Old Blog - frozen in time

Lavenham - The Guild Hall

Fifteen years ago.  When Paul and I became partners he lived in a house in Chelmsford, or at least near Chelmsford in Essex, so we had plenty of time to explore the area. His house fronted onto a great green and was very pleasant, his studio was attached but Paul was already thinking of retiring. Occasionally a scroll would turn up and I remember a very large painting arriving from Australia, it needed some work and dating, and then sent on to Europe for sale.  But on the whole, he just did some work for his patron now and then. 

We went to Lavenham in Suffolk on a day trip, I remember it was a cold day.  Lavenham had been one of the richest towns in England because of the medieval wool trade but then a series of happenings had almost shut down the trade in wool and Lavenham remained for evermore frozen in a time frame of beautiful timbered houses.  Such houses can be found in the villages around carefully conserved by loving owners.  Often the plaster work painted in bright colours.  My favourite house was painted a soft pink which was the exact shade of the blossoms on the horse chestnut tree in the garden.

I shall copy a quote on the colouring of these houses, made by Alex Clifton Taylor - The Pattern of English Buildings (a book which would also come with me to a desert island!) Most houses were painted with a white lime wash or whitewash as it is more familiarly known, which can of course be coloured.  Ox blood anyone?

"Brighter colours need to be handled with discrimination in the vaporous and often misty atmosphere of Britain, then that in the crisp, sparkling of the Mediterranean.  There is, nevertheless plenty of colour wash to be seen in this country, much of it so succulent that one finds oneself turning out half the contents of the larder in order to describe it.  There are tomato-red, raspberry and cream pink, strawberry ice pink, peachy pink, salmon pink.  We meet orange and apricot, lemon yellow, lime, butter yellow, biscuit and cream. Apple and olive round off this gastronomic galaxy"

 So in the tradition of posting old blogs here goes.

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This week has been one of visiting places, mills, rivers, a Cistercian abbey and now Lavenham medieval town in Suffolk, said to be the most perfectly preserved medieval town in England. But first, one small memory that was funny.

The starlings have been producing their young, fledglings balance on fences, trees and rooftops. But the other day as I sat in the garden and watched a small flock eat the bread, six little ones decided to have a bath all by themselves, they perched round the shallow bowl, three little ones with their claws tight on the rim whilst two splashed about in the water, a small one running back and forward too scared to jump up. Harassing their parents for food, they will all soon be grown, two flew up to the fence, one promptly falling over the other side, he immediately flew back looking slightly puzzled.

Back to Suffolk and a fifty mile drive through the countryside. Its weird how England changes with the counties, Essex is redbrick and plaster/timber houses, Suffolk has a cream/brown brick which to be honest I don't like, but the houses are again plaster/timber. There is a different feel to the towns one passes through and Lavenham though beautiful left me with a slight feeling of unease. I think it has something to do with the present situation in the country, as the greed is revealed. LS summed it up perfectly when he said that Lavenham is like an extinct mammoth, it got taken out of the system of being rich so quickly that it was preserved in its present state, there had been no money to redo it in the following centuries.

It is classic medieval, Shakespearean but without the smells and carts rumbling through the streets. The rich swishing around in funny hats and ermine decked cloaks, the poor in their dirty brown sackcloth. It is a place of tourism, small gift shops, and a rather nice tapestry shop (expensive) and places to eat, with the magnificent Swan Hotel hosting a wedding party this day.The market place was extraordinary, dominated by the great Guild hall, traditionally limewashed to protect it from the ravages of the weather. The National Trust do this every five years.

Houses lean crookedly one way or another, their neighbours holding them up,painted all the colours of the rainbow but in a much deeper hue, there is orange and pink, but the grey white is perhaps the softest on the eye. De Vere house (history not checked yet) but I think he is the leading dignitary of this time, was a glorious marriage of dark intricate timber, and the dark rose pink of the zig-zagged brick infill.

A very beautiful town with lots of quaint buildings, wealth built on wool, and of course the labouring class backs.
Coffee at a small B&B cottage, front room was the cafe bit with a tiny, kitchen in the corner, and a vast menu of various sandwiches, toasted and plain, with jacket potatoes, etc. What was so funny was the very warm helpful, quite elderly couple who ran it, getting into a muddle with all the orders, eventually everthing was toasted to order and extra free coffees for those who had been waiting. The piece de resistance is when they opened the door leading into the house and their dog came out to greet everyone in a friendly manner. But the cat came out too, a great Bagpuss of a tabby stalked around and refused to go back when she was lifted, clinging to a chair with a certain amount of outrage.

The market place

De Vere's house in  Lavenham, read somewhere was used in one of the Harry Potter's films

The first floor jetties over the ground floor, contents of piss pot could be thrown down easily.

And talking about jetties, 'The Jetty' television drama with Jenna Coleman as the main star, did the penny finally drop when you realised that the story was being told in two different time eras, when Ember was young and the present time? I hate it when I am stupid ;)

Thaxted in Essex, the second  timbered house is a place that Dick Turpin lived in.