Thought I'd spare you the cobwebs this week and move from old barns to Elder Street in Spitalfields.

Remember the simple stone stair from last weekend?

Well this is upstairs in the same house, gazing through the admittedly grubby glass at more deliciously unspoiled and expertly restored houses under the guardianship of the Spitalfields Trust.

This tiny area of just a few streets, surrounded and overshadowed by monstrous, bullying glass behemoth office blocks is a haven of peace and sanity. Tim and his valiant handful have spent decades fighting off the massed lawyers of international corporations desperate to tear these buildings down and replace them with execrable shrines to crapitalist greed.

 

This is the kind of shit I'm talking about and it makes my blood boil.

The gas lamp marks the doorway of Denis Severs' House on Folgate Street in Spitalfields, from the back room of which the Spitalfields Trust fight their long rearguard battle against the likes of Broadgate Tower (the monstrous carbuncle towering over the street).

The corporate developers have recently won the battle to destroy the historic railway arches outside Liverpool Street Station, evicting the communities that live and work there. If you look right from where I took this photo you can still see the sky … Not for much longer.

Spitalfields, together with Brick Lane to the east and Whitechapel to the south-east fight on, though it looks like an American company wants to demolish the historic Whitechapel Bell Foundry (where Big Ben and the Liberty Bell were cast) and replace it with a monstrous glass turd of hotel and offices.

Leave our history alone, you worthless shit-stains.

Wednesday Window With Cobwebs (again)

It's Wednesday. It's a window. Why complicate things?

The Return of "Wednesday Window"

Chicken wire and cobwebs … apparently it's a thing.

Blue Gold Pink Red

 Just for a change, here's Monday's sunset from the office (Tuesday it was so foggy I couldn't see across the river)

 Things started off kinda blue with a golden yumminess down on the horizon.

Then some pink came along and got all tangled up in it.

And eventually it got sort of reddish purple all over. Sweet, huh?

Wednesday Window

Wednesday Window - Gauze and Effect

Wednesday Window

Wednesday Window - Hattie

A peek through the window of Goodwood motor racing circuit's hat shop. Yay style!

Wednesday Window

Wednesday Window - Ripon Cathedral

Wednesday Window

Wednesday Window - World Wide Web

Wednesday Window

Another one from Phil and Dawn's Guest Photographer Session.

Spiffy, huh?

Wednesday Window - Attack of the Creepy Wisteria